Helping Your Husband when He Works Nights
A Wife's Guide to Making Life Less Stressful for Her Night Working Husband
It takes a lot to adjust to your husband working at night while you are sleeping and him being asleep during the day when you are up and busy. If you have children at home then you will also be worrying about them getting loud while your husband sleeps. Not to mention that no one will see sight of your husband until later in the evening when he wakes up to get ready for work. It can make you feel all alone in taking care of the home and family. There are a lot of things that you can do to make life for you and your husband a little easier while he is having to work the night shift.
Usually, around here, the night shift gets off of work around 6 or 7am. If it's possible, you and your husband can actually spend some time together in the mornings. You could go out and have breakfast together. You could just surprise him when he comes home with a homemade breakfast. If you have small children at home then your husband could enjoy some quiet time with them before he heads to bed for the day. You could even watch a movie together before he goes to bed. This little bit of time together can be a life saver for your marriage.
A lot of times the night shift workers will have a hard time actually getting up when it's still daylight outside. Which means that you may not be able to have dinner with your husband. Especially if you and your children eat dinner before dark. This, in turn, could mean that your husband never gets a good home cooked dinner during the work week. In order to remedy this you could make a little extra at dinnertime and then put some leftovers into a container that he can take to work with him. This way he'll get to eat something that you made when he gets his "lunch" break at work. It may not be as good as a fresh home cooked meal but he'll know that you were thinking of him and he'll be thinking of you while he's eating it.
Trying to keep the house quiet during the day for your night shift husband is a hard task for most. I know it is very difficult at my house. Especially if you have a small home like I do. We don't have an upstairs so I can not simply confine the children, and noise, downstairs away from the bedrooms. This makes for a daunting task of shushing once the older girls get home from school and anytime during the day that my toddler decides it would be a good idea to screech as loud as she can for no reason at all. For the most part, I try to save the loud house cleaning for after he wakes up or for the weekends. Which means no vaccuuming during the day. Sometimes my poor carpets won't get vaccuumed all week and then they are screaming at me once Saturday rolls around. But that's a sacrifice I have to make in order to have a well rested husband who provides for our family so that I can be the stay-at-home mom that I am.
Keep the "honey-do" lists for the weekends. If your husband is working the night shift then it's going to be difficult for him to get anything done during the daylight hours. He would be sleeping most of the day and getting up for work when it's getting dark. Especially if he's staying up and spending time with the family in the early morning hours. Now if he goes straight to bed when he gets home in the mornings he may very well be rested enough to get up when it's still daylight out but he's not going to want to jump onto those chores you have waiting for him. Save those for the weekends when he has more time and feels more up to it.
The night shift is so hard on a persons physical and mental health. Your body is created to be awake during the day and to sleep at night. A person working the night shift has to force their body to do right the opposite of what it's programmed to do and that can be physically draining. My poor husband has had some mahor health issues because of him working the night shift. He's more suseptible to any little "bug" that's going around. He has more headaches. He goes through times where he does not eat enough and then will go through times where he does nothing but eat when he's awake. So be wary of your night shift husband's health habits so that you can kick him to the doctor's office if need be.
In the end, you will learn to enjoy having the bed to yourself, not having to worry about someone snoring or stealing the covers. You will have your weekends together. There will be holidays where he will be up during the days because he doesn't have to work. You will wonder why it ever took you so long to get use to his night schedule. The funny thing is that my night shift husband's work has decided to put him on day shift....finally after four years.....and I'm actually apprehensive at having him back in bed every single night, snoring and stealing my covers. I am thrilled to not have to shush the children any longer and I'll be able to vaccuum during the day again. I'm grateful that my husband will be able to get his body back into it's "normal" programming and I'm hoping that his moods and health will greatly improve and return to the way they were four years ago. Let's hope that it doesn't take me forever to get use to him working days again.
Be sensitive to what your husband is going through when he works the night shift. This will make life so much easier on both of you.
Published by Christie Silvers
In addition to online articles, Christie also enjoys writing paranormal fiction. She lives in Georgia with her husband, three daughters, chickens, dogs, and numerous cats. No, it's not a farm, but sometime... View profile
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15 Comments
Post a Commentmy husband just started tonight...and im sure this article is yrs older...i just miss him but i know its for the best
My hubby has worked nights for years, with an unpredictable schedule that he creates depending on necessary workload. He can work 6pm-6am, 10pm-10am, or any hours- more, or fewer, without notice. Recently, I've started working with him though, and often find I'm only getting 4-6 hours of broken sleep at night, while still trying to maintain the house, the kids, and putting dinner on the table. Any tips here on how to accomodate his, and my kids schedules, without adding more hours to a day?
