To have two days a week to myself?

If he’s happy with the situation, then it’s fine. I honestly don’t understand what you’re questioning or why. Genuinely.

Do it!
You'll probably do a lot of house work etc then.
But if possible I'd spread the three days over four so I could do another school pick up or two while child is little

How do you split childcare at weekends? If you do most of the childcare at the weekends then I can see why you would want some downtime. But if childcare is 50-50 at the weekends then when does your DH get his downtime?

Could you both work 4 days a week? This is what me and DP did when our DS started school.

But your husband has to keep working 5 days so you can work 3, what if your husband becomes tired and stressed working 5 days a week?

I work 3, I couldn’t imagine working 5 again. I’d never have time alone to do anything - cleaning/shopping/me time!? I do have high needs DC though, I can’t take them to a supermarket nor do they go round friends or clubs etc.
In an ideal world, I’d do 2-2.5 days but that’s quite hard to find in my industry.

Full respect to the parents who do full time and remain sane.

It's a good plan.
It means that when he's inevitably off sick, you have more slack to make up days (if your work is flexible on days like that)

It also means it's much easier to sort out the holidays as you have less days to arrange childcare for

If you can afford it, why would you NOT want to spend time at home looking after yourself and your family???

Statistically more women do more life admin and household chores. On that basis I think part time is reasonable if you can afford it.

You won’t get two full days to yourself, only 9am - 3pm ish by the time you’ve factored in the school run and I expect you’ll find that time is taken up doing plenty of chores and admin. I speak from experience!

(Oh and of course no one gets a vote! If this works for your family that’s the only conversation needed)

Why not working mornings instead of a 3 day week, so your DS doesn't have to go to afterschool?

It’s jealousy. Tell them to eff off

I'd say go for it. Not at all jealous 😀

But I earn 3x DH, returned to work at 3 months after both kids, and now at 55 I'm about to pay off the mortgage, DH gets to take a break from the job he's hated, and I'm hoping to be able to retire early at 60 (first will have finished uni, second will be almost done). So if you can continue to pay into your pension as if you were working 5d and you have a partner covering the mortgage why not?

Well no of course not. But it’s always worth considering if both parents doing 4 days a week is an option instead of relying on each parent for one particular thing. Particularly in this situation where your end up with two entire days neither working nor parenting and your dh doesn’t have that. And possibly will have to work while simultaneously parenting on Fridays which is always a headache?

ny husband and I both work compressed hours - so full time in 4 days and therefore only 3 days in wraparound. Not recommending that necessarily as it’s a bit chaotic but maybe he could at least not work a Friday afternoon so he’s not trying to do two things at once.

It’s really only up to you and your husband to have an opinion on this.

You can either address with him and ask if it’s “fair” and how he feels or say nothing and hope he never considers if he would also like to work less hours.

my brother and SIL both work condensed 4 day weeks on full pay, if we can both do that we want to do so. I think if we could financially cope on one of us doing 4 days (eg we both earn say the same, or the 4 day person more) then I’d (or they) would naturally be really jealous but there’s not a lot could be done?

it’s no one else’s opinion but your DHs but they do deserve an opinion.

Exactly the same plus sports every weekend means I'm up at 6 every Sunday for football or rugby

If you can afford it,do it.
I returned to work when DC1 started primary school. I only worked 4hrs 2 days a week and gradually increased my hours as more hours became available.By the time DC were 11 and 7 , I was working 5 hrs a day Mon-Thurs. I also spent a lot of time caring for my parents who had illnesses that meant they needed help with shopping,hospital appointments,banking etc.
So not really much time for myself.

I think it’s totally fine - and I wouldn’t even call them days “to yourself” if you’re planning to do housework, chores, errands in some of that time.

Plus as pps have said, it’s 12 hours (minus any travel time) not two whole days.

I’ve never been pt myself but it sounds a good idea if you can afford it.

(Edit - was never pt because I was self employed but in a weird way, which didn’t involve choosing hours. And now am a single parent and can’t afford to be pt)

I work 0.6. DD1 about to leave school. DD2 starting secondary in August. I’ve been part-time for 7 years in my current role. Had been 0.8 in a role with a lot of travel before taking redundancy. I had to work a year full time before going to 0.6. Was utterly miserable. I’m lucky, I’m mid-50s, mortgage nearly paid off and pension provision reasonable. If I was in my 30s I’d probably be full-time. I love having 2 days to myself, I consider myself semi-retired, and love my life. We’re not well off financially but we spent loads of quality time together and the DDs have been able to do activities that would have been impossible had I been full-time. I’ll never got back up to full-time hours.

I also worked 3 days a week and when DD started school a lot of people assumed that I would increase days. They thought I was working PT for childcare reasons when it was partially that, but mainly because I have quite serious health issues and need to work PT to have some quality of life. I actually went up to 4 days when DD started school but was exhausted so after 18 months went back to 3 days. DH has worked shifts for years and works 50% of weekends, lots of night shifts etc. He hasat least 2 weekdays off to himself so there was never an issue about me having more downtime- actually he does because he’s very rarely solo parenting- DD is either at school or I’m also around (on a weekend). I earn about £15-20 20k a year more working PT than he does working FT so also feel like I more than pay my way which probably also helps. 12 hours a week is soon filled with cleaning, gardening, life admin, shopping, cooking, laundry etc (we have no outside help in the house), plus managing my medical appointments, helping our parents, plus we’ve done a huge house renovation. So there’s a lot less free time than you might think!

I do the same (well every other week as I'm 0.7).

I have no intention of being full time. Although I do earn same as my husband from it.

It sounds like loads but somehow disappears. By the time I've done a walk, some cleaning, phoned insurance, garage, whatever needs doing that week it seems to be school pick up time.

I love it though and wouldn't change it. I feel this is the trade off for going back to work when they were 10months. I always said I'd prefer part time for longer over extended maternity.

My DC is in nursery 4 days a week and I only work 3. We both have very stressful jobs and I was at absolute breaking point when we made this decision to add the extra day, and I can honestly say it's changed our lives. I have so much more energy even though it's only a few hours a week "off". DH doesn't mind because I reciprocate most weekends and take her off for some 1:1 time, which gives him a break and is also lovely for her and me.

However we don't tend to tell people about it for all the reasons you've described.

Do what works for you and your family OP.

I am the same, my youngest is going into Primary 4 after the summer so I have had 3 lovely years of 2 days to myself! I think the whole family gets the benefit of it and I deserve it after getting through the baby and toddler years times 3 with no time to myself! Anyone that comments is just jealous!

I wouldn't mind a full time job some time in the future but I am a teacher (for now) and wouldn't want to never be able to pick up and drop off my kids from school.

I did this for a couple of years when my 2 dc were in lower primary. I had been working 3 days a week anyway and kept it up until I think dd2 was 7ish, then increased to 4 days a week.

It was lovely. There was time to do the bulk of household stuff within those two days, as well as my socialising and other things for myself such as the gym. I benefitted from that. It freed me up at evenings and weekends for family time.

My children benefitted because I could do the school run two days a week, took them out after school and did play dates, made friends with other school parents and was able to attend a lot of school stuff and had a significant role in the PTA. It was a really happy, balanced time. It helped that a lot of my friends did the same and some never went back to full time even with kids in secondary school!