DH always complaining about or wiggling out of taking DD to her swimming lessons

This. Say 'if we end up with any more Wednesday dinner clashes then I'm just going to move swimming to Fridays'. Will be interesting to see what happens after that.

He knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t want to do the swimming so he covers it up with ‘work’ knowing you will pick up the slack and ‘work’ is a more valid excuse.

tell him he starts doing it or you move the day.

im so sick of men picking and choosing when they want to parent.

Just read your update OP.

So he gets two women to step up and do the job he had promised to do, instead of getting on with it himself.

TWO women inconvenienced so that he can go and wine and dine.

Can you imagine this if genders were reversed?

Sorry but it makes my blood boil.

I think it's a mistake not to pull him up on this OP. You're teaching him that not only can he wriggle out of responsibilities, but his mummy and wife will run to help him do so. Expect to see this happening on repeat if you don't challenge it now.

For me, it’s worst because I have to rush home after school, get child to eat snack in speedy fashion, get child fully undressed and into costume with clothes on top, remember a bunch of bits of kit like goggles, drive to pool, get child stripped, sit cheek by jowl in an overheated, overcrowded and very noisy viewing area surrounded by other people’s annoying noisy toddlers and phone conversations, watch the utter tedium of front crawl widths with a float for thirty minutes, then collect dripping child, queue for grotty shower surrounded again by other people’s annoying toddlers, attempt to get my child’s hair washed in grotty shower, put clothes on damp child, drive home, dry hair, wash and dry kit and make a late dinner with hangry child.

Cubs, chess club etc are great as the child only changes clothing once, stays dry, there’s no hair fussing or wet kit to wash and, best of all, I can drop and go or wait in the car. Swimming I’m required by the club to stay in the viewing area of the pool for the entire lesson until my child is at least secondary school age. Even team sports where I also have to stay at least a football match is more interesting than swimming to watch.

I will grant you it’s better now with a KS2 age child that can do some bits themselves than when they were age 4 and still needed help even to get their costume on.

We are a family who do loads of extracurriculars as well. At that age we managed it by doing 2 clubs after school that needed ferrying (I did both as I work very pt, with younger dc in tow) and 3 other clubs after school which were run by the school, so no ferrying and a slightly longer school day for dc1, but not too tiring. I wouldn't have done 4 activities after school that needed transporting, it was hard enough with just those 2 clubs and it was because they offered a particularly good programme.

We do swimming early on a weekend morning rather than after school, but that's partly due to the distance to our pool which means it would be too tiring after school. I have never minded doing it though and don't consider it the worst activity (I find music school much worse, with instrument lesson, orchestra and musicianship crammed into one evening!).

Busy families around here often use nannies to ferry to clubs, which is pricey but takes away a lot of the stress and it makes sense for dual working parents.

I'm willing to bet OP works a lot more hours than her DH.
If he can't manage swimming once a week with just one child, I doubt he's managing much of the laundry, cleaning, cooking, food planning and shopping and all the rest of the mental load we all know so well.

I also doubt she gets to go out for dinner very often.

You need to have it out with him OP. And if all else fails, I'd make the new deal that he has to take both DDs with him to swimming as you need to go out for "insert preferred activity" and it makes wonderful sense to do it while they're all at swimming.

I guess all pools are different, but the beauty of an early morning lesson is that plenty of people do miss lessons. My son has sometimes had one-to-one lessons and it's usually no more than four kids.

Are your discounted lessons actually any cheaper than the public pool's standard pricing?

I'd make enquiries for the first lesson of the day on Saturdays.

With regards to your current set-up, why are you messing around with your daughter's hair if you're just going to put her straight in the bath at home? Why does she need a bath that night? Just skip it.

I can see why your husband can't be bothered with rushing home, not even getting his foot in the door and then having to turn around and take your daughter swimming. Has he even had a chance to eat, take a dump, etc?

So your DH has offloaded his parenting responsibilities onto you OP and his mother, while he spends his time wining and dining.

Some men are just so predictable aren’t they?

”If I become unreliable at this parenting task for long enough, the women in my life will do it so I don’t have to and I can just enjoy my free time.”

I did years of picking up DC from ASC and straight to swimming, showered, cook dinner, homework bed. Yes he works full time, but he comes home and sure his dinner is waiting and he doesn’t need to do much else. Typical he’s got a woman (his mother) stepping in to save him from such hardships.

So he's swerving swimming on most Wednesdays to go for works dinner and swerving family life on a Thursday to go for drinks for many hours.

You do all other clubs.

Please tell me he has your youngest DD while you take oldest to clubs?

When is your time?

He needs to move swimming to a Friday and if he's not looking after DD2 on other nights he needs to start.

@Jensagi

Why don't you do swimming on a Saturday morning at the local communal pool? My eldest son starts his lesson at 8:15 am.

@ other people

Why do so many posters think that swimming is the worst activity for a parent? It seems pretty simple to me. We drive to the pool, my son has his lesson, he gets changed and we go home. It's almost zero effort.

The thing is OP there’s a lot of “this is right for US”, but it’s not, is it? It’s not right for your family because you’re having to post here for advice on tips and tricks to force your husband to take her to one of these activities having outlined that it’s a busy day of work, a quick turn around etc.

The very fact you’re even on here at all tonight questioning this means this doesn’t work for your family at all.

I do 99% of children’s hobby running around in our household - swimming lessons are the worst kids activity. The baths, early dinner, changing, kit drying etc just makes it worse, so he has it easy not doing those bits. That said I think a 6pm swimming lesson for a reception child is insane and having to take a two year old along even worse. I’d just tell him it’s moving to Fridays at a sensible hour and he can take them both, then take both for a treat before or after.

Ignore the posters saying it’s too much - it’s obviously not it she’s happy and not exhausted. My DC is a very extrovert child who likes to be busy and even when doing a different activity every day of the week wanted to start an eighth and ninth. Plus it’s swimming ie a physical activity with a fair amount of fun involved, it’s not maths tutoring! For an awful lot of kids I suspect that “three hours unstructured time” involves screens, I’d say swimming and ballet and birthday parties are all better uses of her time than that.

I think you options are clear tbh he makes Wednesdays happen or you are switching to Fridays.

You need more family time

To play and chill out

For me this is a conversation to have with your husband, if he doesn’t want to take her or commit around work and you also can’t do it or don’t want to do it on top of the other clubs then the simple answer is that swimming lessons get cancelled.

He may pay lip service in agreeing with you about these clubs and swimming being essential etc etc but his actions tell the truth- he doesn’t want to do it, you can’t force him, and a 4 year old honestly does not need hobbies 4 days a week anyway.

If you think swimming is important and don’t want her to miss out then you’ll have to take it on.

Exactly. I think some parents are afraid of not having their children's time occupied with activities. When does your 4 year old has the time to just have unstructured play? I do think this is ott for such a young child. Well, for any child really. Does she have adhd and needs to be moving non-stop?

Well it's worth bearing in mind.

The figure I see a lot is three hours free play each day. That's hard to achieve with school, commutes, bath-time, suppertime, activity.