Heavy Sleepers
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May 2004
I have an 18 month-old daughter and am expecting my second child
any day now. My problem is that my husband is a dreadfully
heavy sleeper and is absolutely no help once he has drifted into
dreamland.
We have always had the arrangement that I take care of our
daughter at night given that I don't work outside of the home
during the day. So far that has worked for us.
Now that we are expecting another and our daughter seems to be
night waking alot these days, I am hoping to get a little help
from my husband. He is aware that I expect him (and he is
willing) to attend to our daughter while I am dealing with our
newborn. But neither of us is sure how it is going to happen!
He has always been a heavy sleeper and he is one of those people
able to fall asleep anywhere. He can sleep sitting up in a
chair, on BART and on airplanes. According to his Mother he has
always been an extremely heavy sleeper. That's all fine and
dandy, but now that he is a parent I feel he should be able to
hear his own kids crying during the night when they are sleeping
a mere door away! This is not a new issue for us. It has
surfaced before and now is becoming a large worry for me given
my 38 week pregnant self.
For instance, several times I thought I have heard a noise in
the house or tried to awaken him during the night and I cannot
seem to rouse him. It makes me feel unsafe. Especially if I have
to go out of town and I need for him to watch our kids. I mean
how do I feel comfortable doing that? For example: The other
night our daughter had a nightmare and I brought her into our
bed and then promptly left to go sleep in our guest room because
my husband is 6'4'' and with me being pregnant, there just isn't
enough room for all 3 of us. Anyways, during the night I heard a
thump and then crying. My daughter had fallen out of our bed and
my husband had slept through the whole thing! Here she was
bawling on the floor in the same room as her Daddy and he was
just snoring through it all!
What am I to do? Is there a way to ''train'' people to hear
their kids? Or is it hopeless? Of course I am hoping to get some
help during the night once our baby arrives, but really this is
more of a safety issue for me. I don't feel like my husband is
fit to watch our kids when I am not around. It is an awful
feeling to know that you are the only parent that is
constantly ''on''. Any advice would be most welcome.
I should add here that my husband is a fantastic hands on Dad
during the evenings and on weekends. He is very attentive to my
needs being pregnant and the fact that I have really
slowed down and am always tired. This issue isn't about his
commitment to the family; it is about his sleeping habits....
Sleepless in Oakland
Since you have a husband who does other things well, I'd
suggest you not depend on him to wake up when the baby
cries... or even falls out of bed (hopefully never again!)
Face it, you're going to be awake anyway if you hear crying...
-- and if you're depending on him to wake up you'll be awake
and MAD too. Instead of teaching him to do this particular
task, could you find other ways for him to take care of YOU --
so you can take care of them?
You may also want to look into ways to help your toddler
sleep better, so you can enjoy the next 2 years, instead of
just surviving them.
Heather
I am the heavy sleeper in our family while my husband is the
light sleeper. He stays up late, I go to bed early, and believe me
I sleep like the dead for 8 hours. We both work full time.
When we adopted our baby 3
years ago, we worked out an agreement where he would cover till
2am and I would take over after that. He had to wake me up. I
never heard the baby crying, he always did. When he did wake me,
I always checked the clock before I was fully awake to make sure
it really was my turn! But I did wake up and do my duty and then
went back to sleep. After a while, I actually did wake up on my
own when the baby cried, but only if it was during my time
segment, after 2am. Go figure. So maybe you could work out an
arrangement like this with your husband, where you just wake him
up when it's his turn. In my case, agreeing to this beforehand
made all the difference - I just sort of woke up when I had to.
Ginger
My husband and I discussed this. I said get a baseball bat :-)
He said you should lean over at two in the morning and
say ''let's have sex now'' and see if he wakes up.
More seriously, if you really think he has a sleep problem and
could not be roused in an emergency, you could try the Stanford
Sleep Clinic. I think he can get evaluated by staying over night
and they monitor his sleep. That way at least the two of you
would have a definitive answer and could go from there.
Also, personally I think the theory that those who work outside
the home should get to sleep and those who stay at home w/kids
should wake up with them isn't practical. The Stay at home
parent is just as tired and does just as much ''work'' as the one
who works outside the home, an often cannot nap. Also, many
times the parent who works outside the home would never get a
chance to bond with the child if he/she didn't wake up at
night. Splitting it up has always worked at our house. We treat
it as if we were both working outside the home. Just a thought--
Good luck!
anon
My husband also snoozed straight through most of my sleepless nights
for the
first several months, until I started to have health problems from lack
of sleep.
At that point we decided for several days anyway I should sleep in the
guest
room and my husband would be ''on duty''--it was a real eye-opener for
him!
Once he knew he was responsible, he too would wake up at every little
whimper or shifting. Your spouse does sound even more extreme, but the
one
time you mentioned leaving your daughter in bed with him it sounded
like he
wasn't aware beforehand--maybe if he knew ahead of time it would make a
difference?
happy sharing the load
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