To ask you all how to make our mornings easier? DH incapable of timing things correctly

[ICameOnTheJitney]

DH doesn't start work till' 11.00am so he does the school run. I work from home and begin about 9.30. The school is almost 2 miles away through country lanes and they ride bikes. DD aged 9 has her own bike and DD aged 5 is on a tagalong.

Now...I do my bit...I get up first, make the packed lunches and help DDs with clothing and bags....I do their breakfast and hair etc.

DH gets up, spends ages making elaborate toasts (mini gourmet toasts) and then stands in the kitchen eating them while I do the last minute checks with the DDs. Then without fail, we all have a row because he's wasted a load of time and panics and gets grumpy because he's annoyed that one DD can't find her helmet or the other is moaning about her socks or whatever and we all spend the last 5 minutes arguing.

I HATE that he can't seem to get ready on time and he last night admitted he was too slow and said he'd change...he also suggested a good idea which was to stop blurring the lines of which parent was in charge, we'd sort of "hand over" when it came to coat, bag and helmet time....I thought this sounded excellent and tried to do it this morning and he STILL failed to get out for 20 past which is the time we them need to leave.

He always gets annoyed with one DD...whichever one is most grumpy or slow...and I get annoyed because if he wasn't so bloody slow himself, he'd have time to address issues with tight straps or cold hands!

What can i DO???

[Waffling]

I've reported your post lougle for annoying me.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

My DH loves him a piece of elaborate toast. he had smoked salmon, cream cheese bagel this morning. He got up at 6.30am so that it would be done and dusted before DD got up.

Ex-H on the other hand couldn't be on time to save his life. He really just thought everyone would wait for him because he was so important.

[Doingakatereddy]

I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to absolve myself of all responsibility for getting a kids up & ready, make myself an indulgent breakfast & not consider time an issue.

Men really do have it all don't they?

Change is what is needed, fair, equal change.

[Quangle]

hilarious especially the theology around toast/toasts. I like thinking of them as toasts because it makes OP's DH sound even dafter than her description (sorry OP)

Agree with all the advice on here. He's not too slow - he just can't be arsed to take responsibility and wants it all to magically happen. Something's got to give and it's either the toasts or it's his status as a grownup.

I think probably OP you need to absent yourself from this altogether. I don't think it's a handover problem - it's a get your bloody act together problem.

[motherinferior]

What about bruschetta, then, waffling, eh? Eh?

[Quangle]

or maybe quelques tartines

[ExitPursuedByABear]

Elaborate toast my arse.

[curlew]

"You say you have everything out the night before, but have you thought of laying out breakfast. My bf has 4 x ds under 8years and dh away at sea, she always lays out the bowls of cereals covered with kitchen towel."

The crucial phrase here is "dh away at sea"

The op's dp is merely drifting on a sea of entitlement and privilege.

[ihadonetoo]

Not sure why this is being talked of as a gender issue - my mother is just as bad.

She simply doesn't give a shit about punctuality. The world will wait for her. Including, when she was working, her own class of 8 yr olds, lined up patiently outside her classroom every morning by her colleagues.

[ihadonetoo]

Oh, and if any of us had dreamed of speaking to her as Dahlen suggests, that would have been emotional abuse and bullying and how very dare we.

Really, teflon-coated kidults come in both genders.

[ihadonetoo]

(We solved the problem by growing up and leaving home as fast as we possibly could. Sorry, OP, that's not terribly helpful to you...)

[Dahlen]

TBH I wouldn't have said that straight away ihadonetoo. In RL I am a very laid-back type who makes a point of speaking to people with respect. But I have limited patience and my own variation on the three strikes rule. If something is important to me I first say that it is and what I'd like to happen, being prepared to discuss it and change my mind if someone can show me I am being unreasonable. Assuming I haven't changed my mind and chose to stick to my principles, if nothing happens I'll give a gentle reminder or a full-on bollocking depending on what's warranted. If still nothing happens, I'll remove myself/the other person from the offending situation entirely. I don't 'nag' either. I state my case and leave it to the person to react appropriately. There is nothing I can say for the third time that wouldn't have been heard the first time or on the reminder; it's down to how seriously the person listening takes it, which tells me everything I want to know.

