Group long rest and short rests
Fairly new DM here running a home brew campaign, overall my players seem to be enjoying the campaign. Group of 5 level 6 PC's. No details on campaign. But I have to ask.... How do you get them to stop long resting after every fight?? We just did a decent sized fight (one lieutenant boss, small horde of enemies) at the end of the fight HP wise they were banged up. They went into the fight fully rested. They had not short rested yet, all of them had at least one spell slot of each applicable level (most had at least half) or equivalent resource so not completely spent.
One of the players made a comment about if they don't get a long rest they are dead the second the party does anything else. All of the other players are previous DND players and DM's. All of them are aware of how short rests work and the table rule is you get full hp back from any hit dice used during a short rest. I had a small encounter planned afterwards that would lead them into an area that would allow them to explore, have chances and options for RP, exploration, and a little combat if they wanted. Literally the equivalent of "oooh Squishies. *Fireball* yay combat over" short. Nope. They completely ignore the request by the NPC's for help, "we aren't doing anything until we long rest."
So...... What's the point of trying to do multiple fights in a single "day" between long rests when your players just.... Ignore it?
I have tried the "there were consequences" by making the fights that would have been simple harder, or having the place attacked wind up being completely demolished. They don't care. If they can't one shot a lieutenant-level enemy in a single round or wipe half the board with a single fireball, they don't care for combat. I'm just..... Kind of at my wits end.
Edit: thanks all for the ideas. I'm gonna crash, been up trying to plan whats happening after the long rest and realized I'm just too burnt on it to keep trying to figure it out. I'll respond in the AM. Past midnight here. Ty all again!
Double edit: holy hell. Y'all are fantastic. Thanks for the ideas, while I can't go into specifics (the campaign is homebrew enough they WILL know it's mine) reading a lot of these sparked a few ideas. A lot of you gave the same kind of advice and apparently reading it written 15 different ways sparked something .... The party really only has one precious thing and it's about to walk away of its own volition.