SAHMs with babies/toddlers - do you get to sleep all night?

[Greaseball]

The "I have a job and you don't" seems to be starting already around here - dh says he can't take care of the baby at night because he has to get up early and go to work!

Our youngest is 11 mos and doesn't nurse at night anymore, but still wakes frequently and has to be rocked to sleep. This has been going on for months. Dh has to wake up around 5:00 and drives an hour to get to work. So I understand that his performance will suffer if he has to get up every 2 hours at night...but OTOH, so will mine! I have to get up early too! I have to spend my day running around! He's a teacher, and if any of his students "act up" or cause him any difficulty, he can send them out of the room. When my kids do this, I just have to deal with it...

When I can get a full night's sleep, I'm able to take the girls to the park the next day, cook yummy stuff, and be the fun mom. When I can't sleep, they watch TV and eat toast and I struggle just to read to them.

I guess the solution would be to take turns? How do other SAHMs deal?

[muttix2]

That is my life. Before we had our first ds, dh said he would help. Then ds came and he cried all the time, and dh was next to no help at night because *he* had to get up the next day. The baby would be crying and I'd BEG dh to go get him so I could get 30 minutes of sleep. He'd reply that he was comfortable letting him CIO so if it was bothering me then I'd have to deal with it (much less AP than I am) so I'd go in there and the baby and I would sob together :LOL Actually, I'd created how he reacted as before the baby was born I talked about how I would sleep when the baby slept. Then, once he was born I told dh that that's what I did. Of course, he didn't realize that that meant that I would get to sleep for about 30 minutes at a time and that was only if I didn't try to eat or go to the bathroom or whatever. That baby is now 1 1/2 years old and I have actually just started feeling like myself again a few months ago. I didn't realize it at the time but I was very depressed and I'm sure that lack of sleep contributed to it. Now that I have another baby dh does help during the day so I can get a nap but not at night. Luckily the baby is sleeping through or I'd be pulling my hair out. Telling dh how I was feeling helped to get him to help out more. Oh, and for the nighttime, we coslept for awhile and that REALLY helped with the fatigue. You can just feed the baby while you're still sleeping, it was heaven. If/when I have more kids I'll definitely be cosleeping with them for the first little bit so I can get some sleep. It'll get better as the baby starts sleeping through more.

ETA: I need to add that dh does help a lot during the day and has recently started letting me sleep in when he's off so that's fantastic

[amberielle]

DH helped with DD, but now all I hear is "I have to get up in (X amount of hours)!" Ugh! I have sat there sobbing with a screaming baby, asking DS why he hates me so much! LOL! There have been a few times that DH had gotten kicked when his snoring has woken the baby that has taken me hours to get to sleep!
Thankfully though, DH lets me sleep in on the weekends and he takes care of the kids... now if only I could find a way to keep everyone silent!

[thoesly]

My oldest is 6. I haven't had a full night's sleep since before he was born. My husband cannot get up at night -- even before we had kids, he was known for sleeping through fire alarms. Whenever I have needed him at night during our 15+ years together, he has taken a minimum of 15 minutes to become coherent. So I've always been the one to get up at night (though co-sleeping helped with that enormously). I don't mind. He *does* have to get up early and go to work all day so I can afford to be a SAHM. If I'm tired, I can usually rearrange our schedules so that we can do a video/mom-dozes-on-the-couch day. It's not ideal, but it also doesn't happen very often. One thing I have learned is that I need to go to bed by 10, chores or no chores. My kids don't sleep well (special needs issues), so I pretty much plan on getting up at least 2 or 3 times a night. If I'm in bed by 10, I get a couple of hours sleep before the craziness begins. That 2 hours really helps me when the morning comes. And whenever I am super tired, it helps me compare the present to two years ago when I was getting up a minimum of 5 times each night -- some things do get easier as they get older. And, of course, the fact that my husband tries to make up for his weeknight lethargy during the weekends helps a lot!

[mykidsmama]

My dh is wonderful & frequently gets up to help me or just be with me while I am up with the kids. He is a sweetie!!

[NaomiLorelie]

I've always had a hard time getting DH up to help with the kids at night. He wouldn't wake up when the baby would cry and unless I was just exhausted I didn't see the point in trying to wake him up and waiting for him to become coherant when I could take care of the problem myself. Personally, I don't think that men are wired to take responsibility in caring for their children while as women we are up the instant there is a peep. I'm not excusing them, they just obviously don't get it. DH will take care of the oldest when she is sick at night but once again I have to wake him. The man sleeps like a log. He helps pretty well during the daytime hours so it doesn't bother me so much.

[TiredX2]

I get up when it is "just" DS wanting to nurse.

