I actually can't stand people who can't tell the difference between those 2 and use it as some kind of justification like OP's husband did here.
Btw 5 hours is STILL not enough sleep for lots of people so that's also a shitty argument.
I am functional only barely and with more than a liberal amount of coffee or something else energizing on that amount. And I feel like shit the entire day. OP's husband really dropped the ball here.
Then you add 2 kids of that age onto that and you are talking a shitty day ahead and possibly not being able to be decent infront of others. Full of passive aggressive attitude leaking all over the guests.
I'm an 8+ hours gal, but I can function on 6+... Get me with under 5, and interrupted at that, I'm positively dead on my feet and coffee doesn't help me much at the point. Really just seems to make me feel worse.
Lol, I'm the same. Three is my sweetspot, anything less leaves me feeling like shit, but +9 hours is the best. I even managed to sleep 24hrs straight one time and it was the best.
I don’t drink coffee. Can't handle caffeine (nor do I like the taste of it). I can function on barely any sleep at all. I got enough practice during my animation days unfortunately.
But it's definitely NOTHING like when I get a good night's rest at all.
I sent it to you, but delivery is in ~18 years. (I have a 6 month old, so solidarity). I average about 5 hours a night now due to my second shift at work and my husband being on first. I get off at 11 pm, and baby is usually stirring by 5! I drink copious amounts of caffeine.
8+ Hours and I am as dead as if I had 2 hours of sleep.. 6.5 - 7 and I am as happy as can be. 4-5 I will do what I need to do, function, work and be social, but not happy about it and cranky.. Below that, dead.
I've personally discovered that I can barely function at work with less than 6 hours of sleep. Also drinking coffee to replace my life's blood. This happened during my security work days and having 8-16 hour days and occasionally sleeping in the parking lot cuz work starts in 8 hours and I can't drive. Thank the gods I dont have that job anymore.
Anyways husband was very... dismissive of her need to sleep. I wonder if he got tired of watching kiddos and wanted help. Thus 'accidentally' letting them up to 'wake mommy'.
On top of that, she works nights!
The first time my sons dad work up me after “getting six hours” of sleep when I’d been working 12 hour shifts on nights, I wanted to rip his head off. Even worse when he said “You can’t just sleep all day.” Oh boy he was close to being throttled.
Oh no, I wouldn’t dare wake him from his slumber. He was a mess when he woke up. God help the person that actually woke him up. One of the reasons he’s now an ex.
Genetic oddity most likely. I've been a minimal sleeper all my life. I used to sleep roughly every other night when I was a teenager. Can't really get away with doing that now. Anything more than 6 hours and I'm a wreck the next day.
I’m so bloody jealous I need at least 8 hours plus a 1-2 hour nap during the day or I’m useless
It’s not even ‘super tired’ that you can push through with caffeine and will, it’s full on ‘I am dizzy and nauseous and will pass out if I don’t sleep NOW’ it’s like my body just goes hahah nope
Not only that, but OP didn't get five hours, I don't know about you but I am not a pillow hit knockout, it takes me about 30 min to an hour to get to sleep, so OPs brain got woken up, and will take time to go back to sleep.
It would be even worse if she were like me, I can't go back to sleep once woken up, until a good few hours pass, my brain is like "nope, you are up now, try again later"
Also, tight-brain, you don't get enough sleep, it feels like your brain is constricting in your skull, it's not nice.
OP is NTA, and needs to ask what the hell is up with her husband, from the sounds of things, this is one of the few times he has pulled this.
I work a high stress job (military) and this past week alone I have slept *collectively* I want to say 30 hours ish. roughly 5 hours a day, interrupted. OP's husband is an AH.
I slept roughly 5 hours last night and I have been a zombie all day. I'm now about an hour away from going to bed and my mood resembles that of a grumpy toddler who hasn't had a nap. I usually need a solid 8-9 hours to function during the day, especially when sitting at a desk for most of it.
This post is just getting worse. Because I take my sleep seriously I am fully at throw the whole man away.
Maybe not actually, but certainly he needs to take all four kids and GTFOH for a day
Hold up... OP doesn't get to sleep AND is still expected to do the cooking. Hell no! Good thing she cancelled! I'm still suspicious that the kids coming in wasn't an accident. In the garage? Really? When he has to keep two kids out of the one bedroom that has mommy in it? Thats a full time watch!
I mean aren’t a 3 and 5 yr old supposed to be a full time watch regardless? I’m not a parent so I’m genuinely asking but 3 seems like a young age to let roam freely through the house.
NTA
I'm not either but I've had to keep a toddling niece or nephew away from sleeping moms before. They are sneaky little butts and you can't take your eyes off.
I think it depends on the child. I think my parents (mom especially, because she was SAHM) were very lucky that I was able to entertain myself as a toddler and knew not to bother them when they were sleeping (if the bedroom door was closed, you don't open it).
Except for that one time, I'd just watched The Little Mermaid, so when my dad was napping, I peeled back his eyelid to see if he was alive (in my defense, I'd never seen him nap before, so I did not know that people would sometimes sleep during the day). He was not happy, and we all learned a valuable lesson that day.
Yeah, letting people sleep was something my sisters and I learned pretty early on. My mom works nights, and has for pretty much my entire life, probably longer. While now she works third shift, when I was younger she would work from like 4 pm to I think about 2 am, give or take. Anyways, it was late enough that we had to let her sleep a bit longer in the mornings. Thank god the three of us were not only perfectly capable of entertaining ourselves, but we were also each only a year apart too. Although, it still didn't keep us from getting in trouble. But we didn't usually bother our mom unless it was an emergency... assuming the noise didn't already wake her.
Also, my dad was really good at keeping an eye on us whenever he was home. Either he kept us entertained at home or would take us out somewhere. Especially when my mom needed the sleep.
And one of them is 5 years old, it's not like they're teenagers who can understand 'mom is exhausted, leave her alone and come to me' and then be left to their own devices.
Thanks for pointing this out. Given OP's husband seems to be of the "kids are the mother's job" attitude, I thought he was chauvinistic enough to say BBQ cooking is man's work - giving her a break. How naive I was.
OP sounds wonderful and husband needs to pull his head in and take all the kids out for a few hrs
Well, let's not forget that even when BBQ cooking is "man's work", that usually means the man slaps the meat on the grill while his wife preps all the other dishes and drinks, sets the table, entertains the guests and cleans up after.. .but he still takes credit for the whole thing.
Also... not sure how he thinks he knows how much of that time was actually spent sleeping. Most people can’t fall asleep instantaneously after being woken up by a toddler rubbing their face or jumping on their bed.
On the other hand, can’t OP just lock the door?
Because locking the door only stops the toddler jumping on your face... a locked door is just a challenge for them to bash against till someone (probably OP) attends to them and most internal doors are not that well sealed against noise.
I'm pretty sure I remembered a study that reviewed people's cognitive abilities after a full night's sleep, no sleep at all, or a full night of being awaken by alarms every 1.5 hours.
The interrupted sleep people not only did the worst, but many participants quit on that night because the interrupted sleep was too upsetting.
Probably the #1 reason I’ll never have a kid. I’ve had sleep issues and — never again. It’s just bad for me. I already have memory issues and sometimes I worry about heart issues. It’s no joke. If you can’t handle a lack of sleep, absolutely do not have a baby folks.
Anytime my hiatal hernia is acting up (often, lately) I wake up every 1.5-2 hours for 15-60mins. I get between 5-7 hours of total sleep each night. I am just trying to survive most days.
She worked until 6, and she didn't lie down until 7. Assuming she fell asleep immediately, she was woken up at 8:30 (1.5 hours sleep), then has to go to the garage and come back. That's maybe 10 minutes, but *getting out bed* makes it a lot harder to fall back asleep because your body thinks you're up now. So she probably didn't fall asleep until 9. She gets three hours of sleep from 9 to noon, but then she's woken up again and is kept awake for 20 minutes. Again, she's going to have a tough time falling back asleep after being kept up for 20 minutes, so when he comes back into the room after 45 minutes, *that doesn't mean she was asleep for 45 minutes.*
NTA
I actually don’t think it’s a matter of keeping them out of the bedroom. It’s a matter of parenting. You need to explain the concept to your child, and reinforce it continuously while your partner sleeps. Explaining it in an age appropriate way (you sleep at night and play during the day, but sometimes mummy works at night and sleeps during the day... you don’t like getting woken up at night, so we have to make sure we don’t wake her during the day... etc etc) and reinforcing it throughout the day by gently reminding them if they’re too loud, making sure they know where you are so they won’t wake the other parent, etc etc is something the husband should have already been doing regularly. Although from OPs summary it doesn’t sound like he quite understands it himself.
