aibu expecting dh to take time off to look after sick dd?

[lilygoodtime]

Started back to work 4 months ago dd attends nursery 5 afternoons a week, i work part time and dh full.

DD has chicken pox this week so cant go to nursery, dh thinks i should take the week off with her as he cant! too busy at work, staff on holiday etc.

I have already had time off with her on two separate occasions since i started back.

I think this is unfair and that he feels his job is of more importance than mine.

Also i do not get paid if i am off, so will lose a weeks pay. Dh and i keep our money seperate and we both put in the same amount each month to cover bills etc. When i said today i would not be able to put my full amount in next month he pulled his face and said how did i manage last time!!! This has made me really mad. I only have just over £100 per month left after i put my half in.

Sorry bit long

So aibu to expect dh to either take time off himself or pay more in to our joint funds when i lose a weeks pay??

What do others do in this situation?

Just a question - you both put money into the 'pot' for bills etc, but who pays for child bills i.e. nappies, babysitters, pushchair, carseat?

You obviously can't pay your normal amount towards bills if you are on unpaid leave. So you can't take unpaid leave - you would have to pay a childminder or nanny to take care of your DC. That's not feasible, so you simply take the money you would have paid the childminder, and pay it to yourself, and take the time off work. That way, you are getting paid.

Alternatively, and more sensibly, you could discuss the money arrangements with your DH, because honestly, you aren't two separate entities any more. You are part of a family.

We still have to pay for nursery if dd is off ill so cant use that money to "pay me " if i am off. as someone suggested.

The joint money is more than our bills each month so there is some savings for items like pram etc

Everyone else has said the obvious about your finances.

You said if he got in work for 9 then he will only work 3 hours. Is it an office type job? If so - can he get in earlier?

When dd had chicken pox I worked the Saturday and then got to the office at 7 on all my work days. (I work 3 days.) left at 12 meaning dh got to work for 1pm. He then worked until 6, came home, had dinner and we put dd to bed. Then he worked again until 11. It nearly killed us as dd wasn't sleeping so we were up half the night but we managed to both work enough hours to not upset our bosses.

OP, you say your DH earns twice what you do, does this mean he has £200 a month cash for himself after joint expenditure? Or more perhaps? Doesn't seem fair that he has more cash than you - you're earning and looking after your ( as in yours and his) DD, please talk to hm about a fair share of family earnings.

His job is office based yes, he could start at 8 i suppose, but is needed more at the end of the day between 4 and 5.

Neither of us can work weekend (not open) and cant take work home really either.

Neither jobs are very flexible.

Destination - I would say he has more than £200 left each month. dont really know what he uses it on as he doesnt go out, drink or smoke. yet he always says more goes out each month than goes in when his bank statement comes

Can anyone else look after her for a few hours in the afternoon so dh can go in early/finish early? A friend or neighbour perhaps? It's good to start building up a network of people who can step in on the odd occasion if both your jobs are inflexible like this. It will not be the last time this happens!

Seriously though, your dh needs a kick up the bum

Can anyone else look after her for a few hours in the afternoon so dh can go in early/finish early? A friend or neighbour perhaps? It's good to start building up a network of people who can step in on the odd occasion if both your jobs are inflexible like this. It will not be the last time this happens!

Seriously though, your dh needs a kick up the bum

if you earn less because you take time off for childcare then he should be paying you for providing that childcare.

i totally understand the paying half thing but it is not paying half compleatly,if its good enough for bills ect then the loss of your wages for that week should be concidered to be a bill.
if one parent takes the main responsability for childcare so the other parent can work and its normally 50-50 then fair enough but if childcare increases due to childs illness then split it.obviously you may feel uncomfortable taking actual cash but it could be done via him contributing more to the bill acc that week to cover the loss of your income.

oh and fwiw i think the suituation is unfar due to the differences in income between both of you.
i expect if you were a lone parent you would be elligable for tax credits single persons council tax discount and possibly some element of housing benefit. now if your both splitting equally down the middle wheres the additional money you lose because he lives with you? who pays child related things that arnt day to day like outfits toys ect,if this is you then should he be paying you maintainance (perhaps at a reduced level after what you lose by his presance but him making a bill contribution is taken into acc).
theres such a thing as paying your own way but there is also taking a bigger chunk of responsability for dosh than you should thus giving a fully grown adult to be subsidised and if im correct then the second one is what you are doing.

You and your dh need to work out an identical figure each for 'pocket money' with everything else going in the pot.

DP and I split the childcare for sick DC, usually quite evenly. If one has a commitment then the other covers. It works out. Dd2 is 14 months and still BF so if she is off food then I will be off with her as she will BF more.

Both our employers are reasonable, pragmatic and understanding and we can both access emails from home and make any calls we need to.

I would feel the same way you do OP if I was expected to cover it all.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and replies last night.

Dh has just rang from work to say he is taking wed, thur off with dd. So at leased I can work 2days.

Didn't show him thread but was going to tonight!

