To ask dh to help out occasionally when he is wfh

You need to sort this together as husband and wife! It isn’t helping it’s working together as parents!

Your manager may be ‘amazing’ but your child is going to suffer in the long run. As they become more mobile and need more attention and even more playing with etc. It’s unfair on them to running between work and them.

@MumblesParty exactly -

I think you need to look at this again OP both logistically and financially and either do 3 days local nursery or childminder and 2 days with your mum or cut down to 3 days work with 1 day at nursery and 2 with your mum or the reverse - I am saying 'you ' as it sounds like your H would be neither use nor ornament with several days of childcare a week

At the moment to me it seems completely unworkable and certainly will be with a toddler

@jadeycakes666 just as productive??? Were you living in a parallel universe? Everyone knows that working during Covid was a nightmare. Trying to attend Teams meetings while simultaneously feeding a baby, stopping a toddler play with the knife drawer, or helping a 9 year old with their maths work. Anyone who tried to contact any company during Covid will know that there was zero customer services. Calls weren’t answered, emails ignored. It was awful, and not something I would ever want to hold up as a shining example of how work could be!

There are 2, potentially 3, issues:

1. No, he should not be caring for baby whilst wfh.
2. Yes he should be involved in childcare arrangements.
3. Household costs/bills should not necessarily be paid equally, particularly if one parent is earning more because the other is doing more childcare/chores

Covid was very different, people had no choice but to wfh and there was no childcare.

Now wfh is a choice and childcare is available, so there is absolutely no reason to be wfh and looking after children.

You wouldn’t expect kids running around in a place of work and if the home is your place of work then it should be treated as such.

And we wonder why so many employers want to go back to everyone working in the office.

Your poor mum.

You need to be getting proper childcare in place, it’s not fair that she’s having to pick up both of your slack because you’re too stingy to pay for proper childcare.

If she says no she’ll feel guilty and you know it.

She’ll either feel guilty for accepting more money or worry that will be a more regular thing and she doesn’t want the tie of it.

You need childcare in place. Easy.

I’m assuming you both agreed to this (lack of) childcare setup, so in the short term he needs to step up and help with childcare even during work hours. He can make up the time in the evening/at the weekend. He doesn’t just get to clock out of being a parent, this set up is very unfair on you.

However, you are both unreasonable to think you can wfh and look after a baby at the same time. You need to sort out proper full time childcare asap.

Surely it depends on the type of job? If people are taking important phone calls and there’s a screaming child and the person can’t concentrate on what the customer is saying and no one can hear each other then that isn’t a good thing.

I remember calling my bank during Covid. The lady clearly had at least 3 children at home. One was crying. One was screaming. There was pepper pig blaring in the background. She asked me to repeat myself multiple times. I felt for her. It wasn’t her fault. She was doing her best in the situation we were all stuck in. But if I rang now and had the same experience I’d be making a complaint.

If someone’s job is only answering an email occasionally and that’s it and it doesn’t affect any customers I couldn’t care less how many children people are looking after because I’d never even know about it.

Sorry but you are being reasonable. I know it’s tough but working from home is working, you need childcare like you would any other day. I do occasionally look after mine while WFH when they are sick but it really isn’t good to have this as a long term arrangement. Also it’s going to get a hell of a lot more difficult to do very soon as your little one gets older. I have a 20 month old and absolutely couldn’t do it.

He can always change his hours and look after your child, but when he is working from home, he is at work. It’s one thing doing something else for a few minutes during a quiet period, it’s quite another thing having full responsibility for a child and being unable to return to the job, possibly at a moment’s notice. If you want to take care of your child when you’re working from home, that’s up to you, but your husband shouldn’t have to just because you think it’s ok.

tell your dh that on the days he works from home - he needs to sort childcare and take care of baby

on the other three days a week whilst he is on the office you will sort childcare

and this will continue until dc leaves school - he will need to sort the school run on his two days wfh etc

start now off loading the mental load to him

don't pick up his pieces if he fails at first - otherwise he will never take on the responsibility

Except it was a shit experience as a customer trying to solve a problem or retain a service. Stupid waiting times and crying children/barking dogs in the background.

You need childcare for every day you’re both working. If that’s too much for your mum to take on, can you get formal childcare like a nursery or childminder or is there a reason (e.g cost) you’ve not gone down this route?

At my work, it would be a disciplinary issue if someone was caring for a young child and WFH regularly. It happens by exception if someone’s child is poorly or their childcare is closed for a day but anything else would be viewed as an abuse/misuse of company time.

Both of you have a responsibility to arrange proper child care while you are working. Both of you should stop shortchanging your employers and stop exploiting your mother.

He should be driving her when he's wfh ... he's a lazy sod!

Fair enough they should sort it together
but I read the OP as sometimes she decides not to take dd to her mum or to have her mum round and it sounded like that was her choice.

as others have said, you obviously need to have childcare. You can’t work and look after a child. I can’t believe your manager knows this is going on!

You are being unreasonable to your employer - working from home does not equal “caring for child whilst working.”

I think you'll find it gets harder to work and care for a child at the same time - when she's a toddler you have to keep your eyes on them pretty much constantly. Can't you look at paid childcare close to your home a couple of days a week and use your mum the rest of the time? The only time I ever work from home with DS around is if he's off nursery sick. I work during his naps and try and do emails on the sofa with him next to me. It's really hard and not what I'd choose to do at all.

I don't think it's unreasonable for your DH not to want to take time out of his day to look after your child unless he's refusing to consider more childcare and just expects you to do both.

I agree but OPs husband is also wfh without childcare. They should both sort it.

If OP had started a thread saying that DH expects OP to cover all child care while they both work full time. There would have been total agreement that DH has to pull his figure out.

The issue is OP doesn't seem to realise the solutions they have found are completely unsuitable.

Has a conversation been had between OP and DH?
What is DH's view on the current arrangement?

You can't be paid to work and look after baby at the same time although there are exceptions.

Why don't you take her to your Mum's 2 days a week and use a childminder for 3 days? You'll get the tax free child allowance. It's a cost you can't avoid.