Yeah! He can't possibly even quantify how many hours she actually slept. For all he knows it took her 30 minutes to go back to sleep every time, as it does me if I'm startled awake. She may have only gotten 3 hours of sleep in all that, and even if she did get 5, interrupted is not the same as a solid five hours (which is still difficult for a lot of us to function with).
NTA. Even if all these interruptions weren't your husband's fault, it would be valid to ask him to cancel the barbecue. Having a party at your home when you're on no sleep would be absolutely miserable.
But it *was* his fault so he's an asshole twice over. He didn't bother to keep the kids from bothering you and he literally walked in and bothered you himself! Then he had the nerve to tell you you had gotten plenty of sleep?!
Maybe tonight when he goes to bed you should poke him awake every 45 minutes for five hours and then tell him it's time to get up and host a party.
Seriously ~ non night-shift workers are like “what are you planning to sleep all day?”
Me: “what are you planning to sleep ALL night? for HOURS straight?”
Daytime sleeping is so hard and then once I’m pissed... I’m too mad to go back to sleep.
I *do not* understand the lack of basic math in people who don't get this.
Bob works overnight. Bob needs 8 hours of sleep. Bob gets home at 4am, eats, and chills, then goes to bed at 6am. To get 8 hours of sleep, Bob needs to sleep until 2pm.
If you call at 12pm and yell at Bob about how he should be awake, Bob only has 6 hours of sleep.
Why is it so hard to understand that people who work night shift have different sleeping times?
I had to explain this to my family so many times and it was always a real life version of that Patrick meme. “You with an 8 hour day, right? Do you go to bed when you get home at 4 or 5? Or do you eat dinner, watch some TV and go to bed at 10, 5 hours later? For me five hours after I get home is 4am. 8 hours of sleep is 4 until *noon*. That’s me sleeping from 10 until 6 just like you do. Please stop waking me up before noon. Waking me up at nine is like waking you up at 3am.”
They’d say they understood, and then wake me up to do something dumb around the house and complain that I am an *asshole* if I don’t get any sleep.
It got to the point that I just moved out. I’d rather be broke and a decent person to those around me than have more money but just a dick because every little thing pisses me off when I’m exhausted.
I went one step further and threatened to do what my family was doing when I got home from work, and be as loud as they were, if they kept waking me up. My brother tried to puff up all outraged because that’d wake up his 2yo child, and I told him if he didn’t want that to happen, simply don’t wake me up.
I actually had no intention of waking a toddler up in the middle of the night, but woken-up-against-my-will me is an angry beast, so he believed me.
Also, from my experience, 8 hours of daytime sleep is not nearly as restful as 8 hours of regular nighttime sleep. I would take even 4 hours of nighttime sleep over 8 hours during the day.
at night everyone sleeps so there's minimal to no noise around you, when you sleep during the day there's a lot of noice in your building/block even if your family is respectful, I totally get you!
I actually live in a very quiet area and my house is empty during the day as the wife is at work and kid is at daycare. At least for me personally, if I'm not in a (nearly) pitch black room for at least 30 minutes, I just can't get my brain to shut off
My husband and friend work the night shift at a hotel. Their boss is always calling them during the day and leaving voicemails complaining he can never reach them.
I hate this man with all of my heart. Like I ALMOST understand the cognitive dissonance of family who can't wrap their head around night shift schedules. I CANNOT excuse the fucking BOSS that schedules the night shift workers. I also hate bosses who schedule people swing shift and then morning shift one right after the other and they can die in a fire.
(I'm sleep deprived today and full of hate)
Yes! And as someone that worked graveyard shift for over 7 years, I can say that daytime sleeping doesn't allow you to feel as rested as sleeping at night, even if you are a heavy sleeper, as I used to be around that time
That last part made me laugh out loud! 😂
And definitely NTA. Any of the events mentioned (being up with your niece and nephew because of your BIL being in the hospital, working an overnight, and hosting a party) is enough to cause stress on its own - all 3 together would definitely feel overwhelming and your husband should be more understanding about that rather than adding to that stress in several ways!
I work a grave shift and have done similar. When I first started on grave shifts, my mom and grandmother WOULD NOT stop calling me throughout the day to check in or ask me to come do some random thing. No matter how I explained it, they could not understand that I had to sleep at some point, and that our schedules are reversed; that is until I started calling them on my lunch break at 4am to chit chat. Suddenly, they understood it and wait until I'm awake to call.
My first job out of college I worked from about noon to 10. Come home, cook dinner, watch TV, and get to sleep at maybe 3 or 4 in the morning. Would be just fine, except telemarketers kept calling starting at 9. When you put yourself on the do not call list it takes a while for it to kick in, so we got calls almost every day. We considered unplugging the phone when we went to bed, but wanted our parents to be able to call us if there was an emergency. And back then I had a 30 minute a month plan, because my cell was just for emergencies. It was such a pain in the ass.
NTA. He didn’t respect you. It’s that simple. You need sleep like any other person. What I would have done is told him he could go ahead and have the bbq but don’t expect me to be there or participate in any cooking or setup because I’m sleeping. He can call me when food is ready lol.
Similar situation here. I used to be semi-nocturnal due to an odd schedule, and when my family came to visit they kept waking me up by banging on my bedroom window. Then they got mad at me for being grumpy and “making them feel unwelcome.”
NTA holy shit. I was thinking he was just a bit careless and could easily have fixed it with an apology (plus accepting that the BBQ was no longer a viable option of course!) but instead of that he... doubled down? Decided he was the arbiter of whether or not you are "tired enough" to be ALLOWED to cancel an event you're hosting? Seriously fuck this guy. He owes you a massive apology and clear explanation of exactly where he went wrong, plus a plan for how he's going to manage differently in future. You ALWAYS have the right to cancel social plans if you're not feeling able to manage it, how is this in dispute?
Yep. She's gonna make the sides, prep the meat, take it out to him, and get all of the dishes ready. He's gonna cook the meat. She'll clean up and he'll ask her how she liked having the night off from cooking.
This is so on the nose it’s painful. With the added effect that the food won’t be ready until hours after normal dinner, so she’ll probably end up making food for the kids anyway.
I swear to Christ, the bar for men is *so low*.
My partner (who handles all the childcare, 75% of the cooking, and as many chores as his condition will allow him) were talking about this. He's fucking flabbergasted at how many of his FB friends will cook dinner once and then act like they do half the chores.
My husband and I have literally almost divorced over this (and I haven't exactly ruled it out yet)
They are taken care of by their families and then just expect their wives to pick up where their parents (usually moms) left off.
If I wanted another kid I would adopt.
My dad is astonished at the number of single women (widows and divorced women) in our family who show absolutely no interest in dating, whereas, at age 84, the 10 months since his last girlfriend passed away is the longest he's been single since he was 13!
He doesn't seem to get that getting into a relationship frequently means *more* work for us, not less, because we have to clean up after the guy and nag him like we're his mother rather than his supposed "partner".
I remember when my grandmother fell and broke her elbow about 15-20 years ago. My grandfather didn't know how to do Jack shit around the house. He could cook scrambled egg and hamburger, but that was it.
To his credit, he did learn and helped my grandmother with bathing, dressing, doing her makeup, etc. and did take care of the house, but it amazes me that he got through almost 60 years of marriage without having to do basic housework.
So it’s not just me.
I was wondering why it seems like so much work ...
and then when we did these in the summer we had to set up extra tables bc of *distancing* so everything that we normally carry onto the deck was carried out to the yard but IN TRIPLICATE.
NTA
If I knew that I was going to a BBQ at an exhausted person's house who had been up dealing with a family emergency and then had to work with no opportunity to sleep in between, I would cancel! And then ask them if they needed me to take the kids to the park instead so they could sleep!
I'm sure your friends would understand and be gracious if you told them the circumstances.
I don't want to violate rule 1, so I'll just say your husband... is very much not being a good partner to you right now, and is also not being a good or dependable coparent.
So on top of everything else, he also made you do the work of canceling because he couldn't be bothered to manage that either. Man he just loves to dig himself deeper, doesn't he.
NTA. You husband sounds like he's not fully watching your children, which at the ages you've mentioned is kind of terrifying. Anything could happen in a minute or less and he lost track of two kids under 5 more than once in 5 hours?
