AIBU saying DH should get up earlier even though he works nights?

[SomethingImaginative]

So just had an argument with DH and we’re now sitting in awkward tension so I thought I’d come on here for some opinions and I will reluctantly apologise if I get my arse handed to me here. It might be a bit of an essay because I want to get all the facts out.

DH works in a factory. work hours 2pm-1am Monday-Wednesday 2pm-11.30pm Thursday Home about 20 minutes after finish.

He comes in has something to eat and then watches tv until about 5 or 6 am, then goes to bed gets up about 12.45 gets himself ready and off he goes to work. weekends he says he needs to catch up on sleep and will not get up until about 3pm.

We have 4 children. A teen, a tween, 6year old and a 3 month old. Older 3 have asd 6yr old still in nappies due to global development delay also. I do 100% for the baby as he says he’s not good with babies. He does help out when he’s here with the older ones, I would say 50/50 maybe even more about 65 in his favour now I have the baby to deal with.

I usually work part time due to 6yr olds needs so only 3 days a week but am currently on maternity.

DH is always complaining about being tired he did this today about 5pm when he had got out of bed at 3.30pm. I said how can you be tired you’ve barely been up. He responded he didn’t go to bed until 5am. I said that’s your choice you were home there’s no need to stay up that late and it then somehow turned into a bit of an argument with him saying about body clocks and how you can’t just come home and go straight to bed. You need to unwind for a few hours. I said you should just have a couple of hours then go to bed and you could then get up earlier and have some time before work. He countered with people who work 9-5 don’t go to bed at 7pm and what he does is what night workers do and I don’t know what I’m talking about. I said that’s completely different because the time of day matters etc and it went back and forth until the baby cried so I got up to see to him.

Anyway I think the essay is long enough! So my question is do you tend to agree with his point and that I should leave him to it or do you agree with me that he makes it harder than it needs to be and he should be doing more with his day then just sleeping and work?

Sorry again I know it’s a confusing response when I can’t work out how to reply to specific people but I saw someone say why we’ve kept having children when they’re asd. Just want to answer that one to say my oldest dd wasn’t diagnosed until she was 13 and seemed like a completely ‘normal’ child just a bit strong willed. My 2nd oldest also wasn’t diagnosed until 10 and always just seemed extremely shy a bit clumsy and struggled learning but they were happy children who made friends and always had good school reports. It’s only after I had my 3rd dd who has more profound needs and doing my research that I realised the others ticked a lot of boxes. Before that they were just my children and parenting any child is hard work but obviously the love and fun you have together makes it all worthwhile.

The “quote” button under the post is how you post a reply.

Presumably they were all diagnosed before you got pregnant with number 4?

Me too. @CharlotteFlax .
I did permanent night duty for 8 years, 12 hour shifts finishing at 8am. I would rush home, take the DCs to school, do necessary chores, go to bed about 10.30am, get up at 2.30 to collect the children before leaving for work at 7.30pm. Four hours sleep on average and on my first day off i wouldn’t go to bed at all.
I don’t know how I did it, especially when I changed to working every other night with no sleep in the daytime at all.
I must have been mad.

He's taking the absolute piss. He chose this job, which absolutely does not work for family life and leaves all the pressure of four kids on you alone. He needs to get a grip and go to bed when he gets home. An hour or so is reasonable but staying up til 5-6 is madness and sleeping all weekend frankly sounds like he might be depressed, that's so unhealthy.

i think saying 'works nights' has really thrown the answers because he just does not work nights. He has his evening in the morning, that's all. Why should he have so much downtime when you have none? He's totally opting out of any parenting.

My mind is still wired after I’ve got DS to bed. I still have to get up at 6.30 for the morning routine and then work the next day. So if I want wind down time once he’s in bed (he has ADHD) it comes out of my sleep time, not someone else’s free time.

I don’t get to say - oh I find it hard to wind down once I’ve stopped working in one capacity or another (I do - I’m naturally an introvert and night owl) so I have to get up at 10 to make up for it.

I’m also on team you’ve made life massively harder for yourselves by adding another baby into this. But regardless, there should be a compromise somewhere between expecting him to go straight to bed when he comes in and what’s happening at the moment.

Agreed. He finishes at 11.30 on a Thursday evening and then sleeps in until 3pm on a Saturday.

He needs to go to bed earlier in his Thursday so he can be present on a Friday afternoon/evening and even all day Saturday/Sunday.

I understand the sleeping in a Tuesday -thursday but not the weekend.

He doesn’t work “nights”. He works late shifts. I own a pub and was very used to working late into the night.

He needs to eat dinner at work, he will get breaks. He needs to wind down for an hour after getting home and go to bed then. It’s perfectly possible.

By keeping the hours he does he is avoiding family life and all responsibilities. There’s no reason why on a Friday Saturday and Sunday he can’t be up a decent hour.

Nights are bloody hard.

I used to work Friday nights, Saturday nights and Sunday nights 13 hour shifts.

My arse of a husband used to tell me I was “opting out of family life” if I wanted to sleep all day Saturday and Sunday, which I should have been doing. Mondays I couldn’t sleep at all as he was at work and I had to look after the children.

Instead of letting me sleep, he would huff and puff and he would make so much noise and let the children make so much noise, and I would only get two hours sleep, which I was expected to do the second I walked in the door, so I wouldn’t “waste the day.”

I almost overdosed a patient and fell asleep at the wheel once when driving, I could have killed myself or someone else.

If you haven’t worked nights, you don’t understand the toll it takes. Almost everyone I knew sided with him, saying it was unreasonable for me to sleep all day sat and sun - even through I’d been working all bloody night!

