to feel resentful I’ve used my AL for childcare while DH saves his for child-free time?

Can we take it from the statement that it. is not something "I'll be doing" that you haven't actually had children or been in this situation (of being the breadwinner and working full-time)? And that in OP's situation you'd be happy to do all the childcare while your husband can have a nice relaxing time in summer when the child is at nursery?

Is it worth trying to get him to pull his weight?
Why not just divorce him and use his lack of participation as grounds?

I mean that’s the other approach OP- he’s now first line of defence when DC is sick. Also if you’ve got any big DIY projects you can tell him he’s the one with the free time so get cracking…

Please tell us you don't also take all the unpaid leave to do childcare when your child is too ill for nursery?

Anyway, this can be easily solved by USING YOUR WORDS. Start of new year, time to sit down together with your calendars and plan out 2026.

Urgh I recall now ExH gleefully explaining how he’d actually been working lots of overtime and accrued the TOIL to enable him to watch all the rugby World Cup games on the big screen in the park. Our DC was under 2 so all those early starts and skipped nursery runs/late finishes and missed bedtimes I’d assumed had been work pressures were actually him exploiting my free childcare so he could have child free pints in the sun wtaf?!

I used to book random days off but not tell him after that- if I told him he’d expect me to pick up extra chores or do all the nursery runs, it was the only way I got proper rest. We divorced because he managed to schedule in a girlfriend!!

We had absolutely no help with childcare outside of nursery. We both did condensed hours and had a three day weekend. I was always off on Monday days, OH on Fridays, both did childcare on that day. When DC were very small, it felt like we tagged teamed with very little time together, it was relentless.

It would have been wholly unacceptable for one of us to work over Christmas without checking in with the other person. We have the same pending money and time off. As it goes, I worked a lot over Christmas but took over as soon as work finished.

You both need to schedule time off. We use an electronic calendar. If one of us wants a weekend away, the other one has a pass out for later that year. Your DH needs to schedule some make up time looking after your DC. You do not have enough annual leave to cover your DC time off from nursery or school.

But there have only been three working days since Boxing Day, and you had one of those "off".

You should absolutely plan this better in future so DH takes on an equal amount of the mental and physical load, whether that means splitting the days you take off, or taking days off together so neither of you need to be alone with your child you can take time to do things as a family.

I'm not belittling what you've been through over the last five days. It must have been awful. But communicate and plan better and it need never happen again. Importantly, don't be resentful unless DH refuses to share the load, as that way lies madness and probably no more children.

Just inform him that from now on, childcare is to be shared 50/50. Calmly ask to go through both of your leave calendars plus your child’s nursery calendar and work out who should take leave when 🤷‍♀️

Talk to your husband about this.
He is your husband, the love of your life and your best friend.
And you are the love of his life and his best friend.
Talk to him and make a plan for the future together, a plan for your life together, the care of your child, and your respective jobs.

Stop enabling his behaviour by being a martyr to the childcare.
As of 2026 you work out how many days annual leave is required to cover childcare when nursery is closed and you split it 50/50. Non negotiable moving forwards

Give the selfish twat a HUGE list of things to do around the house for his week off and have ready what you are going to say to him when you blast him if he dares complain about it.

As others have said, sit down with your diaries and plan who is taking AL when. Plan to cover time when nursery is closed and also plan when you’ll both be off together to do family things. It sounds as if gp are also happy to help, so book them in advance too. Nursery is closed far less than school, so you MUST get this sorted before your little one starts school. Make sure you both have some AL days to use as you wish - as a couple and separately. Take the initiative, but do it together. You’re both parents, but if someone willingly takes up the slack, it’s easy to let them. Remember you promote what you permit, so make sure you don’t permit a situation that causes resentment.

Your DH is selfish.
It shouldn't have to be up to you to arrange which days he takes off to share the childcare - HE should be doing this automatically.
He has chosen to work every day since Xmas.

Sit down with him when you are calm and say you need to share childcare for all future annual leave and whenever the creche is closed.

You're going to have to talk to him and tell him how grossly unfair he's been this week.

You need to tell him his leave has to be used for childcare. He should have covered half the time nursery was closed. Why didn’t you tell him that? Stop being the default caregiver. I certainly would be taking some child free time for yourself when he is home.

Tell him it’s not on and it’s not happening again.

He is the one who is working during nursery holidays so surely he should have been the one to bring it up before he committed to that?

She’s also by far the higher earner so maybe she deserves some respect for that instead of it been taken for granted?

You're his sugar mummy OP, time to close the purse & let him fend for himself!

Your husband is a dickhead and you've been an utter doormat to have agreed to this. Childcare should fall equally on both of you. He owes you a fair share of child-free rest days. If he can earn extra by taking overtime shifts, he can start doing that to build up credit so that you can take a couple of weeks of unpaid leave while nursery is open in order to actually have the break you need.

This doesn’t sound like a marriage at all

Also - why would you not want to take annual leave together as a family and do nice things with the kids? It’s all about balance and compromise.

This is not an equal partnership - I’d leave my husband if he refused to take annual leave with me and the kids. Clearly doesn’t want to be apart of the family.

Def unfair. He is selfish

if your child is ill who take time off ? Guessing you

You should have said to him to book time off and split it

if you are the breadwinner and double his salary you must earn well

maybe think of a temp nanny for Christmas this year for a few days

I think you are being unreasonable, you could have discussed this with your husband rather being a martyr

This is completely insane. You need to talk to your DH and see if there's some sort of miscommunication here because this is not ok.

what have you said to him??? I’d march in and say don’t think I haven’t noticed you carefully arranging work and leave for as little family time as possible and no solo parenting time, why don’t you just ask for a divorce if you don’t want us in your life? If that’s not your plan you have 24 hours to come up with your plan to give me some childfree days too, even if that is using up your own precious annual leave, and your plan also needs to include how you’re going to make me feel appreciated for using all my leave for our child and handling all the days our child is at home and being their only parent who makes sure someone is caring for them, and you’d better be convincing. The next day we don’t have nursery is your annual leave day to look after our child , I’m not your unpaid nanny any more. Then you walk out.

I’m also the higher earner, I do pretty much all the admin and my annual leave is used for childcare. And my eldest is 7.

This week I’m on A/L and DH has worked. Neither of us discussed it so that is partly on me. But DH never even considers school holidays he literally doesn’t know when they are. He also doesn’t know how much our mortgage is etc.

He does however know how to plan a lads weekend away and organise golf. Suddenly his organisational skills get very good indeed!

I feel I’m being taken for a mug and we had an (another) conversation today where he again agreed with me that he needs to do better but then probably don’t.

And it’s not that I expect loads of me time or never want to see my kids. I want some me time if DH is getting plenty and I want a proper partnership where I’m not living with a fecking passenger princess who doesn’t know how much the bloody mortgage is.

So I guess I’m saying you’re not alone & tackle it now!