Perhaps that's a wise idea,

if your going to have compleatly split finances then you both have to adjust these as life goes along,
the csa maintainance calculator can be very useful with either maintainance or total split dosh.
what ever parent has compleate or main responsability for child related costs or care should recive maintainance from the other as children have a right to be supported by both parents,that dosnt have to be passed to you but could be deducted from what you pay into bill acc to enable you to bere the aditional costs of the child,obviously he would need to understand that it costs way more than the average maintainance agreement to raise a child

I'm glad to hear your DH is at least sharing the burden with you.

It's difficult when neither job is flexible. In our case, our jobs aren;t necessarily flexible, but we can both do a certain amount of work at home. DH has keys to his office, while mine opens quite early til late. So when DD was still small (now 6), we were lucky with our bosses and were able to juggle. Usually, DD was sick but not so unwell that she couldn't go out in the car - like CP. So one would go in extra early and do maybe a 7.30-1.30 morning and the other would drive in to meet them and hand DD over, and go in to do a 2-7 or 8pm afternoon. So we'd both get most of the workday done, we'd bring a few things home to do at night once she was asleep, and we'd catch up on ourselves the following week. Important meetings were juggled and covered for each other, and urgent deadlines were met, but we'd give a few things to others in the sections and tell the bosses that we'd finish some things the following week.

I know you've said your jobs wouldn't necessarily allow for this, but if your DH worked earlies and took a half day but might be available on mobile for issues in the late afternoon, and you arranged to meet him somewhere between your job and his rather than at home (so he has a few extra minutes worktime -showing the bosses HIS flexibility) - not everyday but maybe half the days if you know it will be a week, say - would that work out for you?

Really, it's about looking at it openly, and trying to be helpful and flexible for BOTH jobs and bosses, while doing the best for your DD that you can. You both want to maintain your reputations at work, and keep your jobs.

And you also do need to have an open and frank discussion about money. But that's a seperate discussion and probably best kept until your DD is better again and you both have a chance to catch up on yourselves and your rest again too. So not this weekend, but late next week or next weekend might be a good time to have that chat, and it gives you time to think about it too beforehand - maybe even let your DH know that you want to have that chat so he can think about it too.

Glad he is taking some time off too OP. Childcare, when child is ill should be shared between both of you, this is how we do it. I work PT and DH works FT as a teacher. We both take off time with the kids when they are ill. DH is quite willing to do his bit and his bosses are quite understanding about taking time off work for illnesses, as is mine. But as I work only 3 days a week in a professional job, me taking a day off work as more of an impact on my work than if DH takes one day off in a full working week, so I don't really like taking many days off, and if DH has a quiet day at work, with a lot of support staff around, then he volunteers to take the day off rather than me.

Finances are all joint. We put all our earnings into one pot. Nursery fees for 2 children go out of my wages (onsite work creche) though, but I am free to use all his wages too, and that is how it should be

Our situation is interesting as I work part time but earn just over 1.5 times what DH does and he's full time. We stand to lose more if I am down a days pay but my employer is a lot more tolerant and reasonable about child illnesses etc. Don't you just wish those 6 magic numbers would come up and solve the problem for good!

I realise this is of no help to OP now, but it is exactly this situation that prompted me to vaccinate DS privately against chickenpox.

I work p/t but my manager (ironically the NHS) is very difficult about time off looking after sick children. DP's are even worse. With no family nearby, we realised we would not be able to manage such a situation, having seen a colleague struggle with similar circumstances & the bad feeling it created at work.

So we paid around £300 for the vaccination - we'd be paying out the same/ if not more in unused childcare if he got The Pox anyway

I glad to hear he is taking time off.

I think over the weekend you and your DH should sit down with a spreadsheet and work through the incomings and outgoings and sort things out fairly. Moneysavingexpert has a budgeting tool which is helpful too.

DH and I don't have joint finances at the moment, for a variety of reasons, but as I am the main earner I pay the bulk of the bills and I would say we have a similar amount of spending money left each month.

Do you know how much your DH has in the bank? Even though we have separate finances DH & I know how much we each have in savings and we agree jointly how that money will be used.

Glad he's taking time off. Hopefully it's a start, and you can manage to get a bit more equality in your finances too. I'd think carefully about showing him the thread though - reading people's opinions of him may not exactly put him in a good mood.

You are married and you have a child yet you can't/won't pool your resources? This makes no sense to me whatsoever!

I'm not with the mother of my dd but when dd contracted chicken pox the first thing I did was ask XP what days she thought I should take off to share the caring. Explained to work the situation and that I would be taking time off to care for a sick / spotty child.

It's simple. If he isn't going to do his half of the week and you are going to loose out then he should pay you your full wage for 2.5 days

Agree that in the future he has to do half of all sick leaves

Or just pay your wage for half the time if DD is off sick and you take time off unpaid

You need to rework the finances. You are working part time so that you can look after his/your child part time and this enables him to work full time. You being with the child is working, just like his time at work.

Best pool all your money, take off the bills and savings. Allocate a budget for food, kids clothes, kids toddler groups/activities, savings, spends, evenings out. You should have equal amounts of money for spends and evenings out

Have you spoken to him about the fact that you should be paying either a) proportionally to your income (i.e. if you earn one third, you only pay in one third for joint expenses) or b) each retaining amount X (equal) for yourselves and paying into a joint pot for everything else?

Why are so many men on here seemingly happy to let their wives live in poverty? And so many women too scared to sort it out?