To say im on maternity leave not house wife leave

She's not saying he should do jobs during work hours.

OP says "DH wfh and has a lot of downtime which he will spend lazing about / going to the gym etc ".

What’s ick about it? Me taking control of a situation and resolving a problem before resentment grew?

OP it’s probably worth me adding that Another really valuable thing about doing this exercise was that I realised I was underestimating what DP does. I was overwhelmed so in my mind I was doing everything and he did nothing. Once I actually wrote everything down relating to the running of our household, all its members, vehicles etc. I remembered more and more things that DP does every week / month / year relating to cars, bills, the garden, pets that I had completely forgotten about, in part because he does them so reliably I just wasn’t giving them headspace at all.

Presumably as she is on maternity, she is being paid by her employer, who pays her more than her husband, and so is still contributing at least half of the bills.

So she's earning and caring for his baby.

If he was doing half the housework before the baby, why is he doing less than half now?

Because he thinks its fine for his knackered wife to do more because she is having a "baby holiday"?

If being at home with the baby was so appealing, he would be on shared parental leave soon.

What utter nonsense. The baby is 5m and still taking lots of naps. What is op doing in that time? The dh is working during that time. When he stops work then that’s when it’s shared.
surely she can get jobs done in that time?

@Unexpectedlysinglemum , but it will continue to be the split of tasks when the OP goes back to work.

@Viviennemary , OP does have a job, and maternity leave is not being without a job or being a SAHM.

Do you have anything constructive to contribute or are you just going to snipe at posters trying to help?

I don’t know why these lazy thoughtless men think that we will find them attractive when they behave this way

I think when you’re at home all day with a baby there is so much more chores and housework to do than when you’re out all day leaving house in peace (maybe just cooking and washing up for one meal a day)

She’s not his mother.

Agreed.
By the way, I would never, ever keep another adult out of work. Ever. Speaking for myself.

Give him jobs to do each week before you make a rod for your back.

Good way to combat the men who want to play golf for 8 hours and think it doesn't count as their downtime.

Ick.

If he lived on his own with no DW or DC, he'd need to do household tasks like cleaning, cooking, maintenance and bill-paying.

He has children and he should be looking after them too.

The baby-related tasks are yours for the time being because you are on ML, but he should be pulling his weight in the mornings and evenings.

Take responsibility now, @Cloudyonasunnyday , or you'll be going back to work and doing all the parenting and housekeeping.

You are his spouse not his nanny/housekeeper.

Draw up a list of things you would expect him to do without needing to ask.
If he is WFH, I'd be expecting him to be a parent and fellow-housekeeper from 5.45 pm to 8.45 am.

I work from home (currently between jobs) and those are my 'not at work' hours. The 15 minutes either end are for setting up for the day and shutting down for the day. I do a few odd jobs during the day but only if I have to (like dashing to take the washing off the line if it starts raining).

I had this problem.

I snapped about 3 months into maternity leave and actually wrote a big list of all household tasks (from food shopping and unpacking to cleaning to laundry to sterilising bottles to pet care) and divided them up in a way that felt fair and manageable to me.

I also put together a kind of rota, which was super clear of what tasks I expected him to do in the evening (i.e. the time sensitive ones like walking the dog, helping with bath / bed time) and set a specific period in the evening that was 'my time' and 'his time'. He can choose how to use this time but its finite so it means if he goes to the gym there likely isn't enough time to make himself some elaborate dinner, it's either or.

I really stressed that this was our protected time and if we needed to jig things around I'd need notice for this. None of this: 'I'm working late today or I needed to do X,Y, Z so I assumed the rota didn't count'. And no 'I need to walk the dog' when it's my time to be childfree.

My DP sounds more understanding than yours though. He did have good intentions I think he just thought it would all balance out 'somehow' without us having a proper plan. And it didn't!

The mistake I made though was not including any of the mental load I take on e.g. all childcare admin and comms, ordering and researching things needed as our baby grows up etc.

She has a job looking after the baby and older child which is many more hours than 37.5 a week

I don’t think the case is that OP doesn’t want to do anything, rather she resents having to do everything. It’s quite a big difference.

This was me and my husband when I had our first child last year. We have very different standards and he definitely saw maternity leave as a holiday.

To be fair, between the first newborn days and until she got to about 11/12 months old, there is a lot of spare time when they’re sleeping so much during the day. I was in the shape of my life as I did a workout every morning during naptime (we have a home gym). Then the days were filled with meetings up with friends, baby classes and dog walks. I still had plenty of time to pick up the housework during various naps or while baby played on the floor.

The rub was when I went back to work. We had quite a few rows, but we did a list of chores and he took complete ownership of half. So now if he forgets to do the foodshop, he’s the one who goes out at 7pm to get dinner etc

Even worse that the DH works from home because we all know if it was OP who wfh she would still be the one expected to do all the cleaning!

I don’t want to say he does nothing he will do things when specifically asked but often with resistance.

You need to look at what you've put here.

It's really not acceptable.

He isn't a teenager that needs to be told what to do and then cajoled into doing it.

I wouldnt be able to accept it.

Part of the problem is - from what you've said- he didn't seem tp be doing much before the baby came.

So it's not hard to understand why he isn't doing much now.

As you've said you need to make time for yourself and he needs to step up.

Because if it carries on as it is, I doubt your relationship will stand it.

I agree with you. I don't understand why stay at home mum - encompassing women at home on mat leave - has ended up synonymous with cleaning. Parenting and housekeeping are as different as parenting and librarian.

Your husband wfh so he can do some cleaning, laundry etc. I wfh so I do most of the household tasks.

Surely, if it means more time all together on weekends it is worth doing some jobs in the week.

Even nannies do other tasks while looking after babies - they do nap or entertain themselves whilst you're doing things around them

Not RTFT but "To be clear though I have always asked for more help and it’s been a persistent issue. Before having the baby of course he promised he would help more (fool me)"

Read that to yourself looking at how you've worded it.
You might as well have written 'Looking after the children and the house is my responsibility but I expect my DH to help without me having to ask. '