To expect DH to wake up when the kids do?!

[Mumof3Chaos]

Honestly, I am FUMING this morning. Every single day, without fail, the kids wake up at the crack of dawn (thanks to the flipping clock change making it even worse), and every single day DH just magically doesn’t hear them. I swear the man could sleep through a fire alarm.

So there I am, dealing with 3yo screaming because she wanted the blue cup (which is in the dishwasher, obvs), 7yo crying cos he can’t find his school tie, and 10yo shouting down that she’s got no clean PE socks (despite me washing a million pairs last week). Meanwhile, DH is just lying there, breathing deeply, pretending he’s in a coma or something.

I banged around a bit in the kitchen, “accidentally” dropped a spoon, even opened the curtains in the bedroom when I went back up, and NOTHING. He just strolled downstairs at 7:50 looking all bleary-eyed, stretching like he’s had the best sleep of his life, and went “Oh, are they up already?” LIKE NO, I’M JUST RUNNING A NOISE EXPERIMENT.

AIBU to expect him to get up and help instead of playing dead every morning?! Cos I swear if he does it again tomorrow I might just ‘forget’ to make him a cup of tea for the rest of the year.

Why do women keep having children with useless men?

I would absolutely not tolerate this. He either gets up or he is out!

My husband gets up around 9 when he is on a late shift, he doesn't come home until half 10 so he has a lie in on those weeks, not sure of your husbands work schedule but I've just got used to getting up with the kids in the mornings because the other weeks he has to be at work for 6am so I'm just used to it now, on the occasions when I've needed him to get up though he will do, just talk to him about it and tell him you'd like if he got up a bit earlier to help you but at the age your children are I'd expect them to get themselves ready without much prompting, mine are 16, 11, 8 and 9 months all get themselves ready while I deal with the baby

Is there any arrangements relevant to the story? Are you a SAHP? Does he work late? Is he working lots of overtime/long hours?

If you have broadly similar working arrangements and he's office hours, then yes, he needs to be involved. If I were you, I'd have a calm measured conversation about how hectic mornings are and how it is both your responsibilities, and how it isn't fair that sole responsibility is on you while he has a lie in.

Dawn and sunrise are two different things.

Dawn is the time of morning when the Sun is 6° below the horizon.

Much earlier than sunrise.

If he went to bed at midnight he could easily get up to help in the morning.

YANBU but I don’t know why you bother opening the curtains and crashing around. If you want him to get up with you then go and tell him to get up and help you. Or send the toddler to do the job if you prefer.
No one is this tone deaf to being needed so he’s probably pretending, but if you aren’t being direct he’s well within his rights to “not realise” you needed him.

You need to talk to him about him getting out of bed to parent the morning school routine. Dh was always available in the mornings before he went to work to ensure I could get out of the house for the preschool run with a newborn. He is a fully hands on parent. Oh and I was a sahm and I got a lie in every Sunday when Dh would parent his own children solo.

Ways to help wake your Dh up, remove the covers, open the windows, tell him you will spray him with a water bottle. He is a parent as well as you. He needs to be up and managing the children.

Set the children up for success, sort out school stuff the night before, not you, them. They can write themselves a chore chart so they know what they need to do the night before and in the morning. Get them thinking for themselves. Don't solve problems for them, if they can't find their PE socks ask them where do you think you might need to look? You can buy chore charts too, write in what they need to do and they tick it off, or they can stamp it which is far more fun.

His type of behaviour kills marriages ...

Even if I believed he was still.asleep it's because he has absolved himself of having to think about it. It's obviously "your job and not his.

Fuck. That.

Is he at work at the time OP is discussing?
If yes than YANBU. Cos he's not there. If no, then YABU and your post is horseshit.

Use your mouth and tell him to get up? It's not a hard one is it? If this were my husband I'd simply say 'get up and help'. And then he would.

Really badly behaved? For a bit of confusion in the morning?

You sound horrid and I'm pleased for OP's kids they aren't yours.

I would say saying a 3 year old can "sod off" over a small tantrum is a really abusive attitude tbh. I would be concerned if you have kids. She's 3, she'll likely stop doing it in a few short months.

