Selective Deafness & selfishness

[Mommymommy]

I am the only one whose partner and eldest child suffer from selective deafness, it happens all the time during the day when the kids are playing up and then the cheeky pig carries it on into the night, he pretends to be asleep when our never sleeping 10 month old wakes up, only i know that he is not really asleep because i tell the difference with his breathing. But if, on a rare occasion i sleep through her crying the cheeky swine nudges me, elbows me or kicks me to wake me up (all whilst he's asleep of course. Also does anyone elses husband go mad if he is not allowed to have 10 minutes peace and quiet (what is that by the way) to sit on his ringpiece and read the paper or watch some sci-fi programme. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghhhhhh

Nope you're definitely not the only one. Amazing what they can hear when they want to. I find a flick on the end of the nose soon wakes my dp up in the night. I end up standing in front of the tv until I get an answer from dp or ds.

I'll have to try the flick on the end of the nose thing, with the size of his nose it'll be sure to give him some pain.

No you are definately not the only one, my dh suffers very badly from selective deafness, especially when ds night wakes, he even suffers from it in the day, can you get ds a drink, or can you make his lunch etc etc, he just sits there until i say are you getting it then, 'oh sorry, didn't hear you' at which point you are no mad that you end up doing it yourself, unless of course you say 'beer honey' and then as if by magic he is fully recovered. Oh and the phone is the worst, he never hears that either.

Next time he tries the nudging bit, take a large handful of the duvet and, while still "asleep", roll over taking all the duvet with you.

Doesn't Dr Christopher Green say something about this in his Babies book? That the "deafness" your dh demonstrates in the middle of the night when the baby is screaming would probably magically evaporate if he was listening out for the phone call to confirm his lottery win...

Hmmmm, if i rolled over and whispered cheekily into his ear it would be amazing how awake he is aswell, he's sleeping downstairs tonight though (after a row) and he is getting up with baby so at least i can try and sleep (she wakes every 1/2 hour). I wish i could get away with selective deafness. I would also like to know why he is allowed one full day of football every week whereas I'm lucky to have a five minute soak in the bath on my own

This is a subject close to my heart! It's taken a while, but I have finally driven it home to dh about time spent alone/with dd/with all of us. We have agreed that's it's v important for both of us to have time doing selfish-me type things, but that it's NOT ON to make it an inflexible thing, i.e. same amount of time every week. Thus, he has canned playing local-league football (and even going to watch/support it) as a weekly event and now goes only when it's convenient for all of us; same with his golf games. Without wanting to seem a complete witch about it, I had to hammer it home that I had had to make countless compromises on what I wanted to do vs what I had to do for the good of our dd and he actually agreed. So he does get to do the things he wants but not as a priority. It's a treat, not a right.

My friend's currently having the same problem, except hers is a bit trickier - her dh has a season ticket for his team. He argues that he only goes once a fortnight, but when he goes, he's gone from 12 noon until 5 or 6pm. He also works full time. It's a tricky one...