Some people are able to jump out of bed every morning, refreshed and ready for the day.
Other people, not so much.
A husband whose wife is definitely not a morning person turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback.
Blackcoffeeblonde asked:
“AITA for refusing to wake my wife up in the morning?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“My wife (37, female) and I (38, male) have 3 young kids including a 6-month-old baby who still sleeps in our room.”
“I’m an early bird. I routinely get up at ~5:30am to enjoy a few silent moments of sanity and get some sh*t done before the kids take over.”
“My wife is a night owl and *hates* waking up. As a kid growing up, her family nicknamed her ‘The Lion’ on account of her morning temperament and blonde bedhead.”
“They would draw straws and the loser would have to get her up in the morning. This topic made it into wedding speeches and continues to be a running joke to this day.”
“That said, she comes by this honestly these days. We’re chronically sleep deprived because—kids.”
“She’s on maternity leave and is up 1-2x in the night nursing, while I’m blissfully passed out beside her, so I don’t blame her for pushing her wake-up times.”
“I also don’t blame her for staying up later, as once the kids go down around 7:30pm, then we put the house back together, then we get stuck to the couch recovering from the day, and *then* she might get an hour to watch TV before we do it all over again.”
“Here’s the issue: she always asks that I: 1) wake her up in the morning and 2) ensure she’s awake ~10min later.”
“This has frustrated me from the start. I suggested she use a silent/vibrating phone alarm or her Apple Watch if she’s concerned about waking the baby, but apparently those aren’t good enough.”
“For what it’s worth, I wear my Garmin smartwatch *and* a cheap $20 dumb silent vibrating alarm wristband that could wake the dead.”
“There’s been a few times where I’ve agreed to wake her up at a certain time, but forgot & woke her up ~15min later. It usually doesn’t cause any issues, but today I got her up at 7:20 am instead of the agreed-upon 7:00am as I lost track of time attending to my son who woke up early.”
“It was a particularly difficult morning with cranky kids and she snapped about how it was just too late to get up with not enough time to get everyone ready. I reached my breaking point and snapped back that moving forward, I absolutely refuse to wake her up in the morning & that she’s a big girl who can be responsible for herself.”
“Since then, she’s made a few snide comments about random little things ‘apparently being too much to ask’ and says I’m being unreasonable by refusing to get her up & and make sure she’s actually awake after she inevitably falls back asleep.”
“I told her if it’s not that much to ask then it should be simple enough for her to do it herself.”
“So, AITA?”
“I can understand infrequent critical moments like ‘please make sure I’m awake so I don’t miss my flight’, but making me responsible for her daily wake-up times is absolutely unreasonable at best, even if kids and sleep deprivation are in the mix.”
The OP summed up their situation.
“I might be the a-hole for: 1-Refusing to wake her up in the morning after agreeing to previously.”
“2-It’s a simple task, and I’m always up before her; plus, I am reneging on a previous agreement, and she’d have to spend money to come up with an independent solution.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was no a**holes here (NAH).
“Friend, right now she is doing all the heavy lifting of child-rearing on six months of broken sleep while you get a full night’s sleep every night.”
“She should be asking you to take half the night wakings, pumping so you can feed the baby while she gets more than three hours of unbroken sleep, but she hasn’t.”
“Literally the least you can do, out of appreciation for your full night’s sleep, is help wake her up. An alarm would also wake the baby, and if the baby sleeps a little longer, that means she misses out on even more sleep.”
“You are literally getting the better end of this deal, and asking you to wake her is so freaking small of an ask I’m a little shocked you consider it such a big deal.”
“You get to sleep through the night. Just wake her on time, and be grateful she’s not pumping and demanding you take half the night wakings.” ~ LateBloomingADHD
“OP, have you considered the fact you may find it easier to get up in the morning because you get a full night’s sleep every night while your wife does every single night’s wake-up?” ~ personality5
“Setting an alarm for himself is no big deal, but then he forgets to wake her. Like… wasn’t setting the alarm supposed to be easy?”
