Husband on phone the whole fucking time he’s with the children

So many people pointing this out as though children have any clue at all what time it is and can rationalise this.

'Ah yes Daddy is completely consumed by this device which gives me the impression I don't matter and he can't even hear me when I speak to him so I feel invisible, but it is unsociable hour. I know that I do matter because he doesn't use that device later in the day.'

In that 2 hour window does he not have to change nappies and give the kids breakfast? I like a good scroll myself but I make sure the kids are settled first and yes our TV is on first thing. After breakfast my kids then go off and play and are very good at playing together and entertaining themselves (they are older though, 4 & 7). I think it's fine for him to be on his phone as long as he's taken care of their immediate needs. That he is not fully emersed and still keeps an eye on them and helps them when needed (& your home is baby proofed and generally a safe space).

I think you’re over reacting. It’s 5am, the kids are happily playing with toys, most parents will use the opportunity for quiet and scroll on their phone. Catch up on the news, bit of socials. It’s part of life for most people. My children are 19 and 16, not been harmed in any way, top grades, high achievers, polite and never in trouble at school. 19yr old president of the Uni society, blah blah blah. Me scrolling if they were up early had no impact and they still turned out into well adjusted, well behaved and nice kids. I think you need to chill a bit, bringing another child in you’re going to have times when phones / tablets are used

I can be scrolling on my phone for hours but I’m not really watching it
like now I’m watching tv while on here not giving my phone hours of undivided attention fully aware of whats going on

we all have different ideas of what’s acceptable but I think you’ll run into trouble if you adopt the my way or the wrong way attitude
theres 2 of you parenting and you’ve never going to be 100% in sync

for what it’s worth I think giving children 100% undivided attention just make clingy needy kids that can’t entertain themselves

I know it’s 100% because there was an incident today with DS and I became suspicious and checked the (shared internet) usage. It’s 100% of the time.

Hmmm, internet usage or YouTube history, there’s a difference. Incoming emails, smart device usage, software updates etc all use the internet. If you checked his YouTube history, have you extrapolated the data to cover the entire time period or did you check weeks of data? I understand your disappointment that your H agreed to something that he didn’t or never intended to follow through on but there’s a constructive way of handling things and I don’t think you are doing that. I think you have both leaned into the gender specific roles and for your H that appears to include not being an active parent.

I agree that the screens interfere with engagement but expecting someone who rarely spends time with his children to engage in a meaningful way maybe out of his comfort zone. Instead of finger pointing and taking over, how about using your ‘expertise’ in child engagement and showing him how to instead of telling him not to.

However, at 5am I would be impressed by anybody stringing two sentences together. Early riser DD was told/ expected to stay in her room until 07:00 am, there was enough toys and books in there to keep her distracted. Toys downstairs were kept to a minimum so her bedroom was more of a pull than downstairs.

He shouldn’t have agreed to your demand but you’re the one continuing to get knocked up by this “feckless”parent.

It does at 5am

But it’s 5am!!!

Too early for the children to be up, I think at that time and for him to be up with them, it's fine for him to be doing what he's doing.

I can hear that you're not happy though so as you say, maybe you get up with them but I'd try and enforce no getting up at 5am!

I can see why you are angry - he could just lie quietly on the sofa - interacting with the DCs now and then. It's when you do so much to help them and he does v little it's bound to be angering.
My DH was hopeless at interacting with the DCs, a 1950s Dad I suppose. However they've turned into normal, happy, busy adults with their own DC. And don't feel they missed out.

YABU. To me that’s an outrageous time to be up with kids. I never let mine up and start the day before 7 at the earliest when they were very young. A 5am wake up would have been treated like a nighttime waking and children reassured but not allowed up and told it was still sleep time.
so if you let yours start their day then you would be unreasonable to not expect your husband to be tired.
leave him be and just get up yourself in future.

To add, I believe in tbe 80/20 rule. Be a good parent 80% of the time. Be lax / do what you need to 20% of the time. When my one was an early riser I would scroll mumsnet for at least 20 mins while having my coffee. And always in the same room and always with an eye on what they are doing at 1yrs old. But then you get involved, no matter how tired.

So he isn’t doing the 80/20 if it’s his only time with them. it is a hard phase in both of your lives though, and I think sometimes standards have to drop so you can both cope, so if you zoom out over a year, is he more like 80/20?

And however lax you are, you shouldn’t be ignoring them and should be able to see them.

i agree early rising isn’t always fixable and sometimes it’s about waiting it out - ours stopped doing it when she dropped her day time nap. So the choice before then was later bed time or early start. We made a choice.

the autoplay thing could be a feature here though, so I’d start the conversation with an open mind.

I wouldn't be leaving my bed at five am. Kids would either be put back to bed until at least six or brought in mine with iPad/tv. Given you are pregnant it's good of your partner to take kids down and give you a rest. I'd be pretty grateful for that arrangement.

