To have two days a week to myself?

Parents I know with similar set up use that time to do chores and admin and all the crap, with a hairdresser and/or gym appointment slot into.

It means they free the other non-working days to do fun things with the kids.
They also use their free day for all the school-related stuff, and there are a lot.

Not sure why would anyone have a comment on that.

I work one day a week and it's perfect. I tend to keep quiet about it though as people will make catty comments, and/or make assumptions that you're available to help them out!
Remember it won't really be 2 days to yourself all year around (assuming you will be looking after dcs on those days in school holidays). Two days will fill up quickly though with chores, errands and school activities, especially if you get roped into doing favours for others. But it's nice to have weekends free of all that, especially in the primary years.

Has your husband expressed any interest in doing so?

Has he shown any interest in booking leave or paying for and organising childcare every half term?

Reality is, most men expect to work full time and most male bosses expect it from their male staff in the same way that the expect women to be covering sick days. I'm not saying they aren't willing to get with the times, but most need a woman to lead the conversation because most men just don't think about it.

Absolutely.
I am a stay at home mum, I love it.
People ask me all the time what I will do when my youngest is in school… exactly what I’m doing now but with more time for myself and my home.
People will always judge! No matter what

How many days downtime does your husband have?

Sounds great.

But I don't know why you're asking Mumsnet.

The only two people who matter in the decision are you and your DH.

People are jealous. Why would you want your DC to do before and after school club if it's not necessarily. It will also mean you can get things done during the week to free up the weekend, and hopefully attend some school activities too. It's a brilliant idea

It's not really two whole days to yourself - schools only 6 hours a day. School runs, house/kid admin and chores will eat into that time! I think 3 days is a great balance when the kids are little. Means you can also attend the inevitable school activities they put on when the kids first start - phonics learning, reading sessions etc

If it works for your family it’s fine . I went to 0.7 when my ds started school . He’s now 18 and I still do 0.7 .

I stayed 3 days (until Redundancy) and DH much preferred it as I did more housework and mental load to balance.

then did 5 days term time in office - this did not work before freelancing full time which got the most part does

Seems fine so long as DH is on board, I assume you will do household chores on those days and will be willing to do the lions share on weekends so DH can also have time to himself on his 2 days off.

Well think of those 2 days as a very poor version of the weekend you never get any more!
Full time workers without dependents get 60+ hours of time off from Friday at 6pm until Monday at 8am, and you are getting nearly "12 whole hours" spread across two days.
Ideally you could have 5 days off to get your 60 hours! Technically you're over working!

Same situation here except I'm a single parent. Those 2 days allow me to get housework, admin, DIY, shopping etc done so we can enjoy weekends and same as you it means my child isn't in breakfast club, afterschool every day. Long as you can afford it ignore anyone commenting they are prob jealous!

Nope I’ll be doing this too once my youngest starts school. Myself and DH have agreed that I can cover the ‘big’ clean, have food shop delivered and sort any adhoc errands on my two childfree days.
It will also give me the opportunity to go to the gym/hair appointments etc and I don’t feel one bit guilty!
We don’t have much help with childcare so it would be very difficult for us to cover the school holidays if I did go back full time.

Stop telling people

Yeah, it’s a total tragedy. 🙄

I do 0.65, which works out as 2 full days, 2 shorter days of 8-2.30 so I can do pick ups, and 1 day off where I catch up on cleaning, sorting the house out etc. It works brilliantly for us, my MIL does 1 pick up and our girls do 1 days after school club. Having the day off means I can be flexible - if the girls have a sports day or a stay and play or Christmas play etc I can move my day off around to be able to attend without taking AL - which is needed to cover holidays. I know some have no choice, but I do feel sad for the children who don't have a parent at these events, I know their parents would absolutely be there if they could, and we are privileged that we can afford for me not to be full time, and that I have a skillset which means I can chose my hours.
So if you can afford to do this, then definitely do. Are you able to work 3 days hours over 4 days, so can do more pick ups?

Same situation, my DD is at college. I love it. I do do far more housework, which is fair enough to me.

Single parent with zero childcare here due to DC both having additional needs, if they aren't in school they are with me so yes it absolutely does get overwhelming at times.

If you can afford it and DH is onboard then sod what anyone else thinks! I assume you can maybe switch it up in the future and change your hours to 4/5 days if needed and therefore this is what works for your family now?

People comment on everything and sometimes the stuff they say totally go against the other thing they said!!!! Whatever works for you!

It's a change of circumstances so the only fair thing is to have an open conversation with your DH and work out together what you are happy with on working days / hours etc as between you for when DC starts school.

It shouldn't automatically be that your hours stay the same without your DH being given an option to review his working hours too

I’ve suggested to my DH that he could drop a day and I could add one, so 4 and 4, but he’s happy working 5 days as he WFH and his job is pretty chilled and flexible anyway. I would happily (well maybe happily isn’t the word, but I would readily agree to) increase to 4 if he did want to drop down in future though. But he’s the one who convinced me to stay at 3 in the first place when I was feeling like I should increase, even though I didn’t really want to.

So as long as you are both happy with it, OP, crack on and enjoy. I find three days the perfect balance. My life has expanded beyond paid employment a lot, and I like having that time to fit in all the other stuff I want to do!

I wouldn’t do it, because my career is important to me and I couldn’t really progress in a part time position. I also wouldn’t want my husband to feel over burdened by being the main breadwinner.

But that’s me. If you want to do this and your husband is fully on board, why not?

I was a SAHM for a while when my children were in school. Believe me those hours between 9 and 3 go in a flash! Cooking, shopping, cleaning and doing laundry for a family of 7 kept me busy - I also volunteered in the children's school a lot, listening to readers, doing crafts and cooking, gardening and endless walking with different classes to the library, swimming, churches etc and also did a couple of lunchtime shifts as dinner lady. It was a very busy life and there wasn't much downtime!

Then they can revisit their work schedules and find something that works for them. However, that is not currently the case. One can’t live life based on ‘what ifs?’