Comments on: The Super Mommy Hearing Survey

By: amy

amy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:31:58 +0000

oh i feel your pain! my hubby is deaf to all child noises, i’ve done every single night feed to all my 4children becuase he is awful at getting up in the night. Not so long ago when all my 4were ill i didn’t sleep well for 2weeks and i though i was losing my marbles. I would be greeted with ‘did you sleep well last night?’ it would take all my stregnth not to reach for the nearest pan to boink him on the head.

I do think it is a mummy thing we are more tuned into baby noises and its a good job lol! But funnily enough when i work at night he has no trouble getting up in the night and sorting them out??? selective hearing i think!! and he lways says how tired he is if he has to get up once with them???? try doing it for 4YEARS!!!

Yes as you can guess i feel the same frustration as you, but i have to just get on with it becuase i have lost count how many arguments we’ve had over it and not got anywhere. When this baby is born i will be doing all the night feeds etc but he’s getting up in the morning with the others so i can rest. (i hope) xxx

By: CA

CA — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:57:42 +0000

Thank you for this post. I wrote not too long ago about the same thing:
bit.ly/7KKNUE

It sounds like from the comments that other moms are going through the same thing. What I really like about your article is the feeling of frustration and irritation from this ‘super ability’. I’m so glad someone else feels this same way. I feel awful that these thoughts go through my mind, that I sit there and secretly wish that the cough/sneeze/cry will stop so I don’t have to get out of bed. And then to top it off, my husband wakes the next day telling me he so tired from having a restless sleep! HA, I’d like to try one of his restless sleeps one night

Thanks again for the post

By: kimatsprig

kimatsprig — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:40:28 +0000

I am convinced it is a mom thing brought on by pregnancy hormones. Before kids, my husband used to joke that I could sleep through nuclear events… now I am up at the first cough, cry, noise, etc… and my youngest is 9, so it hasn’t gone away!

By: Plan B

Plan B — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:42:55 +0000

I do have supermommyhearing (of course I do – as Mel says, it’s officially hardwired into us and not into anyone with a y chromosome). The thing is, I also have a secret weapon… I’m deaf in my right ear….

Conversations in our house at 4 am go something like this:

Him: “Is that a baby crying?”
Me: (rolling over onto left side so that right ear is uppermost, and covered in a layer of duvet) “I can’t hear anything, why don’t you go and check”….

Works a treat!

By: the dotterel

the dotterel — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:47:15 +0000

You should’ve seen my own post on the self same subject!
http://www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk/2009/12/whos-been-sleeping-in-my-bed.html
I freely admit to being deaf to the nocturnal noises. And I’m as guilty as hell about it. I need to wake up more. But do I? No. And does my wife? Yes, all the time…

By: Jacqui Paterson

Jacqui Paterson — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:17:36 +0000

See, now you’ve got me thinking about it, and I’m annoyed – because in 16 months my partner has never gotten up in the night!! At first it was fine, because I wasn’t working, but now I’m back writing, AND caring for our little girl, yet I’m still stuck on permanent night duty – even on the weekends. To be fair though, she rarely wakes before 7.30am, and a part of me does prefer to comfort her myself, so that I know she’s OK. Plus I seem to have this subconscious maternal reaction now, whereby I automatically leap out of bed, and get halfway into her room before I even really wake up. The other night my partner coughed, and I reacted like an Olympic sprinter off the blocks. I was in the hallway before I even woke up and realised it was a false alarm!!!

By: Kelly

Kelly — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:43:44 +0000

At the beginning Mr C would never hear and if he was kindly doing a night feed to give me a break I used to have to wake up to wake him up he really can sleep through anything!

Occasionally he will wake me up to tell me the baby is awake (thanks!). Actually he did it this week and I wearily went downstairs to make the bottle after asking him nicely to change the baby’s nappy. I came back to find them both FAST ASLEEP! Great. He will also feed the baby then getr back in bed and go straight to sleep, I lay awake until I know he has settled and is asleep.

Usually though I do most of it because I see it as my responsibility and he has to get up and go to work everyday and I get to stay home. At the weekends he will usually do a night feed to give me a break or get up early with Piran so I can keep sleeping and wake up naturally (which makes ALL the difference, I don’t need more sleep per se, I just need to wake up when I am ready, not when someone shouts at me from the cot!)

By: amber

amber — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:09:30 +0000

My children’s father could sleep through anything, but since then we’ve split and my new partner (who never had children of his own) is very sensitive to their presence in his home, and wakes up either before or at the same time as I do when they are making noise.

By: TheMadHouse

TheMadHouse — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:28:59 +0000

Oh I am so with you on this. I used to be able to sleep the sleep of the dead, until I had children. Then I would lie away waiting for a cry, a sniff or a movement. I am cursed with Mummy radar.

To tackle this issue MadDad used to sleep in the room with MaxiMad and subsequenly MiniMad every Friday night, so I got a full nights sleep and a lie in.

He still lets me have the lie in now.

When I was ill and in hospital the boys shared a bed with him, so he had to wake – simple!!

By: Rookiemommy

Rookiemommy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:16:41 +0000

You could be me talking Marilyn! Hub snoring is not what you need when you’re trying to snatch that tiny window of opportunity to get back to sleep.