The tea in bed sounds like you're just adding in an extra job and he'll sit in bed drinking it while you continue doing everything....

During the day, when he's awake, tell him that when you get up at 630 with the kids, he needs to too. Tell him it's too much for one person to get three kids ready (ignoring the fact a ten year old absolutely can get themselves ready) and if he doesn't want to break you he'll pull his weight.

My husband can be like this, it's very annoying, when the kids really needed help, were too young to get themselves dressed etc, you would have to really force him awake to get him to help. He can sleep through anything!

However all the problems you listed if I had woken my husband to deal with those instead of me, he would say why are you helping? It's their problem, they need to learn. E.g. the 10 year old should have checked she had PE socks last night, if she can't find any now or forgot to put them in the laundry she'll have to do PE bare foot. The 7 year old - if he has left his room in such a mess or whatever, that he can't find his tie he can go to school without it and he can get told off by the teachers. The 3 year old doesn't have to have a blue cup, let them scream, they'll stop when they're thirsty.

You are ok with domestic violence then?

I genuinely don't understand why you're in this situation. Surely you just discuss and agree who's doing what of a morning. This is such a common theme on mumsnet, and yet I feel a lot of women are enabling it...

When both parents are in the house then both parents can and should parent. Obviously, there are some exceptions eg breastfeeding, parent who works shifts so maybe on a different sleep schedule, but otherwise one doesn’t get to lie in and avoid the morning routine (and let’s face it the majority of people who regularly behave like this will be the man in the house) Doesn’t matter if one is a SAHP, mornings especially with Primary and younger aged children should be all hands to the pump scenario.

Things can be made slightly easier by getting bags, uniform etc ready the evening before. Again something either parent and older children can do

"Ask your father".

Don't many people say that to kids any more?

Send the kids in to wake him.

"I can't find my tie!" "Ask your dad to help you find it."

"I've got no clean socks!" "Your dad will look for some." "He's sleeping. " "Wake him up, then."

Since sunrise is 6.46am...?

...which is dawn?

What a weird thing to say.

YANBU OP but I literally don't wake up with noise as I'm a deep sleeper. Maybe get him to get an alarm clock.

If he manages to get up for work he can get up to parent

The thign I don't understand, and I don't mean to sound like I'm blaming you, i show has this gone on for so long. I mean, at some point when DC1 started school and DD was a toddler, we slipped into this pattern a bit - I'd get up and do all the chores and he'd sort of stumble downstairs a bit bleary eyes just before leaving for school run. But pretty quickly I realised how absolutely shit that was and there were a few discusisons (and yes, I think I probably did start with a slightly passive aggressive approach that was NOT helpful) and then I fairly forcefully pointed out that this was SHIT and he realised that in fact it absolutely WAS shit and we changed the system.

My point is that I understand how you sort of sleep walk into these situations, but I don't understand how you then let them go on for this long? You need to by laying down a very clear boundary that this is not acceptable.

Why has the clocks changing made things worse? Dawn is now an hour later than it was last week.

Dh is pretty good, but he is a bit inclined to hide places on his phone. Or need to send an important work email first thing (his employees start at 7:30 tbf, but it’s more often staring at social media for 20 minutes from bed). As a rule, I get up when he gets up. He sets his alarm for 7am most mornings, but doesn’t actually get up til 7:10, 7:15. I roll out of bed 30 seconds later. It means no one is lying around in bed all morning when there are things to do. The longer it takes him to get up, the more pressured the whole morning is because I’m not hopping up at 6am sorting everything for everyone. We do it together or it doesn’t get done at all.

I specifically enforce lie ins for myself when we have houseguests (he invites them). I will not get up til he’s dressed and making everyone coffee. I don’t do hosting. You invite people, you have to get up and talk to them in the morning and sort the coffee and breakfast. I get my coffee, give them a wave and take myself back to bed. Not my job. He likes the idea of entertaining people, but not the actual having to spend time with them bit 🙄 so I don’t swoop in and save the day.