Thanks so much for posting this article. My man just started working night shifts recently, so it's nice to know what to expect. It's been hard, since I work long hours during the day, but we're figuring it out.
Awww, memories. This article was written back in 2007 and here it is 2010 and my hubby is on night shift again. He just started this new job a little over a month ago and we're having to refresh ourselves on how we did it back then. The kids are bigger, louder, busier than years ago, but we're making it. :)
...And in the fall 2 of the kids will be in school. But, I might homeschool (not sure yet). Anyway, this might work for you too if it fits your family. (Sorry had to break the message into 3 posts... read below for the beginning.
...during the evening hours and he gets more peaceful sleep. Sleeping in the mornings felt very unnatural for him. Going to bed at 4 p.m. feels more like he is just going to bed early. The kids bedtime starts shortly after that anyway. This works really well for us. We have discovered that he does not require a lot of sleep as long as he gets sleep right before he goes in. So, sleeping during the evening hours eliminated his need for a nap before going in. Also, we have very small children, so they are here in the morning and do not miss out on daddy time. Our oldest son just graduated kindergarten. He had a couple weeks where he did not get to see daddy after school but for a few minutes. But, this was not too bad because my husband started taking him to school in the mornings after he got off work since the babies are still asleep at that time. Plus, he goes and gets him from the bus stop prior to going to bed for the day. This won't even be an issue now that it is summer. And in the
Good article. My husband just started working 3rd shift a little over a month ago. When he first got the job we assumed that he should sleep in the morning as soon as he gets home. It took him about a week to get used to sleeping in the brightest of the day. He would wake up just before 4 p.m. and then the rest of the evening was hectic. We have 4 small children and this is crunch time to get dinner made, all the kids fed and then the bedtime routine. He would be exhausted by the kids bedtime and have to go back to bed for another hour or two before going to work. As summer break was approaching, it dawned on me that it might work better if he slept the hours prior to having to go to work. Now he goes to bed around 4 p.m. and it is dark most of the time he is asleep now. It has worked out wonderfully. He gets home in the morning and spends the whole day with us. Lunch is his big dinner. He has plenty of time all day long to do things around the house. The kids are quieter during the ev
Can't say I feel the same. My hubby works the night shift and volunteers for extra one's on his days off. I never see him. He feels he can come home and go to bed all day. He states that the night shift is the hardest on people's system. He gets up an hour or two before work and just watches tv. I am very lonely and have to do everything around the house and take care of the kids. As well, I go to college full time. We've been married 10 years...I know this is not going to work. He doesn't get it. We never even talk. Any advice? As, I'm getting ready to pack my bags!!!!
I enjoyed this article, it's sensitivity to the marriage relationship, and the emphasis on sacrifice. It was refreshing to read about a wife loving her husband that way, in this day and age, when the article I expected to come upon was one that basically said, "who cares about your husband! do what makes YOU happy!" My husband started working the night shift a few months ago and we have a 1 year old and it is hard. The hardest part is just feeling lonely in the evenings. I like his company, milling around the house, doing chores together and talking in bed. We don't have that "unwind" time together anymore, and I feel like I'm almost in a grieving state. I will have to work hard to make sacrifices that help even a little bit. I work full time during the day. Thanks!
my husband has been working third shift for a few months now. fortunately he worked at a bar and is a night owl and i never had a problem flipping hours. we have no children, but some things are hard. not as difficult as some of you ladies. we have been married almost 3 years and together for 6 or 7 before that and i can't imagine what it would be like to not sleep with my husband. thank God i lost my job before he got his 3rd shift. i have worked all my life in the field doing hvac repair and installation. i deserve a break. but i always have a hot meal, his laundry done, and a beer. and i take his shoes off at the door (he's a not slim, ex-football player and it's hard for him to touch his toes anymore between the two). anyway, i switched my schedule. mine was easy. it's very hard for my friends and family who miss us dearly. nobody knows if we stayed up to wind down or went to bed immediately. and days either go by too fast or way slow. i miss days completely and put my trash out a