Argument with DH over childcare

Agree !! Can you imagine throwing that in your husbands face when the child is 18😂.

Interested to know if OP would happily forego her planned evening activity if DH got in from work and said he'd had a bad day and didn't fancy looking after the toddler?

I have a toddler. Some days are so full on I count the seconds till my husband is home. He is always trying to make life easier and support me/us. He will always put us first.
He would absolutely skip the gym to support me and our child. Its not forever. Because I feel so well supported by him (vice versa for him) I don't have any resentments and I don't want him to miss out on his own hobby time. We made all our life decisions together and we are on the same page about it all.
His attitude makes a big difference to how much empathy I have for him. We both want the absolute best for eachother.
if he treated us like a burden or didnt appreciate me. I wouldn't be so inclined to protect his hobby time. This is obviously a two way street.

It sounds like you're not both on the same page. I think you need to sit down and hear each others sides to learn about where the other is coming from (not defend yourselves otherwise that ends up being a unproductive argument.)

That has got to be one of the most ridiculous, absurd things I’ve ever seen on MN 😂 god the misandry on this site is real.

Given we are discussing a nursery age child not a newborn and the DH does his share of looking after the child on weekends, nursery drop offs etc I think bringing up pregnancy and birth is utterly ridiculous and irrelevant.

How many hours at your job would you do to avoid one hour of labour pains?

I'd do 10,00000

I think if you were ill or it was some sort of emergency, then fair to expect him to skip the gym. Not just because you had a bad day.

Crucially, I don't think the fact you were looking after your toddler today is really relevant. You had a bad day and didn't want to look after your child in the evening. Not really relevant whether it was during a paid job or childcare.

Do you actually lose that much (after childcare and transport is taken into account) by working part time rather than full time with a toddler?

I can see his point. If you were ill I'd see it differently.

I think he's right actually....unless this was a one off and you've said it's not.

How long can you carry on that excuse??

It’s a bit off. I get that you’ve had a tough day but it was a day. If it was for illness or for a longer term issue then fair enough. I’d discuss the need for some structured time on childcare days for myself. The other issue is it’s likely he plans gym time and what he’s working out. I go to the gym 4x a week and get really pissed off if family stuff comes up unexpectedly and I’m asked to forgo a session, it’s better if I know in advance and plan to drop a day or so. I plan my week and know what I’m doing each day. So I think you need to just suck it up today essentially.

Your dh isn’t unreasonable to say that if the stressful days are too often then maybe it’s time to increase the use of nursery and your working days. It sounds like he has a different view on what constitutes “the odd occasion” and he’s not unreasonable to want to protect his gym time. We don’t know the actual number so it’s hard to say if it’s really the odd occasion.

He is unreasonable to assume that using nursery 5 days a week will mean never having a stressful day

In that case doesn't it make sense that the days when you're looking after your dc are the days that dh doesn't go to the gym so that you get a break in the evening?

How much of the pregnancy and birth did he do?

This is mumsnet men dont have a point on here.

Looking at it from a different perspective though, if either of you had a shit day and make a request like this as a one off, you would want to be supported. It should matter whether it was at work or at home.

The key point here though, is that it wasn't 'a one off'.

I’ve asked this on the odd occasion previously too.

I mean, we don't know how often, but the OP has admitted she does do this sometimes, in her OP, when she is presumably looking to get sympathy from us.

I think he has a point.

I agree with him. You’re being totally unreasonable.

Does it really matter who is making more money in this circumstances?

I think it does matter, especially if the DH wasn't entirely in agreement with being the breadwinner to begin with.

Just to moderate some of the comments on here: I work PT, stay with my toddlers 1 day a week and some days are just really hard. I can't wait for my husband to come home and give me a hand.
Yet I still think it's best for my children to be spending that time with me rather than nursery, and I benefit from it too.

I'm still the main breadwinner.
Does it really matter who is making more money in this circumstances?
Do I then have the "right" to ask my husband to skip the gym since I'm the one who pay for the mortgage?

The question IMO is more about asking the other to skip a hobby when having a shit day - but there is no emergency/sickness. I personally would not.

I'm against the grain. I did put DS into pre school for 5 days a couple of terms before he started school despite working three days a week. It was a term time pre school and we were eligible for the full 30 hours so I didn't have to pay anything extra. The reasons; we live rurally and there isn't much to do and he wasn't stimulated enough mentally, it allowed me to do admin, car repairs, DIY, sort the house and medical appointments etc. I also pulled him out for one day each half term and we went and did something special for the day one on one. All that meant weekends were our family time, we never stayed in and we never had to do things like the foodshop or cleaning on those days. It was purely a fab time together that DH got to enjoy as well. We had DS home during the school holidays along with DD.

I don't regret our decision

In regards to your DH I can see why he is a little miffed to be honest. However before DS was in for 5 days I'd often just ask if I could have half an hour around his hobbies to go for a walk or a shower in peace on the really bad days.

Eh, he has a point.

I'd be pretty miffed if DH decided to work part-time, left me as the breadwinner, and then wanted me to skip my hobbies because he was struggling to look after the toddler he chose to stay home with.

Sorry I agree with him.

You chose to go part time. You complain about your day with your kid and expect him to forgo his workout because your kid is a handful.

It sounds like your husband is getting tired of being the main breadwinner then you ask him to give up his workout because you're stressed by being the main caregiver on days you don't work. You say he splits care evenly on his days off and weekends and does nursery dropoffs.

Take him up on his offer. Go back to work full time and put your kid in nursery if you're finding child care so overwhelming that he can't even hit the gym.