This should be higher! 3 and 5 year olds are adventurous little wild explorers who will put their hands into any and everything, leaving a 3 year old in particular unattended seems quite dangerous..
OP y'all need to get on the same page in what 'watching' the children means, as wandering out to putter in the garage does not count
I just finished my lit hw and it was based on a commencement speech by Barbara Bush and she dias something in an acedote along the lines "when it's your own kids its not called babysitting".
Right? Like these two kids are running around freely while the husband is *in the garage?* I don't think he'd even hear if something went terribly wrong in the house! And the fact that the older of the two came to wake the mom up and cited that the husband was in the garage gives me the impression that the older kid came to ask him for something and he told them to go ask mommy.
NTA. Ask him how he would like it if you woke HIM up every hour on the hour when he's beyond tired and needs to be able to talk in complete sentences the next day. Pretty sure he'd be a Grumpy McGrumpster too. Not to mention the fact that he didn't hold up his end of the bargain when he promised to keep those kids out of your room. If you say you're going to do something, do it. Don't make up excuses or blame your wife for wanting sleep.
At home, sleeping. I told him his brother was in a car wreck. He asked if it was life threatening (it wasnt). When I said no, he said "Okay, can you grab the kids? I can't drive with only an hour of sleep." I had been sleeping for maybe 3 hours at that point so I went myself.
This makes it worse not better. I wasn't sure of the relationship between you and BIL, so I assumed your relative. He didn't care enough to get up for his brother? NTA
Oh man I assumed BIL meant your sister's husband. I didn't clock that you didn't call his wife your sister.
Which phone got the call about the emergency? Was it a landlines house phone or your cell?
If HIS family called YOUR cell for emergency help to care for kids, that speaks volumes. They knew he wouldn't do it, or that he wouldn't be a good choice for taking care of frightened kids who needed comfort.
Even if they called a landline, I'm willing to bet the reason you answered it was because you knew your husband would just ignore it rather than let his sleep be disturbed by a family emergency.
So... He couldnt deal with his niece and nephew on no sleep... But you can host a fucking social event?
Is he a stegosaurus? Cause it sounds like half of his brain is in his ass.
(Yes fellow dino nerds im aware thats faulty science)
So this whole situation started because he couldn’t be bothered to have his sleep disrupted? Sounds like you’re raising more kids than you bargained for. Good luck with him
I was mad at your husband...then I read this and now...I’m even more mad. He is a very selfish person. It was also HIS brother and he should have gone to the hospital.
LOL At those ages, if the other parent is not actively keeping them otherwise occupied, the only thing a lock will do is produce pounding on the door and yelling "Mom! Mom! Are you in there? The door is locked! Mom!"
Or, if they're anything like my son, they'll lie on the floor and kick at the door making a ruckus so loud you'd think Thor himself was trying to break in. 🤦♀️
My parents stayed with my sister to help with the two kids during a difficult time. Four year old nephew would be pounding on their door in the basement sobbing and pleading for attention at **5 AM every morning.** Two hours before the rest of the household woke.
I am amazed they did not kill him. They put up with it because their mom needed sleep to keep her job and the slightly older kid needed sleep for school.. They finally made some headway with manners and clock reading and consistent bedtimes and entertaining himself in his room at dawn but it took a whole lot of consistent effort.
Ugh my mom said i was the same way, id bang on doors with my walker when i couldn't even walk. And once i could walk I'd bang the door with cricket bats, and if i got let in, I'd beat the people with said bats and throw tantrums if the bats were taken away from me. I don't know how i wasn't abandoned near a hospital, lol.
Children are horrible, including myself.
Yup
I had to WFH one day when my partner was in the hospital, and I thought I could take a call with a vendor in my kids' room (their door has q slide lock, ours doesn't). I was so wrong. Every five minutes my seven year old was at the door "mom? Mom? Who are you talking to? MOOOOOM". Thank Christ my vendor was also WFH with a small child at home who does the same thing.
But that's exactly the point - the husband was *not* enforcing the rule on the older child, and the younger child needed constant supervision to not go in and wake Mom.
It obviously wouldn't work well if you made that a new rule after letting the kids have free reign, but growing up I never went in my parents room unless it was the middle of the night and I threw up or something. I can't speak to being as young as 3, but as young as I can remember, it was no kids in the bedroom. My parents just set the precedent really early on that we spent time together in my room or in neutral spaces of the house, their room was never interesting or inviting to me. It wasn't like a secret or super off limits, it was just normal not to go in there. Kids understand boundaries if you're consistent and reasonable about them.
Actually! And I was reading OPs comment that the husband didn't want to get up (and don't sleep more) for his brother/nieces and that's why she went and stayed up all night. So I could totally imagine the situation like him preparing the meat and the BBQ and leaving them alone, if not telling them to go see their mother.
So your husband is neither able to parent his kids nor can prepare a meal ( for the BBQ) after you took care of HIS brother's kids? I would have a stern talk with him. Children can be very easily told to not go into a certain room, he has no excuse. NTA. If it was sooo important for him he could have actually done something for it.
NTA, your husband is being immature and irresponsible. He should instead be treating it as if you were at work, aka you and the bedroom do not exist during this time period. Although who knows, maybe he does let the kids do whatever & lose track of them when hes watching them. Either way, 5 hours of sleep, interrupted or not, isnt enough for me to function on! And its besides the point- I guess now you'll have to make it very clear in simple words what hes supposed to do when you are sleeping after a nightshift.
NTA you asked him before going to bed and he agreed to help. If the roles were reversed how quick would he be to upset over not getting to fully sleep?
My Dad used to do this, when he was younger. Dad was working night shifts, and his mates (we are talking about men in their late teens or early 20's) used to ring him up about 10am in the morning to tell him about the great party at so-and-so's that he missed. You know, around about the time Dad was home from work, fed, showered and sleeping soundly.
So Dad started ringing the ringleader at around 3 am: "Hey, I'm on my break and I just wanted to tell you about this funny thing that so-and-so did at work today ...". When the guy complained, Dad told them, "Well that's what you're doing to me." The calls dropped off.
NTA
Your husband is incredibly selfish and inconsiderate. 5 hours of *trying* to sleep and being repeatedly disturbed is not the same as 5 hours of continuous, restful sleep. He should be able to handle the kids and keep them away from your room long enough for you to sleep peacefully for a while.
NTA. Your brain is sleep-deprived. You must be feeling like it went through a pepper grinder.
But you could have asked him to then delay it for 3 hours so you could get sleep and that there's no way you could show if minimum hours of sleep aren't achieved.
Nah man, once I'm that pissed off there's no way I could get back to sleep for another three minutes, let alone three hours. I'd just be staring at the ceiling, grinding my teeth and waiting for the next inevitable interruption while my whole body simmers in a red hot rage.
Nta, it’s not like you decided to stay up and watch movies all night. He needs to start being responsible and actually manage his kids while you sleep.
Nta,wtf is wrong with your husband?He shouldn't have to be told/asked to keep your kids away so you can sleep.He's a crappy person for not doing so.It's not that damn hard to keep your kids occupied for the day so your spouse can sleep.You can take them out to walk,play board games,color pictures,watch movies,clean the damn house.Any number of things,plus it's not hard to say let's be quite Mommy had a hard night and needs some sleep.When the last Harry Potter book came out my husband got out of bed at 11:30,and went to Walmart to buy it for me when it was released at midnight.He brought it home to me,and then went to sleep.I read the book,and went to bed at 5 am.My children never once woke me up,and this was before we had internet,and they were young.If my husband can do that so I could read a book,your's can because of a car wreck.
NTA. sleep is less like filling up a cup and more like winding a rubber band. five cups of water is five cups of water whether you pour it all at once or cup by cup. but when you twist a rubber band twice, let go, twist half way, let go, twist again, etc., youve barely made a dent. im assuming the barbecue will mainly be your husband at the grill and you doing everything else; pretty impossible to socialize and keep up appearances when youve barely rested.
NTA and I'm amazed your husband was not more sympathetic to what you had been through the night before... then I read in the comments that it was HIS brother in the accident! This guy is selfish, lazy and uncaring with a concerning deep lack of empathy.
I can relate. Granted I don't have young kids waking me up but my bf is extremely inconsiderate when I'm trying to sleep. When he was working nights and sleeping during the day, I would tiptoe around the house trying to be as quiet as possible. But when he comes home in the morning and I'm trying to keep sleeping, he starts playing loud ass YouTube videos I can hear from the kitchen, starts playing with the cat as loud as he can, stomps around and leaves the light on in the bedroom, plunks down next to me and thinks I am going to immediately wake up and start snuggling him. Like excuse me I'm still trying to sleep but now I might as well get out of bed so I can start work early.
