High sleep needs DH - how do you make it work with DC?

[piloues]

DH and I have been together for the best part of 20 years. Our sleep patterns have always been a bit different - he's a classic night owl but needs a good 10 hours+ whereas I don't seem to need quite so much sleep - happy going to bed around 11pm and still having a reasonably early start.

This worked fine pre-DC and wasn't even too bad with just the one. But now we have a toddler and a 1 year old, both of whom were/are EBF and not particularly good sleepers, I'm starting to feel a bit wrecked.

Take last night. I fell asleep on the sofa in front of the TV and woke up at 1am to the sound of DC2 crying. No signs of life from DH in our room so I fed and sat with DC2 for a while before heading to bed. Next wake up 3am. DH completely out of it - no reaction to the baby monitor - so I did the same again. Back to bed. Then at 6am our toddler starts crying because of a nightmare. Again, DH genuinely doesn't stir. I lie awake with toddler until DC2 wakes up again at 6.45am and so now I've been up since then. DH still fast asleep.

We've tried DH dealing with night wake ups, but he sleeps through the baby monitor/sounds of the DC. So I end up waking up anyway and have to get him up. By that point I'm pretty much wide awake, so not really any less tired than if I did it myself. And once DH's sleep is interrupted he either sleeps in or spends the day out of it. So I have to pick up more of the slack of looking after the two DC on not materially more sleep.

Up until this point I've figured that the best of a few crap options is for me to do the wake-ups and at least DH is then on ok form during the day. But is there another way? I'm due back at work imminently and feel like that's when the lack of sleep is going to become really obvious.

I would leave them to it. Go for a weekend with some friends.
Of course he can look after the children but so much easier you do it. After the weekend set a new way of doing nights.

Obviously this is completely unfair on you, and you’re right it needs addressing (especially before you return to work). I’m confused though, if your husband is a night owl and stays awake later than your 11pm bedtime, why was he not able to deal with the 1am wake up?

He’s an adult with 2 small children. Unless there’s some major health issue or medication side effects he needs to get with the program.
All parents have less sleep than they ‘need’ (what is this new phrase by the way).
He needs to wake the fuck up and do his share.

BIL is like this he’s slept through fire alarms in hotels and when he worked nights my sister would hoover round the bed and he wouldn’t wake up I don’t even think he’d wake up if the house was in fire
and before people jump in saying he’s lazy he literally never stops
it’s a bit late now but tbh it was always going to be like this didn’t you consider this in your decision to have kids

I used to be like this and think it drove my DH crazy! Although he was always very kind about it and gave me a lot of grace.
it was medical, under active thyroid and my body wasn’t functioning it at all correctly.
Im on medication now and sleep a normal 7/8 hours a a night.

He needs to see a GP spending nearly 50% of your life asleep isn’t typical at all

What does your DH say about it OP? Is he fine with you to be doing all the night wake ups/settling while he gets his ten hours of nightly sleep? What does ‘ok form’ during the day mean? When he is on good or great form?

You haven’t said what his views are at all. If I was him I would feel incredibly guilty at sleeping through every single night time wake up while my partner got up to do them all and would be actively suggesting solutions and compromises, whether that be being ‘on duty’ until 1am or getting up earlier with the kids so my partner could rest. I don’t understand why it seems to be entirely your problem to solve unless he has a significant medical issue.

What would he do if he were a single parent?

How is she going to do that with 2 ebf children?!

What is the plan for when you return to work? That seems like the obvious time to force change. Where do the DC sleep? Can he sleep in with the older one so at least you only have one child to tend to?

PS last night was horrendous and I strongly suggest you sleep during the day and he entertains them quietly!!!

I agree with @nellly
He should be seeing his GP. If he genuinely isn't waking up then he at the very least needs to get checked out for medical issues.

You are suggesting she leaves her breast fed baby for the weekend ?. Yes her husband is being pathetic and selfish but it's wrong to make the children suffer because of it.
OP your husband is being selfish, tell him you can't deal with both children anymore. when your tell him he has to share the load and that you are going to wake him up if he doesn't get up with the older child. ? Dig him in the ribs or whatever is necessary to wake him and don't let him sleep in in the morning. You should also sleep in some mornings. Feed the baby , go back to sleep and tell DH to deal with your older child

I had one of these too. He could genuinely sleep through anything. He could sleep all day and night too if left to it.

