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 don’t think you have the luxury of high sleep needs with young kids! Pre-kids I was like your husband, I worked evenings and then would stay up late and then sleep for 10 hours or so. Post-kids that just isn’t feasible so I had to adapt, and actually my body clock seems to have shifted after years of it so I need less sleep generally.

What I found with DH and I was that we had to play to strengths. I needed more sleep overall but could cope with it being broken into segments over the course of the day. He needs less sleep than I do but doesn’t do as well with broken sleep. So I would do night wakes but he would stay up late to deal with wake-ups before a certain point and get up early with DC.

It’s also okay to be tired. One person shouldn’t be exhausted while another person is totally fine. Two people can be a bit tired but still manage to carry on with life.

I think an element of the not waking too is the knowledge that he doesn’t have to deal with it because you will. This was the case with my DH when our kids were babies, he slept through it because it was understood I would do the middle of night stuff (I was breastfeeding and as I said above, this worked out better for us). But now the kids are past the baby stage but still young enough that they sometimes have night wakes and come to us, it’s about 50/50 who wakes up and deals with it, because there’s no preconceived ‘roles’ any more so neither of us are totally switched off in that regard.

At the end of the day, sleeping that much isn’t feasible with young children so either he deals with it or if he genuinely can’t operate on less than 10 hours he sees a doctor.

Does he manage to get up for work?

Has he seen a doctor?

“He needs to wake the fuck up and do his share”

Love it 🤣🤣

Please, please say this to him OP!!

I'm getting the impression that this is being seen as your problem to solve.

You post suggests an underlying assumption that it's somehow more acceptable for you to be exhausted than for him to be exhausted because his sleep 'needs' are supposedly higher than yours. The issue will never be solved until you both agree that that isn't the case. He should be looking for solutions to this rather than acting like it's out of his control. There are baby monitors available for deaf parents that use flashing lights or vibrating mats. He could try that. He could try connecting headphones to the baby monitor and turning the volume up really loud.

At the moment he has the luxury of being dead to the world because he knows that you pick up the slack. That has to stop. I'm feeling very angry on your behalf.

Oh come off it! He’s lazy and prioritizing himself over you and the DC. He can shape up or ship out!

OP what does your husband say? My DP would be devastated if he did this, and if I was feeling tired as a result.

If it’s a preference to sleep 10 hours, he’s being unreasonable. If he needs to sleep 10 hours, that’s not normal and he needs to get it checked out.

Also you’re a total superwoman for managing this alone, although it makes me quite cross for you that you are. I have one 2 year old who’s a poor sleeper, and my DP does alternate nights with me. I’m still shattered!! We also shared night duties with I was off on mat leave, or I would’ve been too tired to function.

It's not normal to allow your choice to negatively impact family life, wife, children

My exh used to do this. He’d even sleep through his alarm for work without me pestering him to wake up. But funnily enough when I left him he regained the ability to hear his alarm and our dc if they woke in the night.

‘High sleep needs’
🤣🤨🤦‍♀️

OP, EVERYONE needs sleep, we just get accustomed to less.

He needs to grow up

Do you not think he should have said no to kids then?
He obviously just thinks it’s your job.
Now you know not to have any more with him.

Personally I would move out at nights for a few weeks and leave him with the child so that he HAS to do the feeding.

Don’t take any shit becuase he will milk it.

Your DH needs to learn to go to bed earlier. He's not a classic night owl, because he needs a lot of sleep. I bet pre-kids he stayed up late but then slept in late too? I was the same when I was younger and almost burnt myself out from lack of sleep because it took me ages to learn that I was never getting back to the old pattern of staying up late then sleeping most of the morning. When the kids were still night waking I went to sleep as soon as they had both settled, and now they're a bit older I am asleep by 10pm every night to make sure I get my nine hours in.

He’s been selfish, for several years, you’ve been a mug. It’s not OK.

your health and needs are at least as important as his - you’ve gestated and birthed two DC.

.

he's a classic night owl but needs a good 10 hours+

If you need 10hrs sleep you go to bed 8.30-9 ...9.30 latest.

You dont get the luxury of being a "nightowl"

I'd have zero interest in any of this nonsense.

In your tale above at the very latest at 6.45 im have forced him up and gone gotten an hour or two.

Buy yourself earplugs

Also, I love my sleep. I’d never have kids becuase no way would I want my sleep disturbed. I mean other reasons too of course but that’s a huge one. So, knowing how important his sleep was to him, why did he have kids? Is he stupid? Or…did he intend to just leave it all to you from the get go?

Just because they seem like good partners, doesn’t mean they will make good parents.