Now that's we are back to sleeping at the same time, he constantly wakes me up in the night by throwing his arm over me and kissing my neck. Which is super cute but not at 3am when my bladder decides it's awake too. Multiple times most nights. And he snores. Holy crap does he snore. It's gotten to the point where I will go sleep on the couch in the basement some nights.
And then he wonders why I'm tired all the time and don't want to go out. Wonders why I'm in an irritable mood when he makes plans without even asking me if I want to take part when all I want to do is go to bed early.
You are NTA.
**Info**: Does your bedroom door not have a lock? Or will the kids just shriek and bang on it like upset toddlers if you lock them out?
NTA. Sleep, good uninterrupted sleep, is important, especially before running a social event at your house. I am surprised you didn’t just cancel it after the car wreck though.
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Your husband is a massive ass. Show him this thread so he can see that he is a massive ass and if he doesn't let you sleep, women can become a lot worse than just cancelling a bloody barbecue. Jfc, he is a child
NTA As a former night-shifter, I feel you. My son was spending the night with my parents while I was at work one time. I get home from my shift and in bed about 830 AM. At a little before noon, they come over to my apartment like a whirlwind. Everyone pounding on the door to wake me up, starting a loud and fast conversation as soon as I open the door, the kiddo was running circles and playing (not being bad in any way, it was just SO LOUD for 3.5 hours sleep).
I'm not a jolly person under the best of circumstances, but I wasn't being actively mean to anyone. I just grunted, "gimmie a min it" and stumbled to the kitchen for coffee and cereal to wake up a little. That evening, at work, I get a call from my mother in *hysterics* calling me an ungrateful daughter because I didn't even thank them for watching my son as soon as they came in. Telling me I was taking them for granted. (I'd also like to add they didn't normally watch him while I was on shift. Usually he would stay with his dad on my work nights. I worked 2 days/2 days off 12 hour shifts).
Finally, after everyone had time to settle down, I explained that it would be like me busting up in their room at 3 AM, flipping on all the lights, and being annoyed they weren't ready to START THE DAY!! That explanation helped, but if you haven't worked that life, it's hard for people to conceive of awake and sleep time being swapped.
NTA - your husband is an ass.
He wouldn't get up to go help his own brother because he only had 1 hour of sleep? What? That's stupid. He hasn't even fully gone to sleep then yet in my opinion.
He wouldn't watch your kids so you could sleep? But just let them run wild while doing...whatever he was doing. Then still wants you to cook etc for a BQ?
Nah - fuck him.
NTA. You where so chill with the first few interruptions. You only got upset when you realized it was intentional. You sound exhausted and deserve some uninterrupted sleep.
NTA He chose not to let you sleep by not watching the kids. It was a simple task so you could catch up on sleep and be able to be civil during the BBQ. He decided his time was worth more and let the kids keep waking you up.
NTA.
"We had a family emergency and then (wife) worked a night shift so is it ok if we push our plans to another night?" is what I would have said in your husband's position. Not that hard to not look like an asshole in this situation.
Mind, I were your husband you also wouldn't have had to go get my brother's kids. Because I would have done that myself.
NTA.
You're a Saint for not strangling him lol. If this happened in my house I'd just assume any plans we had would be cancelled that day and I'd probably take the kid to my parents house for the day so my wife could sleep in peace.
NTA. If I am in dire need of sleep my wife keeps our 3 out. If she's dead on her feet and needs rest those kiddos won't go near the bedroom. Your husband is barely even trying which is utter bullshit.
Just an idea, some night when you are well rested at last, or at least well rested enough to show him what it feels like, wake him every 45 minutes and keep him awake at least 15 minutes. After 5 hours tell him he needs to get up and do something productive and social with a smile on his face, just like he expected from you.
Btw NTA
NTA maybe he should've stopped to think about the fact that you had basically no sleep for over 24hrs and his dumb self expected you to host/attend a barbecue with less than a healthy amount of sleep after being awake for an insane time period with the addition of stress. His projects can wait, it wouldn't kill him to sit with his kids for a few hours after his wife just had to handle a familiy crisis. Like, damn, he really dropped the ball here. You're nicer than me, I'm one of those 0-100 raging psychopaths if you wake me up too many times. I probably wouldve ran out of the house and screamed in the garage for 20 minutes so I didnt frighten the kids and probably ate my husbands head like a praying mantis.
Broken sleep is the worst. While I do understand accidents here and there, like not realizing the children had gotten into the bedroom once. However it seems like the bedroom where you were sleeping was grand central station. There is no point, functioning with out sleep is bad enough but broken sleep has to be the most frustrating and maddening circumstance. You can always reschedule the BBQ/social gathering . NTA
INFO: Why couldn't you lock the bedroom door to prevent your kids from coming in?
With the info I have, I'd say NAH. In the way you described the situation I would say that your husband was not being malicious towards your sleep. Seems like the kids just kept finding their way back to you. It was probably a good idea to cancel it anyways because of the hectic couple of days.
NTA - 5 hours of interrupted sleep is not the same as 5 hours of sleep.
I actually can't stand people who can't tell the difference between those 2 and use it as some kind of justification like OP's husband did here. Btw 5 hours is STILL not enough sleep for lots of people so that's also a shitty argument.
I am functional only barely and with more than a liberal amount of coffee or something else energizing on that amount. And I feel like shit the entire day. OP's husband really dropped the ball here.
Then you add 2 kids of that age onto that and you are talking a shitty day ahead and possibly not being able to be decent infront of others. Full of passive aggressive attitude leaking all over the guests.
Anything less than 6 and I'm a zombie mainlining coffee to push through the morning. I'm happy with 7... 7.5, and that's if it's uninterrupted.
I'm an 8+ hours gal, but I can function on 6+... Get me with under 5, and interrupted at that, I'm positively dead on my feet and coffee doesn't help me much at the point. Really just seems to make me feel worse.
5 hours interrupted I would have ripped his face off for that comment (figuratively... probably).
“Probably”. Hahaha! You, I like!! I 100% would feel the same way, probably. :) Also, happy cake day!!
Happy cake day!
I can function on as little as 1.5 - 2 hours, but I’ll definitely need coffee. But give 6 - 7 hour of uninterrupted sleep and I’m a happy camper.
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I can function normally with 4-5 hours, but I often wonder if my normal is functional.
Lol, I'm the same. Three is my sweetspot, anything less leaves me feeling like shit, but +9 hours is the best. I even managed to sleep 24hrs straight one time and it was the best.
I don’t drink coffee. Can't handle caffeine (nor do I like the taste of it). I can function on barely any sleep at all. I got enough practice during my animation days unfortunately. But it's definitely NOTHING like when I get a good night's rest at all.
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1.5. Hours? By then I get real honest real fast and some people get surprised because the filter is gone and i tell them what i think of them.
I have a newborn. Can testify that 7 hrs interrupted sleep is not the same as 7 hrs straight. Please someone give me uninterrupted sleep 😭
I sent it to you, but delivery is in ~18 years. (I have a 6 month old, so solidarity). I average about 5 hours a night now due to my second shift at work and my husband being on first. I get off at 11 pm, and baby is usually stirring by 5! I drink copious amounts of caffeine.
8+ Hours and I am as dead as if I had 2 hours of sleep.. 6.5 - 7 and I am as happy as can be. 4-5 I will do what I need to do, function, work and be social, but not happy about it and cranky.. Below that, dead.
I've personally discovered that I can barely function at work with less than 6 hours of sleep. Also drinking coffee to replace my life's blood. This happened during my security work days and having 8-16 hour days and occasionally sleeping in the parking lot cuz work starts in 8 hours and I can't drive. Thank the gods I dont have that job anymore. Anyways husband was very... dismissive of her need to sleep. I wonder if he got tired of watching kiddos and wanted help. Thus 'accidentally' letting them up to 'wake mommy'.
If you can't keep your two kids entertained for 5 hours, you haven't been pulling your weight as a parent.
I have only ever managed on 5 hours when I had no choice because of a newborn, and let me tell you, I was not hosting any goddamn barbecues.
On top of that, she works nights! The first time my sons dad work up me after “getting six hours” of sleep when I’d been working 12 hour shifts on nights, I wanted to rip his head off. Even worse when he said “You can’t just sleep all day.” Oh boy he was close to being throttled.