“Just set the alarm for her on your gadgets and wake her up. He is using different measures when looking at his actions and hers.” ~ HarryThePelican
“Normally I’d say NAH. But…. Do the overnights with her! Just because she’s breastfeeding doesn’t mean she can’t pump and store so YOU can also feed overnight.”
“Split the nights so you BOTH get chunks of solid sleep. She can take the first one since she’s a late-night person.”
“Dude, you’ve chosen to have kids with this woman. You chose to make a life with her. Now figure out how to make it work!”
“You’re here b*tching about not wanting to have to wake your wife up….. while she’s doing all day AND all night with those kids you helped create and you brag about sleeping away next to her.” ~ Jmfroggie
“I understand people making the pumping comments, but I need to point out that pumping is also considerable labor (but minus the baby cuddles). In a breastfeeding family, sharing the overall load doesn’t necessarily help as it still adds another job onto the nursing mom.”
“What was more helpful for me was my partner taking on tasks that I then didn’t have to think about or be responsible at all for. In this case, that includes waking her up in the morning. NAH though, as early parenthood is tough!” ~ Zuzzy1
“I do agree that it should be an adult’s responsibility to wake themselves up, but… ‘We’re chronically sleep deprived because—kids. She’s on maternity leave and is up 1-2x in the night nursing while I’m blissfully passed out beside her, so I don’t blame her for pushing her wakeup times’.”
“So she’s doing all the caring for the children all day every day while OP is at work, he gets home, does some parenting with her until the kids go down, then they both do some sorting of the house together and then she finally gets the only time to herself that she gets for the entire 24 hours in the day and OP just goes to sleep and sleeps through the night without doing any of the night feeds?”
“And then she can’t use an alarm with sound because this would wake the baby. No wonder she has a much harder time than OP getting up in the morning.”
“OP, it sounds like your wife hasn’t slept through the night once since the baby was born and you’ve had many nights ‘blissfully passed out beside her’. Maybe you could do all the morning duties so your wife could enjoy some more of that blissful sleep, and then she’ll be a little less grumpy getting up?”
“I’m voting NAH, given the sleep deprivation and general stress of having a baby in the house.” ~ haleorshine
The OP provided an update.
“Sincerely did not expect this much traction! I’m glad I posted to help gain the perspective. Thanks everyone for their constructive and not-so-constructive comments.”
“Parents will understand: this is one slice—albeit a large one—out of the overall context of parenting. When baby was taking a bottle I was up several times nightly as well.”
“I am also primarily on overnight ‘soothe’ duty when little dude wakes up before a feeding as I’m able to get him back to sleep when he’s furious, whereas non-nursing-soothing fails for my wife because he goes straight for the boob.”
“My wife hates pumping, and we’ve agreed upon splitting the night feedings as I take up the slack in other areas. Of our relationship issues, zero involve kid-raising.”
“We regularly convey our appreciation for each other in being on the same page parenting-wise as much of our social and family circle is dealing with stereotypical uninvolved parent stuff.”
“I also work from home and routinely rearrange my workday to parent. One kid is part-time at daycare, part-time home, so I’ve dipped out of meetings to help get him dressed to go outside, feed the kid lunch when she’s putting the baby down, watch the furious toddler who won’t get in the car when my wife goes to pick up our oldest from school, etc….”
“So the ‘oh wow dad gets to work all day and doesn’t lift a finger with the kids and now he won’t even wake her up, typical man’ responses are objectively wrong.”
“Much of the derision in the ‘you lazy f*ck blissfully sleeping, just get her a goddamn coffee, she carried your children’ is a tiny bit misguided & just a little heavy on the judgment without knowing the full context of parenting duties.
“With that said, the more nuanced responses of ‘nobody’s exactly wrong here, but c’mon dude, parenting is hard, just wake her up and bring her a coffee, that’s the nicest part of my day’ have resonated.”
“It is exceedingly obvious in the responses who has been a gracious parent & partner who has weathered the relationship struggles of maintaining a relationship while raising young kids, and who has not (saying this as a not-fully-gracious partner).”
“Regardless of sentiment expressed, thank you all for responding, I’m on my way up with a coffee right now… albeit 5 minutes late as I was responding to this. F*ck.”
All’s well that ends well, it seems.