Mum's hilarious trick to keep husband awake after childbirth goes viral

This handy item doesn't usually make most 'hospital bag checklists'... but it definitely should!

There's nothing that makes a new mum's heart break more than the sound of their tiny baby in distress.

 When you're just a few hours into parenthood and you're dealing with hormones, learning to feed your infant and trying to get a bit of rest after, y'know, just giving birth, that helpless, high-pitched squeal can be enough to tip your exhausted self over the edge. 

The only thing that can turn something heartbreaking into something annoying? If your partner somehow manages to sleep through it. 

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"He'd sleep through an atomic bomb"

This is the situation one mum found herself in a few years ago when she gave birth to her first child.

Samantha Mravik-Miller had gone through a long labour and complicated natural birth and was resting while her newborn, Chase, slept just out of arm's reach. She'd been on oxygen and as a result, her throat had dried up and she couldn't talk, or get out of bed to attend to her baby. 

Her husband was in the room too, but that made little difference, she claims.

"Anyone who knows my husband knows that an atomic bomb could go off and he would still sleep through it," She posted on Facebook. "He can sleep through anything, he can fall asleep anywhere. So that first night I was trying to yell to him but nothing was happening, so I grabbed a water bottle, and threw it at him."

Flash-forward six years and Samantha was about to give birth again, but this time she was determined she wouldn't find herself stuck, looking for something within arms reach to peg in his direction. Luckily, her son, Chase, provided the solution: a nerf gun.

Round two, she was ready for battle

Samantha's second birth was a scheduled caesarean. "This time I knew I wasn't going to be able to get up and get out of bed so I knew my recovery was going to be more intensive. So I packed it and I thought to myself, 'if there's ever a point where the baby is crying and I can't wake him up I'm going to have way better aim with a nerf gun than with a flimsy water bottle!'"

Genius. Calling her idea "mum hack level 10000", she posted the idea to her page where it instantly went viral, with tired mums around the world praising her for the idea. 

"I want this as a push present," one mum joked, tagging her husband while another added she was adding it to her registry. "I might just need this for life after the baby comes as well. Wake up loser our kid is crying!"

After the pic racked up over 16,000 likes she posted a video update to her followers, admitting that while "90 percent" of people had been amazing, she'd received a little bit of hate, from those who thought her husband deserved his rest. 

"I'm not a crazy wife!"

Samantha admitted she was surprised at the attention the post received and was determined to clear up any confusion. "I'm not a crazy wife who consistently shoots her husband in the head with a nerf gun," she said, laughing. "I never had to use it," she said, "it was there just in case."

And she added for all those concerned she was keeping her poor bloke from getting shut-eye, "don't worry, he does get to sleep. I'm a nursing mum, so I do get up all night and he sleeps!"

But she urged people to think about how she was feeling before judging her too harshly.

"Imagine being a first-time mum, not being able to reach or get to your baby, hearing that high-pitched cry and there's nothing you could do about it. You would probably throw a water bottle at your husband's head, too!

"I hope it helps some new mamas out in the future," she said, ending her video, while still cradling her newborn son, Laeghan. 

This story was published in 2020 and updated in 2023

Originally published as Mum's hilarious trick to keep husband awake after childbirth goes viral