To want to start the day with a tidy house???

No one said it was an obscene amount of mess, it’s most likely normal family life, having to put on a wash or hang up the wash that was put on earlier, fold the washing and put away, sort DC’s clothes for school, make a packed lunch, stack the dishwasher, clean the table and kitchen, a light hover and put away the toys DC have been playing with. All the normal things that need to be done and can’t be done during the day when two parents work FT.

I’m not really sure how you’ve decided they live in filth and have no ability to anything. Your comprehension of this whole post is quite lacking.

Because honestly? When I wfh, it's meetings. I have time between meetings. Enough time to eat, play, and do a few things around the house. Especially when the kids arent in.

Agree! I work from home while my 2 year old is at nursery. I might get a wash on, and prep some bits for dinner but that’s about it! The mess is made from 6-8.30 when we are all in, cooking, eating and playing.

Yeah I don't see how 3 people create that much mess when the toddler is out of the house all day. As I said, they should all be cleaning up after themselves. It seems like the whole house needs a new ethos on how to manage the home. Nobody seems very domesticated in this situation.

why have you asked this ??? 🤷‍♀️

Why one earth should OP be doing all the cleaning while doing her job just so the DH can sit on his arse every night for 2 hours?

We are well aware that the majority of the mess is family life, dinner, endless laundry etc not mess she’s creating during her work day.

The bath isn’t the problem, it’s almost certainly the long drawn out not going to sleep/ getting out of bed that’s the issue.
There’s nothing wrong with bathing children every night, there’s really no reason not to, particularly as most adults wash themselves daily.

Oh right, then. I think there is more time in the day for OP to get on top of things. They should all be cleaning up after themselves. A cleaner might help the situation, too. If the child isnt at home playing all day, where is all this mess coming from?

It's often simple things like not washing up while you cook so youre only left with minimal stuff at the end. Dishwashers have caused that. People say they make life easier but you just end up with a machine load of not quite clean stuff to unload before you put the other bunch in that is cluttering up the sides. It makes more work.

I think all kids should be bathed daily. That's how you don't have a 12 year old who won't wash like in another thread going on.

A 2 year old doesn’t need that every night, she doesn’t. Need a bath each day, nor her nails cut, just jammies on , brush teeth story bed. Take it in turns to do.

It literally says in the OP that the child goes to nursery.

What an odd comment.

Where is your child while you wfh?

I personally care about clean more than neat. My mum was a neat freak. Neither viewpoint is unreasonable, She just enjoyed things being a certain way, like J K Rowling's description of Mrs Dursley giving everything a nightly wipedown! Doesn't make you a bad person, just accept he prefers things a different way from you.

Useless DH aside I would just either have her downstairs until starting bedtime at 8:30 or cut out her nap and go for earlier. If she's downstairs you can't quite relax in the same way but dh and you could swap between tidying and cooking and doing something calm with her like colouring or jigsaws etc. Don't stress yourself out by battling for 2 hours every night that's craziness for all involved. If a bath every night is too hard then hop in the shower and shower yourself with her or do every other day.

2 year olds go to this point where they don't need a lunchtime but can't quite make it to 7pm.
roll with it

He needs to either tidy up or do bedtime.

I do also agree with pp that maybe you need to either drop the nap or start bedtime later.

You need to make this 30 minutes mate

I agree 2 hours bedtime is ridiculous. Twenty minutes to an hour at the very most. No wonder you are fed up.

I wouldn’t be spelling out the tasks and asking him to choose which he wants to do. That way madness lies. I’d ask him what he thinks about the balance of household/parenting chores between you. And then really listen to his ideas about how to solve the current mismatch. Reflect back to him the solutions he suggests in order to evaluate them for fairness.

People only really buy in to solutions which they have worked out for themselves.

If bedtime regularly takes until 9pm then I would stop trying to put him down at 7 particularly if you don’t have time to tidy up in the evening.
Sitting in a room with a child for an hour does seem like the easier option then being the one expected to clean the house every night. Why don’t you alternate and each tidy?

Give him a choice: take over bedtime from you or tidy up!

2 hours is a long time to be doing bedtime. How long does she nap for and when? Either drop the nap or accept she's going to bed at 9 for the time being and just start later. Then you can all tidy up together 😀

Oof! That drives me bonkers too. I have found that when the house needs sorting, I tend to offer my DP a choice:
A) Do bath, teeth, stories, bed with our little one
B) Wash up and reset the living room

I do this because I know the temptation to flop down with his phone will 9/10 times win out if I don't expressly set the tasks out. If it was just him and DD, he'd figure it out but when I'm here too...🤷‍♀️

I wouldn't mind the phone flop if he'd do the cleaning up afterwards, but once he stops for the day, that's kind of it (tbf, I'm the same. I have to keep going until chores are finished because once I sit down it is game over)

If he can’t/wont provide one iota of help with bedtime he needs to at least do some tidying before he goes to bed. This is unacceptable.

We have a little boy (2 years, 5 months). Partner gets in from work at 6.30pm and we do everything together or tag team from that point onwards. DP will do bath after dinner and I’ll tidy the kitchen, then I’ll sit and read stories with our little boy while he tidies up the toys. We take him up to bed together, say good night around 8.30pm and then do a final sweep of the house before we both sit down.

There is no way I’d be ok with him sitting down for two hours while I did everything. I’ve got friends that alternate each night between bedtime and chores but my DP wants to spend the evening with our son so it’s worked for us to do it this way.