'Early bird' husband refuses to wake 'Lion' wife up every morning, 'parents will understand.' AITA?

"AITA for refusing to wake my wife up in the morning?"

My (38m) wife (37f) have 3 young kids including a 6mo baby who still sleeps in our room. I'm an early bird. I routinely get up at ~5:30am to enjoy a few silent moments of sanity and get some stuff done before the kids take over.

My wife is a night owl and *hates* waking up. As a kid growing up her family nicknamed her "The Lion" on account of her morning temperament and blonde bedhead. They would draw straws and the loser would have to get her up in the morning. This topic made it into wedding speeches and continues to be a running joke to this day.

That said, she comes by this honestly these days. We're chronically sleep deprived because kids. She's on mat leave and is up 1-2x in the night nursing while I'm blissfully passed out beside her, so I don't blame her for pushing her wake up times.

I also don't blame her for staying up later, as once the kids go down around 7:30 pm, then we put the house back together, then we get stuck to the couch recovering from the day, and *then* she might get an hour to watch TV before we do it all over again.

Here's the issue: she always asks that I 1) wake her up in the morning and 2) ensure she's awake ~10min later. This has frustrated me from the start. I suggested she use a silent/vibrating phone alarm or her Apple Watch if she's concerned about waking the baby, but apparently those aren't good enough.

FWIW I wear my Garmin smartwatch *and* a cheap $20 dumb silent vibrating alarm wristband that could wake the dead. There's been a few times where I've agreed to wake her up at a certain time, but forgot & woke her up ~15min later. It usually doesn't cause any issues but today I got her up at 7:20am instead of the agreed-upon 7:00am as I lost track of time attending to my son who woke up early.

It was a particularly difficult morning with cranky kids and she snapped about how it was just too late to get up with not enough time to get everyone ready. I reached my breaking point and snapped back that moving forward I absolutely refuse to wake her up in the morning & that she's a big girl who can be responsible for herself.

Since then she's made a few snide comments about random little things "apparently being too much to ask" and says I'm being unreasonable by refusing to get her up & and make sure she's actually awake after she inevitably falls back asleep. I told her if it's not that much to ask then it should be simple enough for her to do it herself.

So, AITA? I can understand infrequent critical moments like "please make sure I'm awake so I don't miss my flight" but making me responsible for her daily wake up times is absolutely unreasonable at best, even if kids and sleep deprivation are in the mix.

EDIT:

Sincerely did not expect this much traction! I'm glad I posted to help gain the perspective. Thanks everyone for their constructive and not-so-constructive comments. Parents will understand: this is one slice - albeit a large one - out of the overall context of parenting.

When baby was taking a bottle I was up several times nightly as well. I am also primarily on overnight "sooth" duty when little dude wakes up before a feeding as I'm able to get him back to sleep when he's furious whereas non-nursing-soothing fails for my wife because he goes straight for the boob.

My wife hates pumping and we've agreed upon the split of night feedings as I take up the slack in other areas. Of our relationship issues, zero involve kid-raising. We regularly convey our appreciation for each other in being on the same page parenting-wise as much of our social and family circle is dealing with stereotypical uninvolved parent stuff.

I also WFH and routinely rearrange my workday to parent. One kid is part-time daycare, part-time home so I've dipped out of meetings to help get him dressed to go outside, feed the kid lunch when she's putting the baby down, watch the furious toddler who won't get in the car when my wife goes to pick up our oldest from school, etc....

So the "oh wow dad gets to work all day and doesn't lift a finger with the kids and now he won't even wake her up, typical man" responses are objectively wrong. Much of the derision in the "you lazy f blissfully sleeping just get her a goddamn coffee she carried your children" is a tiny bit misguided & just a little heavy on the judgment without knowing the full context of parenting duties.

With that said, the more nuanced responses of "nobody's exactly wrong here but cmon dude, parenting is hard, just wake her up and bring her a coffee, that's the nicest part of my day" have resonated.

It is exceedingly obvious in the responses who has been a gracious parent & partner who has weathered the relationship struggles of maintaining a relationship while raising young kids, and who has not (saying this as a not-fully-gracious partner). Regardless of sentiment expressed, thank you all for responding, I'm on my way up with a coffee right now...albeit 5 minutes late as I was responding to this. Ugh.

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

Realistic_Treacle_28 said:

YTA, she's asking one simple thing, she takes care of your kids, gets up in the middle of the night multiple times to feed the baby. That's not to mention that her body is STILL HEALING after having a baby, and she's just asking one simple bloody thing!

And you said " After I get a decent night's sleep I get up x time to not deal with the kids and have some peace and quiet!" But your wife (after an interrupted night's sleep) the moment she gets up it's taking care of kids, and the household. Also you never mentioned your kids age besides the fact you have a 6 month old or what you do to help your wife.

Currently she's on maternity leave but what happens when that runs out? Are the kids in day care or not? You're also ignoring the fact that some people's circadian rhythms are different. Some people's bodies naturally go into sleep mode at different times than other people's.

Her body is on a different sleep cycle than yours, you can't expect her to wake up from a vibration like you can. If my husband tried that, the vibration would likely send him into a deeper sleep. Your tale sounds like a woe is me that I have to do one simple thing.

catliketheanimal said:

YTA. Holy f. Your wife is doing every night wake and you’re crying because you have to shake her awake in the morning? Get real.

swtlulu2007 said:

YTA. If she is doing your part of night parenting. You can at least wake her up. Do your night parenting too. My partner got up with the kids too. I nursed both kids. We shared night time. Your an a for sleeping through it all.

Mondashawan said:

YTA. You're not pulling your weight. She asked you to do one simple thing. Just do it and stop complaining.

Competitive_Muffin90 said:

YTA. You are blissfully sleeping thru the night. She’s exhausted, broken sleep is awful. YTA. Either settle the baby and change diapers in the middle of the night, or wake her. Can’t have it both ways. She will be more pleasant in the am if she wasn’t so sleep deprived.

Massive_Homework9430 said:

YTA - only because she is not getting a full night’s sleep and doing the feedings while you sleep soundly. This is your concession for getting sleep. If she couldn’t get out of bed after a normal night’s sleep, that would be crazy.