DH & I (probably more DH) split getting up for other issues--- wetting the bed, scared, etc...

My solution, Greaseball, would be to get that kid to night nurse (if he is waking up every 2 hours) so at least I could sleep. :LOL But that does seem to be my solution

[Dechen]

My husband cosleeps with dd and does 90% of nighttime parenting. I get up when she cries, which can be frequently. I nurse her from 1-3 times a night.
Then, if I need to, I can go to the master bedroon, hit the white noise, and sleep.

I am really lucky to have such an awesome husband. I need more sleep than he does, I am a light sleeper and wake easily, and I have a hard time falling back asleep in the night. It is far more efficient to have him to most of the night work now that dd doesn't nurse back to sleep. (She will nurse, but not fall asleep nursing). He is hard to wake, and falls right back asleep as soon as he can.

It isn't that he doesn't get tired. Even with this arrangement we are both frequently exhausted. She wakes a LOT. Every two hours, recently. He will be the first person to admit that doing his job is easier than taking care of our spirited imp all day, especially when sleep deprived. During hard times he can't wait until Monday.

[Laurel]

My dh shares the nighttime parenting equally with me. At this point, whoever hears ds first gets up--but I think it ends up being about evenly split. Even when ds was a baby and waking 4-5 times a night, we still shared it equally.

My dh gets up fairly early, but so do I because ds is an early riser.

[Piglet68]

what about weekends? can you at least get a break then?

[shishkeberry]

My DP is like this, too. My only relief is Friday and Saturday nights when he's on nighttime baby duty.

[Greaseball]

I take full advantage of weekends. I sometimes sleep in until 10 or 11. And I stay out late Friday nights with my childless friends.

[kayleesmom]

my dh

when my daughter was first born my hubby and i did the both get up with at every feeding. then it went to alternating getting up with her at nite. then it went to hubby telling me to sleep through the nite. when she started only waking 2 times a nite. which at almost 10 months old she still wakes to eat 1 or 2 times. and he gets up and feeds her. if i try and get up with her he says mel u have to take care of her all day u need ur rest.
which i agree with but even if it is like 4am and he has to leave at 6am he still gets up with her

[Treasuremapper]

This is one of the hardest things about being a SAHM for me.

I do the day shift, the night shift, basically, if dh doesn't want to do it, it goes to me. Medical insurance, nightwakings, poopy diapers, scrubbing toilets. But when it comes to playing with the kids with water balloons, he's available.

[HelloKitty]

I'm the only one that gets up with the kids - always have been. DH will sleep right through. We co-sleep with our two youngest and their waking still doesn't phase him.

Honestly I've gotten pretty use to it though and it doesn't really bother me anymore. That's kind of sad though.

[chersolly]

I deal with DD at night during the week because DH (Navy) has a long, full day ahead of him and I often take a quick nap with DD in the afternoon; however, weekends are all him and I'm the lazy one who gets to sleep in.

[GranoLLLy-girl]

Re:

Greaseball, I don't want to write anything that might sound like I am defending your DH, but my only concern about him (and not getting enough sleep) is his commute time. I used to commute an hour each way for my job and it is scary because it's so so easy to fall asleep behind the wheel.

My dd sleeps in her own bed and loves and my ds co-sleeps with us.
I don't sleep well (thanks to early menopause) but no one has to get up with ds wakes up because we are both right there.
My dd co-slept until my ds was born, and it was same easy arrangement...as soon as he was born, she couldn't stand the frequent waking for nursing sessions going on and asked to move into her own bed.

Don't know if this will help, but I know how you feel...and sleep deprivation makes even the minor issues ten times worse.

[Goldenlover]

I have never had to deal with this..........even if my man only gets 4 hours of sleep he will still go to work and work his usual 14-16 hours a day and get up with the baby at night

good luck

[Suzetta]

My dh was very good about changing the night time dipe, giving me the baby to nurse, then helping get her back to sleep. And of course, I took full advantage of that in the early weeks. However, I began to see that the long nights were most definitely having an effect on his job (both in performance and satisfaction). He found another job (much better, that requires more driving and an earlier rise. Now the top priority in our house is to make sure he gets a good night's sleep.

I have been able to adjust our schedule (mine and my two daughters) to make sure we can sleep a little later in the morning. Also, if I am sleepy in the day, I will just plan a more relaxed day and even participate in their nap. Sometimes I feel a bit cheated, but then I must look at the reality- I can hang around in my jammies half the day (all the day if I want to), but he has to get up, get ready every day. Also, a bad day for me just means that me and the kids were tired and grumpy. A bad day for him could affect our whole livelihood.

[chalupamom]

Sleep? What is this "sleep" you speak of?