In wanting DH to go to bed early

[TicklishHedgehog]

DH generally only gets in from work at gone 7. He stays up super late, often only goes to bed at around 2 in the morning.

The problem is he’s then exhausted the next morning and we have two young children. So when they wake up it’s me who goes to them as DH is unconscious. For years now I’ve got up with them in the morning and I don’t mind in the week but never having a break from it gets me down

What should you differently? You haven’t even said if you have discussed his piss poor behaviour with him, start there.

That would make me furious. I have to do all the mornings with the kids too, but that’s because my DH doesn’t get home from work til 1am (shift worker). I hate it even though I can’t get annoyed with him. I never ever get a lie in as his adjusted body clock now means he ends up staying up late doesn’t wake at the weekends too. He does try coming to bed earlier but just doesn’t sleep

Nope. He's a parent and needs to get up and share the load at tge very least at weekends.

WOW.

Not stupid or pathetic but living for years with someone and demonstrating such a massive lack of boundaries/ putting up with bad behaviour is going to help you how??

Of course it’s his responsibility to manage himself but accepting it endlessly when he doesn’t makes a woman in this situation part of the problem/ perpetuates the cycle of “men get to do whatever they want while women pick up the slack invisibly”.

Like I said I’m not really sure what else you can do … leave I guess but it’s a nuclear option isn’t it?

Have you tried telling him to stop being a selfish bell end?

I now have dreadful sleep issues & I'm not well, but if you said to me you want to sleep in, I'd set an alarm & get up with the kids whenever you wanted me to.

When children were babies/young (& I was too!) I was always awake early so never minded the early starts, he had other strengths.

I wouldn't 'go there' with what time he goes to bed/sleep, just say you need (whatever? To sleep in on Sunday mornings?) & you need him to set an alarm & be awake for when the kids wake up)

talk to him, make him see you want/need thus. He might think you're fine with it?! Unless you've been hinting/meaning? Be direct & clear about what you need!

I have raised it but in the moment he just doesn’t wake up, then says ‘well I couldn’t help it; I didn’t hear her.’

Wake him, when it is his turn, even if waking him makes you thoroughly awake. Then stay in bed and read, do puzzles, whatever is relaxing.

Yes, it isn’t a lie in though. It’s waking up and going back to bed.

Ideally, you don’t physically get up, you just poke him until he wakes up 😀 but if you do it every single Saturday (say) he may well start going to bed earlier so he’s easier to rouse.

I don’t actually sleep with him because when he comes to bed so late he disturbs me. So I do need to actually get up and go into another room in order to wake him. (I sometimes forget most married couples do sleep together: we never have really!)

If they are always up before 6, could you set an alarm which does wake him for 0545, then that does half the work of waking him for you?

Ohhhh… yeah, that’s kind of pertinent info!

Buy and hide an alarm clock in his room next Friday night? 😀

Book yourself into a hotel once a month and sleep in as long as you like.

So what has he suggested he's going to do to change things? I'm going to guess...nothing. Because he doesn't care and he's not interested in changing. So the choice is yours - accept this is your life, or leave.

What a tosser, take it in turns

This may be the only way I get some peace and quiet. I’m worried he wouldn’t hear them if they wake in the night, though, or go to them in the morning.

It’s rather a nuclear option though, isn’t it?

I think that the sleeping brain can adjust to knowing if ”someone else” will deal with the problem.

If, say, he didn’t wake up in the morning, would your 6 year old eventually come and get him?

Could you phone him from your room if the kids are kicking off and he’s sleeping through it??

Yes, it’s the little one I’m worried about.

Set a schedule in advance of who is on morning duty with the kids and take it in turns. If he has a high stress job and you don’t then that can mean just taking weekends in turns if you like.

But when it is his morning with the kids and he doesn’t wake up, wake him up. He will probably sleep in the first few times and require vigorous waking, but as you’ve let this go on for years a short transition period isn’t too much more. Enforce him getting up on his days and you staying in bed, even though you don’t get a lie in.

Within a couple of weeks he should realise you’re serious and actually wake up instead of leaving it to you. If he doesn’t hear when they wake up then he can set an alarm.

i do wake him up, but because it takes forever to wake him, even longer to get him out of bed, then he goes grunting and groaning to the toilet and I end up getting dd as she’s crying and hysterical and so it’s not a calm stress free morning. I will admit I just generally don’t bother now but in the past I did. but over Christmas the kids kept waking so early and I was tired …

I don’t know really. I wouldn’t exactly get to sleep in if I LTB!

Can you just spend the night in the guest or spare bedroom so that you aren’t in your bed for your children to wake up in the morning?

He will hear them. He hears them now.