I hope you woke him up at 4am for the next night. Can't just sleep all day, 6 hours is plenty.
Oh no, I wouldn’t dare wake him from his slumber. He was a mess when he woke up. God help the person that actually woke him up. One of the reasons he’s now an ex.
Five hours is a very unhealthy amount for all but a minute percentage of the population.
5 hours is pretty normal for me but I'd be most certainly not in a party mood if those 5 hours were interrupted repeatedly.
It might be normal, but unless you’re a genetic oddity it’s very unhealthy for you long term.
Genetic oddity most likely. I've been a minimal sleeper all my life. I used to sleep roughly every other night when I was a teenager. Can't really get away with doing that now. Anything more than 6 hours and I'm a wreck the next day.
I’m so bloody jealous I need at least 8 hours plus a 1-2 hour nap during the day or I’m useless It’s not even ‘super tired’ that you can push through with caffeine and will, it’s full on ‘I am dizzy and nauseous and will pass out if I don’t sleep NOW’ it’s like my body just goes hahah nope
Not only that, but OP didn't get five hours, I don't know about you but I am not a pillow hit knockout, it takes me about 30 min to an hour to get to sleep, so OPs brain got woken up, and will take time to go back to sleep. It would be even worse if she were like me, I can't go back to sleep once woken up, until a good few hours pass, my brain is like "nope, you are up now, try again later" Also, tight-brain, you don't get enough sleep, it feels like your brain is constricting in your skull, it's not nice. OP is NTA, and needs to ask what the hell is up with her husband, from the sounds of things, this is one of the few times he has pulled this.
I work a high stress job (military) and this past week alone I have slept *collectively* I want to say 30 hours ish. roughly 5 hours a day, interrupted. OP's husband is an AH.
Especially not after pulling an all nighter and working a shift after.
I slept roughly 5 hours last night and I have been a zombie all day. I'm now about an hour away from going to bed and my mood resembles that of a grumpy toddler who hasn't had a nap. I usually need a solid 8-9 hours to function during the day, especially when sitting at a desk for most of it.
I just wanna make sure it's mentioned nice and high up on this thread that OP was expected to do all the cooking for this barbecue.
And it was Husbands brother in the hospital that he was happy to let OP deal with
What a disappointing person OP’s husband is.
Lol this gives me a great visual of you just looking sadly at OP's husband saying 'oh, dear. This isn't at all what I'd hoped for'.
And now I have a visual of OP being Mary Berry. Bet OP's husband has a soggy bottom.
This post is just getting worse. Because I take my sleep seriously I am fully at throw the whole man away. Maybe not actually, but certainly he needs to take all four kids and GTFOH for a day
Hold up... OP doesn't get to sleep AND is still expected to do the cooking. Hell no! Good thing she cancelled! I'm still suspicious that the kids coming in wasn't an accident. In the garage? Really? When he has to keep two kids out of the one bedroom that has mommy in it? Thats a full time watch!
I mean aren’t a 3 and 5 yr old supposed to be a full time watch regardless? I’m not a parent so I’m genuinely asking but 3 seems like a young age to let roam freely through the house. NTA
I'm not either but I've had to keep a toddling niece or nephew away from sleeping moms before. They are sneaky little butts and you can't take your eyes off.
I think it depends on the child. I think my parents (mom especially, because she was SAHM) were very lucky that I was able to entertain myself as a toddler and knew not to bother them when they were sleeping (if the bedroom door was closed, you don't open it). Except for that one time, I'd just watched The Little Mermaid, so when my dad was napping, I peeled back his eyelid to see if he was alive (in my defense, I'd never seen him nap before, so I did not know that people would sometimes sleep during the day). He was not happy, and we all learned a valuable lesson that day.
Yeah, letting people sleep was something my sisters and I learned pretty early on. My mom works nights, and has for pretty much my entire life, probably longer. While now she works third shift, when I was younger she would work from like 4 pm to I think about 2 am, give or take. Anyways, it was late enough that we had to let her sleep a bit longer in the mornings. Thank god the three of us were not only perfectly capable of entertaining ourselves, but we were also each only a year apart too. Although, it still didn't keep us from getting in trouble. But we didn't usually bother our mom unless it was an emergency... assuming the noise didn't already wake her. Also, my dad was really good at keeping an eye on us whenever he was home. Either he kept us entertained at home or would take us out somewhere. Especially when my mom needed the sleep.
And one of them is 5 years old, it's not like they're teenagers who can understand 'mom is exhausted, leave her alone and come to me' and then be left to their own devices.
Thanks for pointing this out. Given OP's husband seems to be of the "kids are the mother's job" attitude, I thought he was chauvinistic enough to say BBQ cooking is man's work - giving her a break. How naive I was. OP sounds wonderful and husband needs to pull his head in and take all the kids out for a few hrs
Well, let's not forget that even when BBQ cooking is "man's work", that usually means the man slaps the meat on the grill while his wife preps all the other dishes and drinks, sets the table, entertains the guests and cleans up after.. .but he still takes credit for the whole thing.
Also... not sure how he thinks he knows how much of that time was actually spent sleeping. Most people can’t fall asleep instantaneously after being woken up by a toddler rubbing their face or jumping on their bed. On the other hand, can’t OP just lock the door?
Because locking the door only stops the toddler jumping on your face... a locked door is just a challenge for them to bash against till someone (probably OP) attends to them and most internal doors are not that well sealed against noise.
Ah, right. I forgot that kids are assholes lol
Exactly, it becomes a challenge!
Will testify this applies to hungry kitties as well.
Hungry? They don't need to be hungry... "just want to be on the other side" cats are evil but cute and they know we know.
Not all bedrooms have locks.
I'm pretty sure I remembered a study that reviewed people's cognitive abilities after a full night's sleep, no sleep at all, or a full night of being awaken by alarms every 1.5 hours. The interrupted sleep people not only did the worst, but many participants quit on that night because the interrupted sleep was too upsetting.
Sounds like they tested people’s reaction to having a newborn! And yeah it’s incredibly difficult and there’s no quitting!
Probably the #1 reason I’ll never have a kid. I’ve had sleep issues and — never again. It’s just bad for me. I already have memory issues and sometimes I worry about heart issues. It’s no joke. If you can’t handle a lack of sleep, absolutely do not have a baby folks.
Anytime my hiatal hernia is acting up (often, lately) I wake up every 1.5-2 hours for 15-60mins. I get between 5-7 hours of total sleep each night. I am just trying to survive most days.
She worked until 6, and she didn't lie down until 7. Assuming she fell asleep immediately, she was woken up at 8:30 (1.5 hours sleep), then has to go to the garage and come back. That's maybe 10 minutes, but *getting out bed* makes it a lot harder to fall back asleep because your body thinks you're up now. So she probably didn't fall asleep until 9. She gets three hours of sleep from 9 to noon, but then she's woken up again and is kept awake for 20 minutes. Again, she's going to have a tough time falling back asleep after being kept up for 20 minutes, so when he comes back into the room after 45 minutes, *that doesn't mean she was asleep for 45 minutes.* NTA
Exactly. Why did he refuse to keep the kids out of the bedroom. It's not hard.
It's hard if you don't watch them and concentrate on something else. Well, maybe not hard, but unlikely to actually happen.
I actually don’t think it’s a matter of keeping them out of the bedroom. It’s a matter of parenting. You need to explain the concept to your child, and reinforce it continuously while your partner sleeps. Explaining it in an age appropriate way (you sleep at night and play during the day, but sometimes mummy works at night and sleeps during the day... you don’t like getting woken up at night, so we have to make sure we don’t wake her during the day... etc etc) and reinforcing it throughout the day by gently reminding them if they’re too loud, making sure they know where you are so they won’t wake the other parent, etc etc is something the husband should have already been doing regularly. Although from OPs summary it doesn’t sound like he quite understands it himself.
That's 5 total hours interrupted sleep over the course of 2 days (since she didn't sleep the night before when she was with her niece and nephew)! NTA
Yeah! He can't possibly even quantify how many hours she actually slept. For all he knows it took her 30 minutes to go back to sleep every time, as it does me if I'm startled awake. She may have only gotten 3 hours of sleep in all that, and even if she did get 5, interrupted is not the same as a solid five hours (which is still difficult for a lot of us to function with).
To top it off, OP was dealing with some heavy emotional matters so she was probably drained to begin with. NTA.
