So why don't fathers get super-human hearing?

[south5]

Mine has super hearing, but he always pokes me to get up and get them.

[dragondance]

Actually, I think it depends on who takes care of her at night. Dh and I split care of dd1 (on formula), so he would hear sometimes or would wake up when I pushed him, lol. With dd2 I was bfing and he slept through all of it, until we night weaned. Then we started having HIM get up with her (because she would get up 2-5 times a night and nurse if I was there, but just go back to sleep if dh was there, lol), and so once I wasn't the one responding to her *I* stopped hearing her cry and he gets up right away usually. He'll tell me she was up twice and I didn't hear it at all. I think your body just gets attuned to it if you are the caregiver at night.

[carbandy]

Also I have heard that women hear higher pitches..like crying better

[amphibology29]

I heard a radio story a few weeks ago about a study that was done on mothers' and fathers' ability to hear their babies' cries during sleep, and in a list of 10 other loud sounds like a lawn mower, alarm clock, doorbell, etc a mother's top sound (most likely to wake her) was her baby's cry. The baby's cry was really low on the list for fathers; number 9 or 10. Researchers believed the difference goes back to hunter/gather days when mothers needed to be alert to protecting the children and fathers needed to be able to rest so they could get up the next day and hunt to provide for the family as a whole.

[lakemom]

Welcome to parenthood! It never changes....we have 6 kids and have been parents for 24+ years and dh will still be in the same room with the youngest and "not hear her"!

[NickiB]

My dh doesn't hear anything either. I don't know why it is like that. I think he does hear it but tends to ignore it.

[Amaggiepie]

Originally Posted by jewelzbird I have wondered this many times!! Mine can sleep through almost anything. Just wait! That super mom hearing gets even better ans mixes with this spidey sense thing where you can watch your toddler by listening. It's crazy! You can be in another room and know exactly what they are up to. You may be in the kitchen or bathroom and suddenly run to your toddler because of a sound you heard that was not on the safe and acceptable list of sounds.

This! My toddler slept one room over when we lived in our apartment. I could be dead asleep and wake up because a certain way she was rustling or breathing meant she was waking up. And I could lay there and hear her settle back to sleep. DH of course hears none of this. I could say, "SHHHHH she's waking up!" and he'd be like, "WTH are you on? Its dead silent!"

[JamieJLD]

I love my super-sonic hearing. It is so cool to be able to just know what is going on from the tiniest squeak or the too quiet. My DH doesn't hear most of it. He can be awake in the same room, distracted, and won't hear our DD asking for something. From three rooms over I'll say, "honey, can you please get DD xyz. She keeps asking for it." Oh well, I just tell myself we each have different skills. I'm good at bossing and thankfully my DH is good at obeying.

I did hear about a study a while ago that looked at hearing loss in women and men. They found that men lose the high pitches first while women general lose the lowest pitches. I know most of our husbands are probably too young for any noticable hearing loss, but I don't think it is a coincidence that men have a harder time hearing the high pitched cries of an infant and that's the range of sound they are likely to lose first.

[cassieJJ]

Originally Posted by michellemomx3 Hehe I saw a documentary on a study done on male/female hearing once and boy it explained a LOT. Women can basically hear everything that is going on and men are able to focus on a single thing and don't hear everything else that is going on. So basically what they were saying is that men can focus on the ball game on TV and not hear a single other thing going on and women/mamas hear every little noise that is being made. Our brains are hard-wired like that. Men's brains are hard-wired like that. Interesting. And how convenient for guys/daddies!!

Exactly what I was going to post, except I didn't see the documentary.