Selfish DH preventing DD getting ready for school

[Spelunk]

I get up at 6.30am and get ready, then wake DD at 7.15am. She has 15 mins to get up and dressed, 15 mins to eat breakfast, and 15 mins to have a quick wash and brush teeth. So DD bathroom time is 7.45am-8.00am, then we put shoes on and walk out the door at 8.10am.

DH is repeatedly using the bathroom during that time and making it difficult for DD to get ready for school. I’ve told him repeatedly that he can use the bathroom any other time but not during that 15 minute slot.

Today he was bending over brushing his teeth in the sink while I was trying to get DD toothbrush out of the cupboard above the sink, and bonked him on the back of the head with the corner of the door. DH was furious, and I was equally furious because he shouldn’t be fucking getting in the way during those 15 minutes.

He’s a grown adult, he’s capable of getting up 15 minutes earlier to use the bathroom. He’s just fucking lazy and lying in bed as late as possible. Then he ends up needing the bathroom right before he leaves for work at 8am. It’s selfish and I’m absolutely sick of it.

It depends on which way you look at it

The OP knows she has 45 minutes to get her daughter ready and out of the door. In order to accommodate this she gets up over an hour earlier than her DH who does nothing.

But apparently if the OP does manage to carve out a little breathing room, and has a pause of a few minutes, maybe even sits down for a little rest, her DH starts moaning at her to get on with things.

She could be waiting for the alarm because she's very rigid about times, but at the same time who wouldn't want a little break in the hustle of getting a child ready for school. And who wants their DH barking at them to get on with it any time they do have a quick break, when he himself is doing nothing.

They are both parents. If he's that bothered by her having a break whilst she waits for the next alarm, he could just take over and do the next part of the routine instead of moaning she's doing it wrong

Does nobody really ever have a morning where they find they have rushed through their routine a little faster than normal and instead of leaving early, or getting on with something, just sit for a few minutes to relax instead? I know my DH does and I would not begrudge him that.

I would find it hard too. I have an adult DC with classic autism. I found having rigid routines was detrimental to my DC .
We did have task/routine lists in the appropriate rooms when she was little.
Originally, it had times unfortunately this was detrimental as she obsessed about time. She would stand and wait for the exact times.
Got rid of the times and kept the to do list.
Basically, toilet, wash, teeth,dress, make bed and downstairs for breakfast.
She was calm and had 10 to 15 minutes downtime before leaving the house.
After a month of getting rid of times it was a natural routine and the list disappeared.
She was able to do it on her own by age 7.

We also worked on having plan B or C fairly young.
It has made her fairly flexible when things have to change.

DD went to special school who fed into strict routine times. I had to have it written into her plan not to put times on her personal timetable. Hey presto happier calmer student. Less anxious.
She does know the time she has to leave for train or bus etc but realises things change.so

I think a poster up thread made a really good point. Your daughter needs to understand social boundaries and what she should expect in terms of behaviours from others. If your DH is not horrified at the idea that he might be making her vulnerable by her thinking it's perfectly normal for her to share a bathroom with a grown man having a sh*t while she washes her teeth.

You are absolutely not being unreasonable. If he continues to tell you it's unreasonable then I would suggest that you leave him to get DD to school on time. Find a reason you need to be at work by 8am for a week. Leave him the schedule set out and let him figure it out the hard way.

It will be a painful few days and its quite likely he will shout at her every time she wanders off in the end but I suspect that he'll gladly step back and stay out of your way after a week.

And she also needs to understand that others in the wider world won't be so accommodating of her strict routines. It would drive me mad to live with 2 people who used alarms to time activities. My husband, FIL and son all have ASD. Husband and son learnt to be flexible, FIL hasn't. He is hell to live with, believe me.

I don't see anything about expecting the wider world to do anything. It's the family morning routine that has to accommodate three people with one bathroom. A timeslot system that ensures the people with less flexibility can get out on time, while the guy who can go more or less whenever works around a piddling 15 minute slot, makes sense.