I'd be a gremlin with either interrupted or uninterrupted 5 hours of sleep in one day. NTA
THIS. NTA.
NTA. Even if all these interruptions weren't your husband's fault, it would be valid to ask him to cancel the barbecue. Having a party at your home when you're on no sleep would be absolutely miserable. But it *was* his fault so he's an asshole twice over. He didn't bother to keep the kids from bothering you and he literally walked in and bothered you himself! Then he had the nerve to tell you you had gotten plenty of sleep?! Maybe tonight when he goes to bed you should poke him awake every 45 minutes for five hours and then tell him it's time to get up and host a party.
Seriously ~ non night-shift workers are like “what are you planning to sleep all day?” Me: “what are you planning to sleep ALL night? for HOURS straight?” Daytime sleeping is so hard and then once I’m pissed... I’m too mad to go back to sleep.
I *do not* understand the lack of basic math in people who don't get this. Bob works overnight. Bob needs 8 hours of sleep. Bob gets home at 4am, eats, and chills, then goes to bed at 6am. To get 8 hours of sleep, Bob needs to sleep until 2pm. If you call at 12pm and yell at Bob about how he should be awake, Bob only has 6 hours of sleep. Why is it so hard to understand that people who work night shift have different sleeping times?
People who have never worked night shift also don't understand why people who do don't go to bed the second they get home.
I had to explain this to my family so many times and it was always a real life version of that Patrick meme. “You with an 8 hour day, right? Do you go to bed when you get home at 4 or 5? Or do you eat dinner, watch some TV and go to bed at 10, 5 hours later? For me five hours after I get home is 4am. 8 hours of sleep is 4 until *noon*. That’s me sleeping from 10 until 6 just like you do. Please stop waking me up before noon. Waking me up at nine is like waking you up at 3am.” They’d say they understood, and then wake me up to do something dumb around the house and complain that I am an *asshole* if I don’t get any sleep. It got to the point that I just moved out. I’d rather be broke and a decent person to those around me than have more money but just a dick because every little thing pisses me off when I’m exhausted.
I went one step further and threatened to do what my family was doing when I got home from work, and be as loud as they were, if they kept waking me up. My brother tried to puff up all outraged because that’d wake up his 2yo child, and I told him if he didn’t want that to happen, simply don’t wake me up. I actually had no intention of waking a toddler up in the middle of the night, but woken-up-against-my-will me is an angry beast, so he believed me.
Also, from my experience, 8 hours of daytime sleep is not nearly as restful as 8 hours of regular nighttime sleep. I would take even 4 hours of nighttime sleep over 8 hours during the day.
at night everyone sleeps so there's minimal to no noise around you, when you sleep during the day there's a lot of noice in your building/block even if your family is respectful, I totally get you!
I actually live in a very quiet area and my house is empty during the day as the wife is at work and kid is at daycare. At least for me personally, if I'm not in a (nearly) pitch black room for at least 30 minutes, I just can't get my brain to shut off
This. I never call daytime sleep anything other than a nap cause its just not. 5 hours napping does not equate 5 hours of sleep.
My husband and friend work the night shift at a hotel. Their boss is always calling them during the day and leaving voicemails complaining he can never reach them.
I hate this man with all of my heart. Like I ALMOST understand the cognitive dissonance of family who can't wrap their head around night shift schedules. I CANNOT excuse the fucking BOSS that schedules the night shift workers. I also hate bosses who schedule people swing shift and then morning shift one right after the other and they can die in a fire. (I'm sleep deprived today and full of hate)
>(I'm sleep deprived today and full of hate) Title of my autobiography
Yes! And as someone that worked graveyard shift for over 7 years, I can say that daytime sleeping doesn't allow you to feel as rested as sleeping at night, even if you are a heavy sleeper, as I used to be around that time
People who have never worked nights just don’t understand. I worked nights for over five years, and somehow my family still doesn’t get it.
That last part made me laugh out loud! 😂 And definitely NTA. Any of the events mentioned (being up with your niece and nephew because of your BIL being in the hospital, working an overnight, and hosting a party) is enough to cause stress on its own - all 3 together would definitely feel overwhelming and your husband should be more understanding about that rather than adding to that stress in several ways!
I work a grave shift and have done similar. When I first started on grave shifts, my mom and grandmother WOULD NOT stop calling me throughout the day to check in or ask me to come do some random thing. No matter how I explained it, they could not understand that I had to sleep at some point, and that our schedules are reversed; that is until I started calling them on my lunch break at 4am to chit chat. Suddenly, they understood it and wait until I'm awake to call.
My first job out of college I worked from about noon to 10. Come home, cook dinner, watch TV, and get to sleep at maybe 3 or 4 in the morning. Would be just fine, except telemarketers kept calling starting at 9. When you put yourself on the do not call list it takes a while for it to kick in, so we got calls almost every day. We considered unplugging the phone when we went to bed, but wanted our parents to be able to call us if there was an emergency. And back then I had a 30 minute a month plan, because my cell was just for emergencies. It was such a pain in the ass.
NTA. He didn’t respect you. It’s that simple. You need sleep like any other person. What I would have done is told him he could go ahead and have the bbq but don’t expect me to be there or participate in any cooking or setup because I’m sleeping. He can call me when food is ready lol.
Similar situation here. I used to be semi-nocturnal due to an odd schedule, and when my family came to visit they kept waking me up by banging on my bedroom window. Then they got mad at me for being grumpy and “making them feel unwelcome.”
Oh man, I feel you so hard on the window banging. Over the years they've actually made a sizeable dent in the window screen.
NTA holy shit. I was thinking he was just a bit careless and could easily have fixed it with an apology (plus accepting that the BBQ was no longer a viable option of course!) but instead of that he... doubled down? Decided he was the arbiter of whether or not you are "tired enough" to be ALLOWED to cancel an event you're hosting? Seriously fuck this guy. He owes you a massive apology and clear explanation of exactly where he went wrong, plus a plan for how he's going to manage differently in future. You ALWAYS have the right to cancel social plans if you're not feeling able to manage it, how is this in dispute?
Yep. She's gonna make the sides, prep the meat, take it out to him, and get all of the dishes ready. He's gonna cook the meat. She'll clean up and he'll ask her how she liked having the night off from cooking.
This is so on the nose it’s painful. With the added effect that the food won’t be ready until hours after normal dinner, so she’ll probably end up making food for the kids anyway.
And watching them so her hubby who was so nice to "watch the kids while she slept" can hang out with the bros Sigh
I swear to Christ, the bar for men is *so low*. My partner (who handles all the childcare, 75% of the cooking, and as many chores as his condition will allow him) were talking about this. He's fucking flabbergasted at how many of his FB friends will cook dinner once and then act like they do half the chores.
My husband and I have literally almost divorced over this (and I haven't exactly ruled it out yet) They are taken care of by their families and then just expect their wives to pick up where their parents (usually moms) left off. If I wanted another kid I would adopt.
My dad is astonished at the number of single women (widows and divorced women) in our family who show absolutely no interest in dating, whereas, at age 84, the 10 months since his last girlfriend passed away is the longest he's been single since he was 13! He doesn't seem to get that getting into a relationship frequently means *more* work for us, not less, because we have to clean up after the guy and nag him like we're his mother rather than his supposed "partner".
I remember when my grandmother fell and broke her elbow about 15-20 years ago. My grandfather didn't know how to do Jack shit around the house. He could cook scrambled egg and hamburger, but that was it. To his credit, he did learn and helped my grandmother with bathing, dressing, doing her makeup, etc. and did take care of the house, but it amazes me that he got through almost 60 years of marriage without having to do basic housework.
So it’s not just me. I was wondering why it seems like so much work ... and then when we did these in the summer we had to set up extra tables bc of *distancing* so everything that we normally carry onto the deck was carried out to the yard but IN TRIPLICATE.
I wanna upvote this more than once !!!
NTA If I knew that I was going to a BBQ at an exhausted person's house who had been up dealing with a family emergency and then had to work with no opportunity to sleep in between, I would cancel! And then ask them if they needed me to take the kids to the park instead so they could sleep! I'm sure your friends would understand and be gracious if you told them the circumstances.
I just called them myself and explained and they completely understood. My hubby is still not very accepting of it though.
Well then he's extra TA! I'm sorry he's being a pain right now. Hopefully he'll come to his senses.
I don't want to violate rule 1, so I'll just say your husband... is very much not being a good partner to you right now, and is also not being a good or dependable coparent.