The way we managed was that I would have an early night. Im a morning person anyway and he was a night owl. He would stay up until 1/2pm and deal with baby until then. It meant both of us would get at least 6/7 hours per night.

Let him entertain the kids today and you should take an afternoon nap. 2 hours roughly 1-3pm will not mess up your sleep tonight and will help you a lot.

then you need to tell him how much you are struggling and make a plan together. Options include
> he does a late shift 8-12 pm and handles any childcare in that time while you sleep early
> he goes to see a doctor and check his thyroid as recommended up thread
> he shifts his schedule to go to sleep earlier, say 10pm and gets up at 7
> he takes on other childcare and household jobs to let you rest

the key thing is that you need to find solutions as a team to support each other, not a solution where one parent does everything

Clearly with two small children who will wake in the night, then he is going to have to adapt, and get over his requirement for 10+ hours (seriously!) - obviously I take this back if it transpires he has a medical issue.

@piloues - you just need to give him a bloody hard prod when you need him to get up and parent his children. He doesn’t get to opt (sleep) out of this.

Is "high sleep needs" the new euphemism for "lazy, selfish git"?

You poor thing, this sounds so exhausting for you!
Does your DH sleep through alarms, how does he get up for the day? Is he genuinely such a heavy sleeper that he's not waking up with through DC or is he choosing to not wake up? What is his attitude towards it when he wakes up in the morning and realises he has slept through while you've been up with DC?
I am an exceptionally heavy sleeper, the only alarm that properly wakes me up is a vibrating alarm on my watch. Have you tried a baby monitor with a vibration alarm?

My DH is shit at coping with broken sleep, hard to wake up, and if left undisturbed can sleep for 12+ hours night after night. I think I've slept for that long a few times in my entire life. But when we had young kids who slept badly and were both working full time I needed him to help and he did.

A few practical things we did. When I was on maternity leave with the second, "golden hour" was for weekdays. After a bad night he would have both the kids downstairs with him if they were awake when he was having breakfast so I could rest a bit before he went off to the office. At weekends for quite a few years we each got one lie in day (until the kids started weekend morning activities when there were more nuanced negotiations). I didn't necessarily sleep on my "lie in" but if a child needed someone, it was his job. Also for a while he slept in the room with whichever one was most likely to wake up in the night so he was closer to the noise as otherwise I would always wake first. It wasn't perfect, overall I still got up more but he tried. We also didn't have a problem with musical beds/bedrooms for a few years if on average we all got more sleep not just one of us.

What time do you both go sleep/wake up?

You say he’s a night owl but also say he needs 10 hours sleep - so what time does go to sleep/get up?

If he’s someone who stays up late then I would give him the baby monitors whilst he’s awake and you go bed early and get some decent uninterrupted sleep.
Then when he goes to bed he can bring the baby monitors and you wake up when needed.

My friend was in a similar situation and in the early days she’d go sleep at like 6pm and her DH would go bed at around midnight.
He was in charge 6pm-12 and she took over 12-6am, meaning both had at least 6 hours uninterrupted sleep.

Are we living the same life? I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old, and a husband with high sleep needs. I can function fine on 6 hours of interrupted sleep (not that I enjoy it or would choose it 😂) but he really needs at least 8 hours uninterrupted.

I EBF both kids so I’ve never asked him to do a night wake for a baby, but he will respond to the 3 year old if they wake at night (if I don’t get there first!). We also never get up together in the morning unless we’re on holiday. He has a lie in 6 days a week (though he does work evenings part time so some of these are genuinely necessary). I have a lie in once a week.

All these poor high sleep needs husbands, my ex was one too. What do “high sleep needs” mums do?

I wonder how many women with young children have ‘high sleep needs’ . Oh. None.
come off it. This isn’t an option once you’ve decided to become a parent unless you really really couldn’t give a shiny shit about how exhausted your partner is.

A couple of nights a week, get DH to sleep in the children's room and tell the toddler to wake him up if necessary. And/or find an alarm that will wake him, and activate it yourself. He may well need more sleep than you, but you need some uninterrupted nights. Once he gets used to nighttime waking it will get easier for him.

Hi op.

I'm a lark, DH is an owl. So sith both DC our arrangement for many years was that he did any wake ups till 2am and I did all wake ups post 2am.

Id go to bed at 9 and he would go to bed at midnight but get up or stay up if necessary.

Even now the DC are old teens, he will be in bed until late morning at the weekend, whereas I still set my alarm for 5.30 and walk the dogs. It's a hard habit to change!