She has the entire rest of the day to do that and school will also help with it as well

Most parents have a specific time frame for getting their children ready for school which doesn't allow massive flexibility though, that's pretty standard at this age

Yes, I realise that, as I said I have an adult child with ASD. My point is that the mother has alarms for herself too! She seems to be training the daughter to be just like her, unable to cope unless she can do activities in a particular slot. My DS was told, ' OK, time to get up and in the bathroom, you will have to be quick'. That was his slot, we didn't do alarms. He became more flexible as the time I called him varied slightly. There were 4 of us, mostly all of going out of the door at the same time. My FIL, on the other hand, would become very angry if he wasn't in the bathroom at 6.30,and had to wait a minute more. He really lived all of his life to a timetable, he had been allowed to do that and dictate to others what they were permitted to do. Everyone else in the house was stressed, miserable and suffering because of his inflexible behaviour. I'm sure many here would say he was just being a typical man, but it was clearly due to ASD. No one challenged him, no one had ever tried to get him to be flexible.

I mean the actual thread is about a man who barges into the bathroom to go to the toilet whilst his daughter is cleaning her teeth because he wants to go then and won't be flexible and wait

Out of the two parents I think the fathers lack of flexibility is going to have a far more detrimental effect on his daughter than her mother setting a few alarms

And I agree that the father should not do that.

This thread's amazing.
OP's doing teeth brushing wrong.
OP's doing timetabling wrong.
OP's doing parenting wrong.
DD's doing autism wrong.
DD needs to be more adaptable.
OP needs to be more adaptable.

The one person who isn't wrong and doesn't need to adapt is the overbearing oik who shoves his 7-year-old out of the way, takes a dump in front of a child brushing her teeth, moans about the morning routine but doesn't help, and insults his wife.

Welcome to MRA Central 🙄

So don't you think it's kind of significant that he does? It makes a 15-minute morning bathroom slot look even more reasonable.

No.

I actually can't understand why the dad isn't helping get the daughter ready.

But living your life by alarm will create a stressful environment. It's inevitable. What happens if you over run? The only result is a panic, meltdown and anxiety.

People with autism are helped by routine. But they also tend to struggle when the routine doesn't go to plan.

That's why you need to teach a routine with an element of flexibility with it in mind that you are teaching how to do a series of tasks but it's also not a disaster if it doesn't go to plan.

And that absolutely should start with the absolute basics.

The point is that the OP is being OTT and making things worse. That's not to say that Dad couldn't be a lot more helpful.

Him being in the bathroom 'at the wrong time' is sending a message that everything is a disaster because things aren't going to plan. If you are micromanaging and trying to control other household members to this degree, you have a problem.

If this was a bloke doing the same we've be saying it was controlling and potentially abusive. Its hardly MRA central to point out the level of controlling behaviour here.

You have to learn to live with people who may act unpredictably and not on a minute by minute schedule. Cos it's not healthy to live like this - regardless of neurodiverse status.

Yes this exactly!

It really doesn't matter when the DD brushes her teeth or that the OP - quite rightly- doesn't want to get up prior to 6.30am to start her day, all she has asked her selfish lump of an H to do is not use the only bathroom for 15 minutes in the day, and he can't even manage that simple task, but somehow the poor menz must be allowed to shit exactly when they want and sod everyone else.

Oh and slight amend from previous post - there is in fact another toilet he could use for urgent ablutions, but he is frightened of spiders or being darked on or something.

The OPs 15 minutes includes time for her DD to wander off and get a toy,to get distracted etc

Sounds like flexibility to me.

If the OP was only allowing time for the DD to do the exact tasks with no small child distraction time then that might be too rigid. But how is including time for play and imagination not flexible?

And the OP might be less stressed about the DH being in the bathroom at the "wrong" time if she didn't spend the entire 15 minutes stressed that he might barge in at any moment and get into the way. That's the behaviour that is stressful, controlling and verging on abusive and the OP might feel less need for a strict timetable if she didn't have someone riding roughshod over everyone else in the household at any point in time.

And meanwhile despite the DH messing up the morning schedule, barging into the bathroom, slowing them down, the only person who seems to be having the meltdown isn't the OP or the DD but actually the DH

you need to teach a routine with an element of flexibility

Yes, of course, @RedToothBrush. The seven-year-old autistic child is doing autism wrong.