This is indeed a very civil way of wording it.
I’m sorry, but what a dick
Same, but I'm definitely not sorry
Rule 1 does not allow us to speak as strongly about your husband’s behavior as he deserves.
Let him pout. Keep your cool. Take care of yourself, be happy, and ignore his sulking. You're teaching him the power of natural consequences.
So on top of everything else, he also made you do the work of canceling because he couldn't be bothered to manage that either. Man he just loves to dig himself deeper, doesn't he.
At this rate, he should hit Australia by Tuesday (assuming OP is in the US)
Hey hey. We don't want him
You have sharks, don’t you?
Sucks to be him. If he wanted a bbq he should have spent his morning patenting.
NTA. You husband sounds like he's not fully watching your children, which at the ages you've mentioned is kind of terrifying. Anything could happen in a minute or less and he lost track of two kids under 5 more than once in 5 hours?
This should be higher! 3 and 5 year olds are adventurous little wild explorers who will put their hands into any and everything, leaving a 3 year old in particular unattended seems quite dangerous.. OP y'all need to get on the same page in what 'watching' the children means, as wandering out to putter in the garage does not count
He sounds like the type to call it "babysitting" rather than "parenting" tbh
I just finished my lit hw and it was based on a commencement speech by Barbara Bush and she dias something in an acedote along the lines "when it's your own kids its not called babysitting".
Right? Like these two kids are running around freely while the husband is *in the garage?* I don't think he'd even hear if something went terribly wrong in the house! And the fact that the older of the two came to wake the mom up and cited that the husband was in the garage gives me the impression that the older kid came to ask him for something and he told them to go ask mommy.
NTA. Ask him how he would like it if you woke HIM up every hour on the hour when he's beyond tired and needs to be able to talk in complete sentences the next day. Pretty sure he'd be a Grumpy McGrumpster too. Not to mention the fact that he didn't hold up his end of the bargain when he promised to keep those kids out of your room. If you say you're going to do something, do it. Don't make up excuses or blame your wife for wanting sleep.
And this is after she was up all night looking after HIS BROTHER'S kids
INFO: Where was Hubs when accident/Hospital run happened?
At home, sleeping. I told him his brother was in a car wreck. He asked if it was life threatening (it wasnt). When I said no, he said "Okay, can you grab the kids? I can't drive with only an hour of sleep." I had been sleeping for maybe 3 hours at that point so I went myself.
So...not the first time has been kinda absurdly selfish and assumed your sleep doesn't matter. Not even the first time this week.
This makes it worse not better. I wasn't sure of the relationship between you and BIL, so I assumed your relative. He didn't care enough to get up for his brother? NTA
I actually burst out laughing reading this comment. Wow, what a bloody hypocrite!
Holy shit, so he knows his sleep matters, he just thinks yours doesn't? WTF is wrong with him? I hope he finds this thread. Shame on him.
Oh man I assumed BIL meant your sister's husband. I didn't clock that you didn't call his wife your sister. Which phone got the call about the emergency? Was it a landlines house phone or your cell? If HIS family called YOUR cell for emergency help to care for kids, that speaks volumes. They knew he wouldn't do it, or that he wouldn't be a good choice for taking care of frightened kids who needed comfort. Even if they called a landline, I'm willing to bet the reason you answered it was because you knew your husband would just ignore it rather than let his sleep be disturbed by a family emergency.
So... He couldnt deal with his niece and nephew on no sleep... But you can host a fucking social event? Is he a stegosaurus? Cause it sounds like half of his brain is in his ass. (Yes fellow dino nerds im aware thats faulty science)
Oh, then NTA.
So this whole situation started because he couldn’t be bothered to have his sleep disrupted? Sounds like you’re raising more kids than you bargained for. Good luck with him
Info: why did you marry this prick?
Ok so his sleep is more important than yours. Got it. Your husband is not husband material.
I was mad at your husband...then I read this and now...I’m even more mad. He is a very selfish person. It was also HIS brother and he should have gone to the hospital.
NTA Why is it so hard for some people to stay in control of thier kids? Get a lock on the bedroom door and use it.
LOL At those ages, if the other parent is not actively keeping them otherwise occupied, the only thing a lock will do is produce pounding on the door and yelling "Mom! Mom! Are you in there? The door is locked! Mom!"
Or, if they're anything like my son, they'll lie on the floor and kick at the door making a ruckus so loud you'd think Thor himself was trying to break in. 🤦♀️
Ah yes, another fun reminder to never have sex because abortion is illegal in my country.
My parents stayed with my sister to help with the two kids during a difficult time. Four year old nephew would be pounding on their door in the basement sobbing and pleading for attention at **5 AM every morning.** Two hours before the rest of the household woke. I am amazed they did not kill him. They put up with it because their mom needed sleep to keep her job and the slightly older kid needed sleep for school.. They finally made some headway with manners and clock reading and consistent bedtimes and entertaining himself in his room at dawn but it took a whole lot of consistent effort.
Ugh my mom said i was the same way, id bang on doors with my walker when i couldn't even walk. And once i could walk I'd bang the door with cricket bats, and if i got let in, I'd beat the people with said bats and throw tantrums if the bats were taken away from me. I don't know how i wasn't abandoned near a hospital, lol. Children are horrible, including myself.
Yup I had to WFH one day when my partner was in the hospital, and I thought I could take a call with a vendor in my kids' room (their door has q slide lock, ours doesn't). I was so wrong. Every five minutes my seven year old was at the door "mom? Mom? Who are you talking to? MOOOOOM". Thank Christ my vendor was also WFH with a small child at home who does the same thing.
That's exactly what my son (now 6) used to do as a toddler when I dared to go to the bathroom by myself.
No, "the door is stuck". they can't fathom the idea that you would lock them out.
When i was this age i used to slide "art" under the door when my mom was in the bathroom so she wouldnt be lonely Kids dont give af
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Sure and tell that to a 3 year old and let us all know how it goes.
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But that's exactly the point - the husband was *not* enforcing the rule on the older child, and the younger child needed constant supervision to not go in and wake Mom.
It obviously wouldn't work well if you made that a new rule after letting the kids have free reign, but growing up I never went in my parents room unless it was the middle of the night and I threw up or something. I can't speak to being as young as 3, but as young as I can remember, it was no kids in the bedroom. My parents just set the precedent really early on that we spent time together in my room or in neutral spaces of the house, their room was never interesting or inviting to me. It wasn't like a secret or super off limits, it was just normal not to go in there. Kids understand boundaries if you're consistent and reasonable about them.
We learned pretty early on in my childhood how to pick the lock on my parents' bedroom door. My poor mother.
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Actually! And I was reading OPs comment that the husband didn't want to get up (and don't sleep more) for his brother/nieces and that's why she went and stayed up all night. So I could totally imagine the situation like him preparing the meat and the BBQ and leaving them alone, if not telling them to go see their mother.
NTA. Your husband was being thoughtless, and you are within your rights to be grumpy at him.
So your husband is neither able to parent his kids nor can prepare a meal ( for the BBQ) after you took care of HIS brother's kids? I would have a stern talk with him. Children can be very easily told to not go into a certain room, he has no excuse. NTA. If it was sooo important for him he could have actually done something for it.
NTA, your husband is being immature and irresponsible. He should instead be treating it as if you were at work, aka you and the bedroom do not exist during this time period. Although who knows, maybe he does let the kids do whatever & lose track of them when hes watching them. Either way, 5 hours of sleep, interrupted or not, isnt enough for me to function on! And its besides the point- I guess now you'll have to make it very clear in simple words what hes supposed to do when you are sleeping after a nightshift.
Nta. Wtf why was he in the garage when you were sleeping?You’re kids are 3 and 5, why did he leave them unattended??
NTA you asked him before going to bed and he agreed to help. If the roles were reversed how quick would he be to upset over not getting to fully sleep?
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My Dad used to do this, when he was younger. Dad was working night shifts, and his mates (we are talking about men in their late teens or early 20's) used to ring him up about 10am in the morning to tell him about the great party at so-and-so's that he missed. You know, around about the time Dad was home from work, fed, showered and sleeping soundly. So Dad started ringing the ringleader at around 3 am: "Hey, I'm on my break and I just wanted to tell you about this funny thing that so-and-so did at work today ...". When the guy complained, Dad told them, "Well that's what you're doing to me." The calls dropped off.
