The Call of the Child
Posted on June 26th, 2009 – 12:17 PMBy Kay Krhin
There was discussion in the previous post of how to get your kids to bed these long summer evenings. Here’s another question - once you finally collapse in bed how do exhausted parents decide who gets up to check on them if they wake up? For example…
It’s 2 a.m. You are deliciously and deservedly fast asleep.
A piercing “WAAAAAH!” fills the night air. The toddler must have had a bad dream, needs a drink of water or perhaps rolled out of bed.
You are now wide awake, frozen, waiting to see if it is just a passing cry or if they’ll lull themselves right back to sleep.
There’s another good reason not to move.
Is your spouse awake? Is he/she playing ‘possum feigning sleep until the other throws the covers aside and bumps their way through the dark?
Some whisper and rationalize who did more that day.
“I worked overtime and then went to the grocery store and mailed those packages to your parents today. I need my rest. ”
“But I need to get up extra early to drop the kids off at daycare and get to my morning meeting on time. I need my rest.”
“I went through 20 hours of labor. I need my rest.”
Okay, maybe that last one wasn’t fair.
________________________________________
Ah, mid-night martyrdom.
The thing is, most of the time you’re both awake anyway and won’t get back to sleep until the other comes to bed.
I know most of these scenarios have played out in one way or another in our house. Obviously, if it’s an urgent or terrified cry one of us bolts to their bedside.
I try to put myself in the child’s shoes. I remember feeling much more secure if mom or dad came to comfort me when I had a bad dream of Jaws, Bigfoot or aliens chasing me. (nightmares from the ’70’s).
Sometimes the child decides for you. Whomever they are crying out for is the clearly chosen one. “Mama!” or “Dada!”
Then there’s the obvious - take turns.
How do you determine who gets up in the middle of the night?
14 Responses to "The Call of the Child"
During my maternity leaves it was easy. If it was a weekday night, the crying child was all mine. If it was the weekend, the responsibility all belonged to my husband.
Now I totally play the I’m asleep and don’t hear it game. Eventually my husband kicks me and says “You’re turn.” to which I reply “10 Centimeters my friend, 10 centimeters.” That however garners no sympathy and I go comfort the child, more often than not waking up in their twin bed in the morning.
My husband works overnights 4 nights a week, so that’s a no-brainer - if one of them is crying loud/long enough to wake me up (which takes an awful lot of crying most of the time because I sleep like a log), I’m the only one there.
The other 3 nights a week are his duty, though - as much because I’ve done 4 nights already, as because he’s likely to not really be sleeping much because his body is screwed up from working overnights. And yes…this morning, he was asleep on the floor in the girls’ room, while my 2 1/2 year old was in bed with me. Huh? When did that happen??
It’s funny, but we’ve never really had this issue. One of us just gets up, whoever wakes up first. Sometimes that is me, but more often it’s my husband. Somehow we are able to automatically figure out which of us is more tired or put-upon or whose “turn” it is. I’ve never had any hard feelings and I don’t think he has either. I think since I’ve been doing the night nursing for so long, I’ve banked some goodwill in getting to be the one that lays there.
On a related note, though, I’ve always thought it was curious that when our daughter was younger but I was back at work, I usually handled the nighttime parenting because I figured, hey, my husband handles much of the daytime parenting (he’s a SAHD), so it’s only fair.
But I hear other SAHMs say all the time that they handle the nighttime parenting because their spouse has to get up in the morning to go to work and so they need their sleep. So either way, it’s often the mom that’s handling the nighttime parenting. What gives? Traditional gender roles? Mama guilt? (for me I don’t subscribe to mama guilt, but rather I just love to spend any time with her I can…)
Of course, if nursing is part of the equation, which it has been for me (and you’re not trying to nightwean), that is another logical reason for mom to handle it, so maybe it’s not really about who has to get up and do what in the morning.
My husband is wonderful and more than willing to take his “turn” with the baby at night, but she refuses to stop screaming for anyone but me, so the laboring oar generally is mine. We are still nursing, but all the non-feeding times she wakes up still fall to me since she just screams at him. For our toddler, though, I’m more than happy to punch Daddy awake and tell him he has to go in and fix it.
The absolute worst is when I pretend to be asleep and my husband gets up but then I can’t get back to sleep anyway so really I should have gone because guess who’s turn it’ll be next time….sigh.
When I was on maternity leave I would get up Sunday-Thursday night and my husband would do Friday and Saturday night. Once I was back to work, and we were both getting up in the morning, we took turns. We would also then take turns sleeping in on the weekends. Now that my son is older, and almost never wakes at night, my husband usually gets up with him because I have to get up at 5AM for work and most mornings my husband can wake with my son (he works for himself and works at home). We are very type A people so this kind of a system works really well for us.
The rare occaision that it happens, its me. I’m a much lighter sleeper so she often doesn’t wake him. Plus, I can go back to sleep for a bit before work once they leave in the morning since I work from home with later hours. The unspoken rule is that if she wakes up the next night, its his, but she’s never done two nights in a row, so it always resets.
We also switch off weekend mornings so one of us cam sleep until 8:30 while the other gets the 6am waking
You know, this happens to us every night. I’m the one who gets up first, but if we have a second episode, my husband then takes his turn. What frustrates me is that often, my husband doesn’t wake up at all. The result, then, is that I have to actually wake him up to tell him it’s his turn. I suspect he often isn’t aware that I’ve already been up once!
I pretty much get all of the late night callings - and some weeks are worse than others…My husband just plain and simple NEEDS more sleep than I do - he literally can’t function without XX amount of sleep-he sleeps pretty soundly too so if I’m going to have to wake him to get up - only to lie awake and listen to them on the monitor anyway - I figure I might just as well go myself.
I did however try to let our 3.5 year old cry it out last week one night - as did he - but when she started crying ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy’ - he was all over that…thankfully!
I am usually the first responder in these situations. Often because I can’t sleep until he’s back in bed anyway. If she wakes up again then it’s my husband turn most of the time.
3 words: Paper-sissors-rock.
My husband & I split the night into two 4 hour shifts. I took the first as an early to bedder; hubby took the second. Worked great for us; simple, eliminated keeping score with lifestyles. Four hours of uninterrupted sleep was a lifesaver.
My husband & I split the night into two 4 hour shifts. I took the second as an early to bedder; hubby took the first. Worked great for us; simple, eliminated keeping score with lifestyles. Four hours of uninterrupted sleep was a lifesaver.
It’s usually me. My husband is great, and tries to calm the kids (2.5 years and 4 months) but they always want mama, so I just get up and deal with it. But he is the one that gets up early on weekends and lets me sleep in (until the baby needs to be nursed, that is).