What are you saying here? That autistic children must learn to be less autistic? No children have a right to privacy for 15 minutes? It's wrong to allocate time slots for the family bathroom of a morning?

I'm sure you didn't mean that men may shit whenever and wherever they please, may choose to shit in front of their young daughters, or that children must learn to put their toothbrush down and leave the bathroom if The Man decides to use it during their time.
Did you?

Isn't part of the problem though the OPs rigidity, not just over timings, but also on where things must be done.

Should the dad edit effort his daughter is bruising her teeth or on the loo - absolutely.

Should he be holding in his poo or delaying his shower because that's where the OP is seeking her daughters hair or putting suncream on her arms? Bonkers!

Can you imagine if a woman posted saying that her husband wanted her to get up at 6am so he's got time to style his hair in the bathroom. He'd be absolutely slated.

Should he be holding in his poo or delaying his shower because that's where the OP is seeking her daughters hair or putting suncream on her arms? Bonkers!

There's a second toilet he can use if he absolutely cannot wait 15 minutes or fewer. And there's no reason he can't shower before or after the girl's bathroom slot.

It’s not even shitting that’s the issue. I’d be more understanding if it was an urgent bodily function.

He’s pushing in front of her to brush his teeth, because he can’t wait till she’s finished otherwise he’ll be late for work. He should have got up earlier and brushed his teeth before DD needs to use the bathroom, but he won’t because he’s too fucking lazy. Or he could take his toothbrush into the spare toilet where there’s a tiny sink, but he won’t because he’s too fucking selfish, he’d rather inconvenience his autistic DD than inconvenience himself.

We can’t make an alternative plan because we never know what time the selfish bastard will decide to roll out of bed. He thinks he should be able to use the bathroom at any time he wants, even if someone else is already using it.

Yesterday he pushed in front of DD to brush his teeth and bent over the sink to spit, just as I was getting DD’s stuff out of the cabinet (because she has to leave by a certain time so isn’t able to wait for him to get out of the way, and why should she). Then he lifted his head and bonked it on the open door, and he went apeshit because I’d opened the door over his head. YOU SHOULDN’T FUCKING BE HERE IT’S NOT YOUR TURN TO USE THE BATHROOM! - I snarled.

Anyway last night we had a huge argument about the selfishness of getting up whenever he feels like it and expecting to use the bathroom even if someone else is already using it. I pointed out that he’s disrespecting DD by pushing in and not giving her space and privacy. I suggested he could either get up earlier or he could put his shoes on and use the toilet in the garage.

It must have had some impact because today he was out of the bathroom before DD needed it and he even put her shoes and coat on while I was making her packed lunch. I don’t expect it to last but maybe it’s switched on some common sense in his tiny brain.

Let's hope the common sense switch stays switched, @Spelunk!

You sound like a great mum.

He sounds like a twat.

Is it possible (sorry this is such a "Mumsnet" thing to say- that DH has autistic traits as well? He seems incredibly inflexible in his thinking.

This wouldn't excuse it, he's still behaving like a dick. The needs of the child should come first.

@Spelunk get a lock fitted if there isn't one already there, then he simply cannot come in during that 15 minutes.

Also this may go against the grain, but I would smile and thank him this evening for using the bathroom earlier in the morning. If he gets positive reinforcement for his behaviour he may be more likely to repeat it.

Autistic children have to learn skills to cope to a certain degree. Yes to reasonable adjustments. But the key word is reasonable.

Living your life by alarm clocks isn't what all autistic children and adults do.

Listen to some of the other posters who are autistic or have autistic children say about this level of rigidity becoming a problem in its own right due to over reliance on it as a coping strategy.

Re: the rigidity of @Spelunk's morning routine - it works for her and her dd, and ensures she can get her dd ready for school in the best frame of mind/mood to start the day. Obviously it wouldn't suit everyone, but it doesn't need to - it just needs to suit them. And yes, it doesn't suit her dh - but he is an adult, who has an autistic daughter, and I honestly don't think it is a massive imposition on him to ask him to avoid using the bathroom for one 15 minute slot in the morning. He has plenty of time to do what he needs to do, and another loo available in an emergency, so why can't he, as a loving father, do what is best for his child?