Adjusting to life with a newborn is exhausting, especially when one parent feels like they’re carrying more of the load during those long, sleepless nights.

But what if you were a naturally heavy sleeper who wanted to help but physically couldn’t wake up without someone nudging you? Would you let them handle the night shift? Or would you ask your partner to wake you up so you could pitch in?

In the following story, one dad finds himself dealing with this exact situation and struggles to find a solution.

Let’s take a look!

AITA for asking my wife to wake me up at night when our newborn wakes up?

My wife (35f) and I (35m) just had our third child one month ago (4 weeks). For the first week or two, my wife had to wake him up every couple of hours to feed him, but now we just let him sleep until he wakes up to eat.

Here’s where that becomes a problem: I am a REALLY heavy sleeper. There is nothing that can wake me up short of being attacked by a bear or shaken or something.

It’s been that way since way before my wife and I had kids. Babies crying or screaming do not wake me up. They didn’t even when we had our first (8m), so usually, I wake up when my wife turns on the lights to change and do stuff like that.

Here’s where they disagree.

Apparently, I sleep through a lot when my wife gets up, so she says she does an “unfair amount” of work at night. I feel bad because I recognize that if I’m asleep, I’m not contributing to the night stuff.

So I asked my wife to wake me up when the baby wakes up, and she told me that made it so much worse and that it was like “weaponized incompetence.”

She just doesn’t want to wake me up for some reason. I am not WEAPONIZING my heavy sleep against her. I just want her to wake me up so I can help. But like I said, she said that makes it worse, and now she’s mad.

AITA?

Yikes! It’s easy to see both sides of this, but at least he’s trying to find a solution.

Let’s see what the people over at Reddit have to say about this story.

Here’s some great advice.

This person makes an excellent point.

Agree, it is more work for her.

As this person points out, by the time she wakes him up, she’s wide awake.

His heart is in the right place.

However, he needs to find a better solution than relying on his wife.

The whole point is to give her more time to rest, but it defeats the purpose if she has to wake him up.

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