Surviving the first year of parenthood is basically a severe sleep deprivation experiment. When a baby hits the dreaded six month sleep regression, every single minute of shut eye becomes a precious commodity. You would expect partners to team up and tackle the exhaustion together. But one father on Reddit recently proved that some men value their gaming consoles far more than their wives’ basic human needs.
The Original Poster is a working father who shares a six month old baby girl with his wife. Their family dynamic relies heavily on traditional gender roles. The husband works full time and attends school one day a week. Meanwhile, his wife is primarily a stay at home mother who works two half days while her sister watches the baby.
Up until recently, the husband proudly claimed they were living their absolute dream life. He happily provides the financial support while his wife flawlessly manages the entire household. She handles all the cooking, all the cleaning, and the vast majority of the daily baby care. He even admits she does a spectacular job taking care of both him and their daughter.
But that domestic bliss came to a screeching halt when their infant hit a major sleep regression. The poor baby is currently waking up every two hours throughout the night. Because the wife is breastfeeding, she takes on the entire burden of the night shift. She is up constantly, completely alone in the dark, trying to soothe a crying infant.
To make matters infinitely worse, the wife suffers from insomnia. When she gets woken up every two hours, she severely struggles to fall back asleep. The husband, on the other hand, claims to be a magical deep sleeper. He happily slumbers through the crying, completely oblivious to his wife slowly deteriorating from exhaustion just a few feet away in the exact same room.
Desperate for a tiny shred of relief, the severely sleep deprived mother made an incredibly modest request. She asked her husband to simply wake up with the baby at seven in the morning on both Saturday and Sunday. All she wanted was one single extra hour of uninterrupted sleep on the weekends to help her physically and mentally survive.
Most partners would immediately agree and probably offer to make her breakfast too. But this husband decided to throw a massive pity party. He whined that he also wants to be the one who gets to sleep in an extra hour on the weekends. He actually argued with a woman who has not slept more than two hours at a time for weeks.
The wife tried to offer a perfectly reasonable compromise. She told him she is more than happy to let him take a long nap during the day. Because of her brutal insomnia, she physically cannot nap when the sun is up. That morning hour is literally her only chance to get any restorative rest.
Then the husband revealed his true, incredibly selfish priorities. He told the internet that he does not want to spend his weekend free time napping. He explicitly stated that he wants to play video games and chill out. He is actively choosing his gaming controller over his wife’s basic physical and mental health.
The internet did not hold back for a single second. Commenters rightfully tore him to shreds and universally crowned him a massive a**hole. His wife is doing all the cooking, cleaning, and round the clock childcare. Asking a grown man to parent his own child for sixty minutes on a Saturday morning is the absolute bare minimum. He needs to put the video games down, brew some coffee, and let that poor woman sleep before she completely collapses.