This is the situation. OH has recently started a new job and has to leave the house at 8am.
Previous to this she's always been a SAHM for the time we've been together.
The old routine was that I'd wake up at 7:30am and I'd sort DS out ready for school. OH would wake at 8:30 and sort DSS out then take him to nursery. No problems with that.
Now she's started work, the routine has had to change. Except now she wakes at 7am. She'll spend the entire hour getting herself ready, making her own lunch and eating breakfast before leaving the house with her breakfast still out & any mess she "didnt get time" to clear up from her lunch.
I still get up at 7:30. I have to now get both kids ready before walking DSS to nursery which makes me then 30 mins late every day to start work. Luckily my job is fairly flexible since I work from home so its not a huge deal but I do feel guilty still when I am not online at 9am. Oh not to mention I have to then spend my lunch hour fetching him then miss more time whilst I make him his lunch have him wittering away in the background all afternoon.
It's not that I'm expecting her to do loads. Just something!...other than the entire hour getting herself ready. Eg. Put clothes on DSS or get him some breakfast....Hell even finish a cup of tea! (This morning she managed to pour water into a cup).
How do other families manage when both parents work?
AIBU?
to expect OH to do something in the mornings
Niceguy2 · 05/04/2011 09:21
You haven't even thought about the holidays and yet your OH has accepted a job? 
Really, you need to sort this out your two.
Sorry but children come first
Entertaining themselves and playing outside, often involves endlessly knocking at the door with various problems/requirements etc, and how on earth can you keep your eye on them out there if you're engrossed in your work?
You really do need to think about childcare.
I'm with you OP. I have almost exactly the same situation with DP. I get up at 6am, get showered, dressed, ready, get DD breakfast, have breakfast with her etc while yelling at DP to get up. He then sleeps through his alarm and carries on snoring until about 7am at which point he grumpily gets up, spends the nex 20 mins having a shower and getting himself sorted...all the while making me late for work because I don't want to leave DD sat on her own while he faffs upstairs 
Surely the answer is for your OH to get up earlier and to make her lunch the night before?
Sorry Tatty. I'm just using the "your kids my kids" thing here so people can understand what's going on. At home we treat them equally.
OH can't drop off in the mornings because when I say nursery, I should be more specific and say it's pre-school. So it doesn't open until 9am and she has to set off at 8am.
Childcare-wise I think you are right Worra. We need to sort something out for DSS during the holidays. I forget sometimes because up until now OH has been at home so its never been an issue and my kids are older so are perfectly able to organise themselves. I doubt at 14, my DD will want a minder! lol
It's taken so long for OH to find a half decent job that we bit their hand off when it was offered. Decent jobs round these parts are like rocking horse shit. Am sure we'll find a way.
I'll feel better after my coffee has brewed!!! 
Why don't you get up at the same time and do it together?
Lay the table for breakfast the previous evening, for starters.
make lunch the previous evening too.
Make sure the kitchen is clean and tidy and all the pots are done in the evening so you come down to a clear sink.
Put out a pot of coffee so you only have to add the hot water and switch it on in the morning.
A lot of this is down to organisation.
And team work.
Our mornings are - Himself gets up at 6 and runs the kids bath. He then goes downstairs and lays their breakfast out. He brings me a coffee in bed. He goes downstairs to wait for the kids to get down there and has his coffee and watches some news.
Meanwhile I am drinking my coffee and the kids are in the bath. I then make sure they are safe in there, then get them out and supervise them getting their uniforms on. By which time my coffee is finished and I've pissed about on mn for a bit 
.
The kids go downstairs and I get ready while my husband supervises breakfast. I go downstairs to supervise them and my husband goes upstairs to get ready.
We don't need to bother with ironing or anything like that, because I do all that on a sunday for the entire week.
One of us takes the kids to school while the other gets cracking (we work from home)
It can be very easy indeed, you just need to work together.
I'm just gobsmacked it can take someone an hour to get ready. I'm trying to make it add up
5 minutes in the shower, 5 minutes (10 if you're really slow!) to put on a full face of make up. 2 minutes to run a brush through your hair or 5 minutes to do a quick style or maybe 10 minutes if you faff about with equipment and stuff, 2 minutes to whap some clothes on, 10-15 minutes to make and eat some toast, 5 minutes to slap some lunch together.
Is it just me who is that this thread is a man complaining about a woman, its very refreshing!!
Niceguy in the morning DH and I take it in turns depending on who needs to get to work quickest - often he gets DS ready as he works from home so doesn't need to have a shower, dry hair, get ready so quickly. And it does usually take us women a bit longer (mainly drying ridiculous amounts of hair!)
Have you asked OH to help more? Maybe explain that you need to start work by 9 and are finding it difficult to do that atm.
What about making her lunch during the day when you work from home and then she would have some extra time to help with the kids in the morning?
is it just me, or is there a really simple solution to this? Just get up earlier, and sort it our between you!
My DH is up at 3:30 every morning, and has left the house by 4am, so mornings were never going to be ideal for me us. I start work at 07:30, 10 miles away, so i just get up at 5:45, shower, get dressed, get breakfast (by which time it's usually about 06:30), then I go and wake DS up, sort him out, drop him off at nursery and get to work. It's so easy, I don't really even think about it!
it just takes a bit of planning and adjusting, I think. I'm sure it will even itself out, OP
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