I used to say, right then, come home from work at 5pm, go to sleep immediately on entering the door and then be up at 7pm to stay awake until 5pm the next day, doing a full days work (even though I worked 13 hours, not 8!), see how you get on. I was always told “it’s different if you work nights.” It’s really not.

He is taking the piss. I can't believe some of the replies on here. They have a 3 month old a 6 year with SN and two other children he is living the life of a single man, doing no housework and no childcare.

If he's up having his wind-down "evening" until 5am, shouldn't he be dealing with any DC wake-ups during that time so you can sleep? It's no different than you dealing with them between 7 and midnight before you go to bed.

The Thursday is less understandable but again, midnight-5am is 5 hours, someone who finished at 5pm wouldn’t be called crazy for not going to bed until 10pm, that’s the norm for most people.

As I said in my original reply though it just doesn’t suit family life and a new job or at least day shifts would be needed because I can understand OP’s frustration but he is not unreasonable.

This!

There’s just no respect for night workers or those who work unsocial hours

Did op not say he does childcare….i thought she said he did majority for the older 3

YANBU, and I say this as a former shift worker myself and someone who has lived with shift workers previously. He should be going to bed earlier than 5-6am. Yes, he does need some time to wind down after his shift and won’t be able to sleep straight away. But, not as much as 3-4 hours and not just watching TV instead of contributing to the household. I do not know anyone with children who works 9-5 and can carve out 3 hours every evening just to watch TV so why does he think he should be able to?

Thank you! You think I could have worked that out 😂

so this job was in response to finding out we were expecting baby number 4 before that he worked a normal daytime job but was self employed and there would often be anywhere from a week to a couple of months between jobs so with the added expense of a 4th baby we wanted a paye job that could be relied upon. This is the one he chose.

Although full on and tiring our life was very manageable and mostly enjoyable. My dd has always been the way she is so to me it’s just normal and I didn’t think adding a baby in would disrupt things too much (although she wasn’t actually planned)

I'm obviously posting on a bad day for us but I do generally get on with things and me and the kids are pretty content through the week but there is an underlying resentment I think building and it is all stemming from this job.

for example if it’s been a hectic day and I’ve got a stack of bowls in the sink and some crisps crushed on the floor but I give up for the day and take us off to bed I’ll get up in the morning and it’ll still be there with his bowls added on top! I get not hoovering when you get in but you couldn’t have just got the dustpan and brush out? Loaded the dishwasher?

I also think my annoyance depends on how well I’ve slept aswell so I’m probably overreacting sometimes although I’m just ranting to myself in my head I don’t actually say anything so him being oblivious probably doesn’t help either.

sorry I’ve tagged you in this other essay just for telling me how to quote 😂

I wouldn't consider working until 1am a night shift usually a night shift is something like 8pm-8am but of course 1am is still late! I dont think he needs to be up watching TV until 5am he could get 2 hours max of downtime thats pretty much the same as what I get working 8am-6pm shifts then still having to look after my child after work until her bedtime! Your working 3 days a week and still taking the majority of childcare on so where are your weekend lie ins and chill time?

He's not working nights.
He's working lates, and taking a massive liberty with his "wind down" time to conveniently by-pass most of the parenting.

He could quite easily go to bed around 3am, and be up by 10am - with some earlier nights the days he finishes earlier or isn't working.

I agree that shifting his sleep about probably isn't a fab idea so he's unlikely to ever be functioning at 6am, but if he kept to a 2am/3am bedtime it would be much more family friendly.

I'd go back through the posts with a pen and paper, and note down quite how many are agreeing with you - I don't think it's as biased towards DH as you are feeling.

I agree with everyone who says he’s not working “nights”. My husband worked in pubs and restaurants until recently and usually finished between 11.30-1 depending on hiow busy it was. He came home, chilled out for half an hour or an hour then went to bed and would usually be up to do the school run the next day. Sometimes he’d have a nap the next day or a lie in til 10ish if it worked with our schedule but he would never have just opted out of family life!

He could definitely wash up when he has eaten, and if he is awake at 3am, he could help with your 6yo?

I think, even if this sleep pattern works for him, he could be doing more to help you? I think hoovering in the early hours is probably a terrible idea, but he could definitely wash up, do some ironing, just do something small and helpful so that when you wake up, you feel like he's contributed a bit.

Most people do chores in the evenings after work, so it's no different to that!

It does sound like you're both adjusting to a new schedule, so perhaps if you can both calmly discuss ways he can help out and keep a sleep schedule that works for him (if it does?) then that might be a decent compromise?

He does do his share with the older ones when he’s up like make the dinner, bring them drinks, run baths and to be fair to him he probably does more than me because when they txt me to bring them a drink I just say no get it yourself and ignore the next 50 messages and stamping about upstairs until they give in and get it themselves

Team OP!!! We both work until 1am… and then we eat, go to bed and get up with the baby at 8am to get her to nursery for 9am and go to the day job. He’s being ridiculous.
(we work alternate nights before someone thinks we have the baby home alone!)

He’s taking the absolute piss.

I don't think it's fair that he seems to be having much more downtime than you, ie, any at all!

But tbh I don't really understand why you decided to have another baby when you had such a high needs 6yo. In choosing that you've chosen to make life the way it is. How did you think things were going to be?

This is a good idea. I can understand him needing a bit of time to wind down rather than home and straight to bed, but if he could use that time to do quiet housework that would be helpful. If the baby wakes at night he could also do with that?