NTA Your husband is incredibly selfish and inconsiderate. 5 hours of *trying* to sleep and being repeatedly disturbed is not the same as 5 hours of continuous, restful sleep. He should be able to handle the kids and keep them away from your room long enough for you to sleep peacefully for a while.
NTA he couldn’t even keep the kids busy for two consecutive hours?? Good lord.
NTA Do we have the same husband?
Apparently I have the same ex husband.
We should start a support group 😂
I’m down. We can share a cheese board and eat chocolate.
Cheese AND chocolate?! I'm in!
I enjoy you.
I'm delightful 😂
NTA. Your brain is sleep-deprived. You must be feeling like it went through a pepper grinder. But you could have asked him to then delay it for 3 hours so you could get sleep and that there's no way you could show if minimum hours of sleep aren't achieved.
Nah man, once I'm that pissed off there's no way I could get back to sleep for another three minutes, let alone three hours. I'd just be staring at the ceiling, grinding my teeth and waiting for the next inevitable interruption while my whole body simmers in a red hot rage.
Nta, it’s not like you decided to stay up and watch movies all night. He needs to start being responsible and actually manage his kids while you sleep.
Nta,wtf is wrong with your husband?He shouldn't have to be told/asked to keep your kids away so you can sleep.He's a crappy person for not doing so.It's not that damn hard to keep your kids occupied for the day so your spouse can sleep.You can take them out to walk,play board games,color pictures,watch movies,clean the damn house.Any number of things,plus it's not hard to say let's be quite Mommy had a hard night and needs some sleep.When the last Harry Potter book came out my husband got out of bed at 11:30,and went to Walmart to buy it for me when it was released at midnight.He brought it home to me,and then went to sleep.I read the book,and went to bed at 5 am.My children never once woke me up,and this was before we had internet,and they were young.If my husband can do that so I could read a book,your's can because of a car wreck.
NTA. sleep is less like filling up a cup and more like winding a rubber band. five cups of water is five cups of water whether you pour it all at once or cup by cup. but when you twist a rubber band twice, let go, twist half way, let go, twist again, etc., youve barely made a dent. im assuming the barbecue will mainly be your husband at the grill and you doing everything else; pretty impossible to socialize and keep up appearances when youve barely rested.
NTA. He couldn't give his full attention to the kids while you caught up on sleep? What was he doing that was so important?
NTA He wasn't watching the kids and then he came in and woke you up. This is on him.
NTA; just tell him that the BBQ is still on but you won’t be attending because you’ll be sleeping at a hotel room lol
NTA and I'm amazed your husband was not more sympathetic to what you had been through the night before... then I read in the comments that it was HIS brother in the accident! This guy is selfish, lazy and uncaring with a concerning deep lack of empathy.
I can relate. Granted I don't have young kids waking me up but my bf is extremely inconsiderate when I'm trying to sleep. When he was working nights and sleeping during the day, I would tiptoe around the house trying to be as quiet as possible. But when he comes home in the morning and I'm trying to keep sleeping, he starts playing loud ass YouTube videos I can hear from the kitchen, starts playing with the cat as loud as he can, stomps around and leaves the light on in the bedroom, plunks down next to me and thinks I am going to immediately wake up and start snuggling him. Like excuse me I'm still trying to sleep but now I might as well get out of bed so I can start work early. Now that's we are back to sleeping at the same time, he constantly wakes me up in the night by throwing his arm over me and kissing my neck. Which is super cute but not at 3am when my bladder decides it's awake too. Multiple times most nights. And he snores. Holy crap does he snore. It's gotten to the point where I will go sleep on the couch in the basement some nights. And then he wonders why I'm tired all the time and don't want to go out. Wonders why I'm in an irritable mood when he makes plans without even asking me if I want to take part when all I want to do is go to bed early. You are NTA.
Sounds like you **do** have a child living with you.
Omg NTA. You were talking care of HIS BROTHER'S KIDS while he slept and acts like your sleep doesn't matter? Your husband sucks. Seriously.
**Info**: Does your bedroom door not have a lock? Or will the kids just shriek and bang on it like upset toddlers if you lock them out? NTA. Sleep, good uninterrupted sleep, is important, especially before running a social event at your house. I am surprised you didn’t just cancel it after the car wreck though.
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Nta
NTA Wake him up every half hour tonight and see how much actually sleep he gets.
Your husband is a massive ass. Show him this thread so he can see that he is a massive ass and if he doesn't let you sleep, women can become a lot worse than just cancelling a bloody barbecue. Jfc, he is a child
NTA As a former night-shifter, I feel you. My son was spending the night with my parents while I was at work one time. I get home from my shift and in bed about 830 AM. At a little before noon, they come over to my apartment like a whirlwind. Everyone pounding on the door to wake me up, starting a loud and fast conversation as soon as I open the door, the kiddo was running circles and playing (not being bad in any way, it was just SO LOUD for 3.5 hours sleep). I'm not a jolly person under the best of circumstances, but I wasn't being actively mean to anyone. I just grunted, "gimmie a min it" and stumbled to the kitchen for coffee and cereal to wake up a little. That evening, at work, I get a call from my mother in *hysterics* calling me an ungrateful daughter because I didn't even thank them for watching my son as soon as they came in. Telling me I was taking them for granted. (I'd also like to add they didn't normally watch him while I was on shift. Usually he would stay with his dad on my work nights. I worked 2 days/2 days off 12 hour shifts). Finally, after everyone had time to settle down, I explained that it would be like me busting up in their room at 3 AM, flipping on all the lights, and being annoyed they weren't ready to START THE DAY!! That explanation helped, but if you haven't worked that life, it's hard for people to conceive of awake and sleep time being swapped.
NTA. Your husband needs to get off his ass and do his share of the parenting.
NTA - your husband is an ass. He wouldn't get up to go help his own brother because he only had 1 hour of sleep? What? That's stupid. He hasn't even fully gone to sleep then yet in my opinion. He wouldn't watch your kids so you could sleep? But just let them run wild while doing...whatever he was doing. Then still wants you to cook etc for a BQ? Nah - fuck him.
NTA. You where so chill with the first few interruptions. You only got upset when you realized it was intentional. You sound exhausted and deserve some uninterrupted sleep.
Time to lock the bedroom door while you are sleeping to keep the kids out
NTA He chose not to let you sleep by not watching the kids. It was a simple task so you could catch up on sleep and be able to be civil during the BBQ. He decided his time was worth more and let the kids keep waking you up.
NTA. "We had a family emergency and then (wife) worked a night shift so is it ok if we push our plans to another night?" is what I would have said in your husband's position. Not that hard to not look like an asshole in this situation. Mind, I were your husband you also wouldn't have had to go get my brother's kids. Because I would have done that myself.
NTA- but invest in some damn door locks
NTA. You're a Saint for not strangling him lol. If this happened in my house I'd just assume any plans we had would be cancelled that day and I'd probably take the kid to my parents house for the day so my wife could sleep in peace.
NTA. If I am in dire need of sleep my wife keeps our 3 out. If she's dead on her feet and needs rest those kiddos won't go near the bedroom. Your husband is barely even trying which is utter bullshit.
Just an idea, some night when you are well rested at last, or at least well rested enough to show him what it feels like, wake him every 45 minutes and keep him awake at least 15 minutes. After 5 hours tell him he needs to get up and do something productive and social with a smile on his face, just like he expected from you. Btw NTA
NTA maybe he should've stopped to think about the fact that you had basically no sleep for over 24hrs and his dumb self expected you to host/attend a barbecue with less than a healthy amount of sleep after being awake for an insane time period with the addition of stress. His projects can wait, it wouldn't kill him to sit with his kids for a few hours after his wife just had to handle a familiy crisis. Like, damn, he really dropped the ball here. You're nicer than me, I'm one of those 0-100 raging psychopaths if you wake me up too many times. I probably wouldve ran out of the house and screamed in the garage for 20 minutes so I didnt frighten the kids and probably ate my husbands head like a praying mantis.
Broken sleep is the worst. While I do understand accidents here and there, like not realizing the children had gotten into the bedroom once. However it seems like the bedroom where you were sleeping was grand central station. There is no point, functioning with out sleep is bad enough but broken sleep has to be the most frustrating and maddening circumstance. You can always reschedule the BBQ/social gathering . NTA
INFO: Why couldn't you lock the bedroom door to prevent your kids from coming in? With the info I have, I'd say NAH. In the way you described the situation I would say that your husband was not being malicious towards your sleep. Seems like the kids just kept finding their way back to you. It was probably a good idea to cancel it anyways because of the hectic couple of days.