I'm the dad of a newborn, I don't get up overnight but still want a sleep in
"My wife is awake with the baby every two hours at night, but she has insomnia anyway, so it makes sense she does it," the dad explains.
The exhaustion from having a newborn can hit you like a ton of bricks. And we all know that sleep-deprived people don't think straight.
Which is why one dad of a newborn posted on Reddit this week, asking if it was reasonable for him to ask his wife about sleeping in after 7am one weekend morning.
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'I'm exhausted too'
Writing in the 'Am I the A**hole' thread, the dad captioned his post, 'AITA for asking for a morning off from my baby on the weekends?'
The original poster claims he and his wife are 'living their dream life,' as he works full-time and she's a stay-at-home mum who works part-time. He supports the family financially while she looks after the house and baby.
He says, "My wife and I have a 6-month-old baby girl. She's mostly a stay-at-home mum. I work full-time and go to school one day a week. We've always had an arrangement where she takes care of the household duties (cooking, cleaning, and now baby care) while I happily support her monetarily.
"Honestly, we are both living our dream life and my wife does an absolutely spectacular job taking care of me and our little one."
He then says that on weekends they split the responsibilities, so each parent gets some 'alone time' to do whatever they want.
But something has recently stuffed up their nice little routine. The newborn, inconveniently - is doing its newborn things.
Enter: Sleep regression.
The dad explains that with these sleep changes, the wife is up every two hours with the baby to tend to its needs, while he peacefully sleeps through the night, uninterrupted.
He says the arrangement makes sense because his wife has insomnia anyway whereas he is more of a deep sleeper. Ah, that old 'deep sleeper' chestnut. Or should we say, red flag?
Anyway, this is where his issue comes in.
"Recently my wife has been asking me to wake up with the baby both days on the weekends so she can get an extra hour of sleep. Our baby wakes up around 7 am. I get the baby dressed and take over for that hour.
"But sometimes, I want to be the one that gets to sleep in an extra hour. I brought this up to her and she says while she's happy to let me nap during the day, she really needs that hour because she can't nap like I can.
"We got into an argument about it, and she said I'm being very insensitive because I know she is very exhausted, can't nap during the day, and she struggles going back to sleep every time the baby wakes up.
"But I'm exhausted too, work wears me out, and school days are long... and I sometimes want the hour in the morning. I don't want to spend my 'off time' napping, I want to play video games and chill out."
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'Your video game time might have to just suffer for a while'
The divisive post attracted over 6000 comments.
"She is up aaaaall night," began one response.
"She does not get breaks like you in the week. She is asking you to get up at 7 am. A defined time. Go to bed earlier if this is an issue. She is surviving.
"I doubt she is living her 'dream life' if this small request has been so poorly supported by you."
Another added, "I was so close to giving a 'not the a**hole' because new babies and sleep are hard, but then we got to 'video games'... Nope! You're the a**hole!
"You can't have both nights and mornings. And your video game time might have to just suffer for a while."
Many others agreed, with one writing, "Holy crap, I can't believe he doesn't wake up a SINGLE TIME ALL NIGHT and has the audacity to complain about 'losing his mornings!"
And some were confused as to why the dad was so tired.
"He sleeps every f**cking night! Why is he tired? Just because of one less hour?
"Maybe his wife should wake him every two hours for one week, then he'll see what tired is," an enraged commenter wrote.
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Originally published as I'm the dad of a newborn, I don't get up overnight but still want a sleep in
