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

Agreed, with baby 3 (4?! 😱) on the way that’s gonna be extremely hard going. I would think very carefully how you approach it with your husband.

Only if the videos are taking 100% of his attention. I don’t give 100% of my attention to my child all the time (she’s now older than yours and neither badly behaved nor addicted to screens, by the way, as well as not appearing in the morning before 7am anymore) and if DH tried to guilt trip me for using my phone while up with her at the crack of dawn I’d have been absolutely furious.

YANBU. I agree that phones are addictive and both DH and I have fallen victim to them over the years. When you 'zombie out' by scrolling through videos you can miss DCs looking up to you and communicating and this can't be good for them so ideally, they shouldn't be used like this often in front of the DCs. Now and again, but not 2 hours every morning.

It also unfairly puts the onus on you to have to do everything, because you can't trust your DH to look after them properly. Weaponised incompetence.

On the other side of the coin - I'd be working on teaching your DCs to stay in bed a bit longer. When my DCs got up really early at that age, we'd leave the lights off and tell them to stay in bed. Might put an audio CD of fairy tales or something on for them but the repeated message would be "we wake up at 7am".

So you don’t want him to actively entertain them and it sounds like you wouldn’t mind as much if it was an actual tv show he was watching or a book he was reading but you object because at 5am he’s watching YouTube?

I think if he’s happy to get up on the middle of the night and you want to stay in bed he’s doing what he needs to do to get through - I assume he’s then doing a full days work as well?

!!

I despair at how people parent / no wonder children have so many behavioural issues and teachers are on their knees

Because some parents don’t see the issue with being on their phone whilst their children are awake at the crack of dawn?😂😂😂 are your children not able to play with their toys by themselves? I must be the worst mum of the year because when my kids get up early, I lay on the sofa (or watch a show on my phone) whilst they trod around the house and entertain themselves. I guess they’re going to have behavioural issues now <shudder>

Have you told him you've been checking up on him? Tbh, your marriage doesn't sound healthy. You don't trust him to parent but he's their dad too and you can't dictate what he does in his time with them any more than he can lay down the law about what you do.

The phone thing sounds fine to me. It is very early! If mine were up that early then I would actively try and be as boring as humanely positively in the hope that it encouraged them to go back to sleep.

You came here for opinions but it seems that you are at best dismissive and at worst argumentative/slightly aggressive if anyone dare disagree.

I think your hubby is on a hiding to nothing and no matter what he does it isn't going to be good enough for you.

You might want to think about toning down the holier than thou self appointed parent of the year stuff or you just might find yourself on your own with the wee ones permanently.

Hello phone addict who can't admit that they aren't a great parent...

Since when do children need quality time every single minute of every single day? They particularly don’t need an all-singing all-dancing interactive parenting experience at 5am because if anything is likely to encourage them to keep on waking up early it’s that, not Peppa bloody pig.

If my children wake up at 5am and I’m the one that gets up with them, no one’s going to tell me how I should be looking after them. You said you don’t like them to watch TV but he’s putting things on for himself? You’re saying that he can sit there with a cuppa and ‘chip in’ with what the children are doing. What if he doesn’t want to do that at 5am? At 5am my eyes are barely open.

If you’re so bothered by it then it makes sense for you to wake with the children. I don’t personally see the issue in what he’s doing. I say this as a mum to a 1&2 year old

Totally agree with you. Tell himself to kick himself up the arse and set a good example for his kids, he’s showing them the phone is more important than him. Why do so many parents find it hard to be present? Put the phone down!!

Don't be daft. There is a happy middle ground between what OP's dh does and what you're suggesting.

YANBU OP. The kids deserve better quality time with their df than having him glued to a screen the entire 2 hours.

I am curious: How have you recently discovered this?

Does he supervise them 5-7am and then go to work full time?

Maybe he thinks you need to sleep until 7am but fundamentally disagrees that he's damaging them by using his phone, so he's opted for getting up and lying about how he supervises them.

I think a lot of people, me included, would just let you do it then, then you know it's up to scratch. So in a way I kind of admire the fact that he's continued unnecessarily getting up at 5am.

If you separated, they'd get his parenting style for 50% of the time and probably be largely unscathed. Might be time for a compromise.

But how do you know it's 100%?! Have you spied on him, gone through his phone?

When DD used to be up that early you bloody bet I used to doom scroll until a reasonable hour. If they’re in danger because he’s paying zero attention, or disrupting your sleep rendering it pointless, that’s different, but otherwise I couldn’t make myself be annoyed about this.

@CheeryPye yes! So much this.

5am wake ups are hell. I literally sat there with a cup of tea and some inane programme on whilst I came round. Baby/toddler balanced on knee.

Both DC are teenage now and funnily enough they are well adjusted, balanced people...

I used to put the tv on and go back to sleep on the sofa if my eldest woke early at this age!
By the 2nd child we had an iPad so would let this watch it in our bed while we dozed.

Pre-7am is too early to do parenting in my opinion.

You come across as very self righteous OP and "if I wouldn't do it then he shouldn't". I know you've said 'you agreed' he wouldn't do this but would he have had an option to disagree? It doesn't sound like it.

I do think you're being hormonal and I feel a bit sorry for him. I think you should either take it in turns to get up, or you compromise (the kids get TV for one hour). You can't bulldoze him into doing everything the way you want it done, when you're not doing it! Pregnant or not.