I'd say there's a strong argument for minimal parenting before breakfast. If we were heading downstairs at five it would be blankets/cartoons and yes a strong coffee and my phone.

After breakfast and dressing the activities would come out. If you are too full on at that hour you are teaching your children that is awake/doing time.

You and your partner should be on same page/negotiating/compromising when it comes to parenting. You are equals. It's also ok to have slightly different approaches providing your general attitude to parenting is similar.

I'd be furious if my partner dictated what I do between 5-7 am. They would be put firmly in their place

Exhausted parents don’t have been to be Mary Poppins 24/7.

This

Plus - back in the day - before screens, sometimes parental neglect could come in the form of the parent always with their head in a book.

I can't remember which novel this featured in - but may have been A Spool of Blue Thread by Ann Tyler?

Certainly people were called 'book worms' and not always in a complimentary way.

As regards the OP's husband - leave the poor sod alone - he's getting up with the kids for 2 hours before work whilst she has a nice sleep/rest - before he's off to work for the day.

To all of the people voting YABU and normalising this because they are addicted to their phones - sort your shit out, seriously. There's a great book called Breaking up With Your Phone if you need some help. Stolen Focus is good too*

I think you are missing the point as it’s not necessarily about the phone. When I had my kids smartphones were not a thing. Mobiles existed but were very big and solely used for calling in/out. I certainly would not have engaged and interacted with mine at that time, no way. It would have been low light, no sound or talking and boring as batshit. No inducement to wake up that early. Come 7am, curtains open, lights on if necessary, breakfast and engaged interaction until bedtime. Nothing to do with phone addiction, it’s just common sense!

I’d be livid too. Not ok in my book.

It's heartbreaking. Children literally take on the message that that device matters more than them, it's linked to low-self esteem, attachment disorders, all sorts. Not to mention what you are modelling. The effects of this will be the foundation of the next mental health crisis in 10-20 years time

That would be absolutely correct if that’s all children are experiencing BUT it’s not. It’s for a 2hr period only when they really shouldn’t be up. Come 7am to bedtime, as long as they are engaged with and responded to then there is no issue, so pointless applying these broad stroke studies to children who only experience it for this period early in the morning.

He's lazy.

I never used my phone when my dc were young ( too busy!) but at 5am I think you need to give him a break!

You are also behaving like chief parent op. He has the right to decide for himself what’s okay or not at 5am!!
You don’t get to call all of the shots, if he is engaged as a parent for the rest of the time. The reason he didn’t tell you is because you are being unreasonable ( I imagine have form for this) it sounds controlling.

Your children need to find the 5am starts boring, so there is no upside to continuing. No toys, no cheerful engaged parenting. They need to be told it’s too early even for the birds and put them back into bed with kiss. They are young so i understand this might not be possible but there should be no ‘chipping ‘ in and it should not be fun. Ultimately you are trying to get them to sleep for longer in the mornings.

This thread is insane

the amount of posts we see about complete and utter arsehole husbands and partners, cocklodgers, abusers, men who have packed up and left and don’t even see their kids- and we have one here who works FT and gets up at 5am everyday to ensure his pregnant wife has enough rest.…..

unless there is some back story here about his level of cognitive functioning that renders him literally incapable of looking after children, I would not get at all wound up
about this.

in the days when my kids would have me up from 4/5 am I probably would have been scrolling through mumsnet in all honesty, contributing to posts about arsehole husbands….

Yabu but only because I’m not a morning person and would have done the same, probably. Maybe not YouTube but honestly, that time in the morning to engage with the kids for two hours. My sis in law engages with her kids at this time and they can’t get out of waking early. Agh. I do get you being annoyed if it’s true that they’re injuring themselves etc. that’s obviously not good! but I do understand that he doesn’t want to play at those times. It’s still night time to lots of people. But if he’s not keeping them safe then that’s bad and if the lack of engagement is continuing through the day then also bad.

‘Catastrophic’ and ‘devasting’ is taking it too far. This isn’t going on all day is it. I’m sure op’s kids get lots of other activies and attention throughout the day.

You get up and look after them then!

Yes we'll when I need to go to the toilet to battle opening the loo roll packet I call a nanny to arrive by umbrella and they sit their threading weeds into animal sculptures and then we all sit around singing Kumbuya while learning the violin, it's a skill, we also don't allow devices ever me writing thin on here is doing it on a chalkboard and it appears by magic

Please link to some relevant studies regarding these claims!

Wow. Patronising or what.

Since my son was born, I have very rarely been to bed past 9pm. That early enough for you? Doesn’t really help the frequent night wake ups. ‘This too shall pass’ is utter bollocks when you’ve been exhausted for years lol.

What’s the difference between someone looking at their phone and someone reading a book?

Unless i misread, Op is not saying that her DH tells the kids to sod off if they want something from him.

Don’t tell me that ‘chatting to your children’ lasts very long when they are too young an age to talk properly yet.