I think in the OP's case, this conversation has been had many, many times.

[ihadonetoo]

Oh absolutely, I wasn't criticising you, Dahlen. Just venting about the impossibility of changing someone who doesn't believe the problem could ever be THEM.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

DH is not great in the mornings but he has improved. One thing I had to keep reinforcing was that his faffing wasn't causing him a negative impact (he's runs his own business) but it was having a negative impact on the children. It's not fair that they are getting to school late or at the very last minute in a fluster because of him. Why should they pay the price for him wanting an extra 10 min in bed.

It was almost along the lines of me saying "I want you to explain to the children why you think its ok for you to make them late." He tried to turn it around on to me, the school, the children ... to which I responded ... eventually the message got through.

[EldritchCleavage]

1. For the next few mornings, get up at stupid o'clock and absent yourself from the house until 20 minutes after departure time, maybe?
   
   
2. Or transform yourself into Toast Bandit and pounce on your DH, sweeping elaborate toasts into the bin while screaming 'Banzaaaiiiii' so he has no option but to Get The Hell On With It?
   
   
3. Read the riot act, in a controlled way, to DH this evening about how he has to step up and do his share, starting by getting up with you and getting the kids ready alongside you?
   
   Seriously, it is not an organisational issue (if I just hit on the right way to organise them all it will be ok) it is a willpower issue (does DH want calm on-time mornings enough to take responsibility and make them happen?)
   
   The correct answer is 4) all of the above, by the way. No, that's hypocritical, DH drives me mad in the mornings sometimes. I do 3) and remind him staying in bed, treating me like his mother when I ask him to get up then reacting to me like a sulky teenager is a complete respect and passion killer and for as long as it goes on I am unlikely to like him very much.
   
   Go on, be a Toast bandit, go on, go on, go on, go on, you know you want to.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

Option 5

Walk into kitchen and eat the Elaborate Toasts and when DH goes just

[Waffling]

Bruschetta would be fine.

[SkodaLabia]

Anyone else really want toast now?

[curlew]

I made bread today- anyone one want some?

[BitOutOfPractice]

Just adding a slightly controversial note in here. What is do difficult / stressful / time consuming about getting 2 school age children to school on time? Certainly not that takes 2 grown adults to get their knickers in a twist about? Especially as neither needs to be at their desks miles away at 9 sharp

I think you are making this molehill into a massive mountain

The amount of stress that seems to emanate from mn about the morning routine just puzzles me. And I speak as a single mother of 2 with a ft job. It's really not that hard surely.

[purrpurr]

This thread has made me cross and absolutely starving in equal measure. Henceforth toast/toasts shall make me seethe in a wholly unidentifiable way.

[Lazyjaney]

Separate the tasks, do yours, exit stage left (with toasts), let DH cope with his.

Also IME no matter how much pre-preparation you do, a last minute delay because of child X (choose a different number each day) is the norm, not the exception, and the 5 minute faff needs to be planned for in the time schedule by making the last calls 5 min before you need to.

[lougle]

I am shocked that you would seek to report a totally logical argument, Waffling. May I suggest that if you have a valid counter argument (other than 'it annoys me') you set it out forthwith.

Incidentally, was it the toasts that annoyed you, or the compound substance?

[buildingmycorestrength]

I didn't learn how to get of the house gracefully for a long time. A great many mornings involved me swearing under my breath and shrieking at children to get their shoes on NOW! And now they are used to doing it my way (without shrieking and swearing most days) and I get very stressed when I hear my husband suddenly realise they need to do xyz with only 3 minutes to go and start getting stressy with the kids. But he needs his learning curve too, right?

It isn't fair on the children to have stressful mornings, particularly, but they'll survive, just like they survived me being rubbish and flaky and late and stressed for a long time.

I've told him that to my mind, breakfast needs to be done by 8, etc etc. but I think I feel like he doesn't care if the kids get shouted at, whereas I feel it deeply and get anxious.