I don't think I should cook every night

[LurkyLurkerMcLurkface]

I'm on maternity leave at the moment with 8 month DS. DH works full time and is out of the house 8am-6pm. Our evening routine is pretty set, he gets in and takes DS, I get food ready for DS. He'll then sit with DS while he eats. He then does books/bath and I do final feed and settle. I then come down and cook
Every. Fucking. Night
Last night I'd had enough and cooked for myself and left him to it. He's been sulking since.
AIBU to think this should be a shared job?

I don't think you should be expected to cook, clean, do anything except look after the baby. However that being said, you need to set the expectations for your DH. If he is used to coming home to a plan for tea then you have to expect that he will defer to you before launching in himself. Some days you will be able to think about it, some days you won't be able to because you might have been out all day/have a poorly baby/not had any sleep for a week etc etc. As a first time Mum I found these things much harder and was often too overwhelmed to also fit in cooking a meal; when I had my second I didn't give it another thought and was able to fit in an evening meal plan much more frequently - no idea why.
DH expectations just need a bit of management and both of you need a back-up plan of pesto pasta, even if you've had it three nights in a row.

wind And do all this while her child is screaming bloody murder? If I was lucky enough for my baby to nap I also had to wash myself, do the dishes (at this point I probably wouldn't have anything clean to cook on anyway), hoover, put washing on etc. You can't do everything in the small time a child sleeps, something has to give.

So sad these days, I have 5 children, old man worked 6 days a week, I worked part time when he came home we had dinner together before I went off to work, old man bathed all, put them to bed, I had my time with them in the day he had time with them in the evening, all went off to Uni, holiday time for my old man and me.
Happy days

I work from home and I finish at 6. Until 2 weeks ago I was cooking every meals...no more, we now share and peace has been restored !

OP - no you shouldn't cook every night, both you and your DH should split the roles of cooking. In an ideal world, DH should help with cooking for your son too (at weekends or batch cooking). And its fine to do super simple dairy free dinners like baked potato, omelette, stir fry. As autumn is upon us, the slow cooker is brilliant for making soups in (brilliant if going dairy free as I had to do that for DS3)- if you make really thick ones with v low salt stock cubes even DS could have some - so there is an excellent time saving device there. I also found traybakes were a life saver - so while one of you deals with the baby, the other one chops veg, chucks in some protein, herbs and oil and wangs it all in the oven, giving a quick stir sometime.

In our house, both DH and I work - I'm home first so relieve nanny, check homework and school bags for next day, wrangle 3 kids to bed and then turn to thinking about adult dinner at around 8.30 (to eat at 9). If DH is back by then we take it in turns -regardless of who cooked, the other one washes up/clears up. And at the weekend when we're both around we take turns and all the family helps clear up from family meals.

I never managed to cook during the day. Maybe because when my DC are calm or napping I don't always try to find household work but I sometimes have a break instead, you know, the same kind of breaks you have when you
work in an office...

Anyway, our rule is that when we are both here (evenings, weekends) we do the same amount of work. So for ex if I am doing bedtime, DH is cooking in the meantime. It would be strange to me to have one of us relaxing while the other one is doing something for both of us / the DC.

To the ones saying that the DH needs a break because he has worked all day, well OP needs a break from doing childcare all day as well. Honestly, I work part time, and the days I am working I am way less tired than the days I am looking after children.

livingonthe - can i have that office job please. some days i'm just on back to back conference calls all day. Often with my boss who is sometimes munching food as she doesn't get a lunch break at all.

MrsTerryPratchett is that a similar "hack" to some of the ones posted up thread like "cleaning the bathroom while the kids are in the bath, put the washing in as soon as there's enough for a load, wash the pots straight after eating etc"? You seem to omitted that the OP should also be sexually available to her poor beleaguered husband at all times, whilst maintaining perfectly done hair and make up...

From my experience it isn't cooking that is arduous really, it's deciding what to cook, working out how to adapt to current needs. If your default easy meals are pizza, lasagne, jacket potatoes, sausage and mash and none of these are now possible, suddenly cooking is much more of a chore. You also get stuck thinking about what you can't have more than what you can. So if the other parent can get something out the freezer and make a reasonable suggestion what to do with it that is most of the effort done and when you do get a break you csn go straight into prep mode rather than staring aimlessly at the fridge contents looking for inspiration!

dreaming yes but you are doing this sitting down (I imagine). I agree it is more stressful than looking after children but it is less physically tiring. I guess it depends on everybody and every job. Definitely not trying to say one is harder than the other.
My point doesn't make sense for someone who doesn't have an office work though.

Do those who manage to keep their homes pristine and cook 3 meals a day for the whole family actually find any time to interact with their children or are they using CBeebies to get on with the "more important" tasks of keeping their house clean and OH happy?

I couldn't believe a PP who cleans the bathroom while their LO bathes?! Why don't you give the housework a miss and play with your child in the bath?

In our house my OH cooks most days, as I hate cooking and my OH enjoys it. We do swap though, so if he is tired I will cook. We normally work it so that one of us does the baby chores while the other one cooks. That way you're still both doing chores at the same time and both get to relax afterwards.

OP I would suggest your OH does all the baby tasks while you are cooking and vice versa.

YANBU to not want to cook every night and while your reaction was a tad U it sounds like it was born of exhaustion and frustration. I willingly took on meal planning and shopping during maternity leave but on the understanding that there was no guarantee I would be able to prep in advance or cook if I had a difficult day with the baby. The expectation would have made me very angry. Hope your chat really sunk in, even if he just shoves a ready meal in the oven when it's his turn and pours you a glass of wine while you settle DS.

You seem to omitted that the OP should also be sexually available to her poor beleaguered husband at all times, whilst maintaining perfectly done hair and make up... I would have thought that was self-evident Chipping unless you have very low standards indeed.

Chipped sorry!

I don't have standards, I have a life

Op continue to do the cooking then partner can do the dishes afterwards.

I don't dislike cooking but hate the clean up after.

SHE'S FED UP WITH DOING ALL THE BLOODY COOKING!!!!

All these tips on how to make cooking easier (though (a) they're not rocket science (b) sticking to food of such simplicity would be quite soul-destroying IMO - oh and while I'm about it you can't just take a bland meal devoid of spices and seasoning and somehow render it deliciously complex by scattering in a bit of raw chilli powder) are more suited to the OP's husband.

I cook most suppers during the week in the Inferiority Complex because I work from home, I have teenagers, and I don't do any sodding housework during the day bar the odd load of washing. I quite like cooking. I'm a good cook. But I cook very little - often not at all - at the weekend. Which saves me from boiling resentment.

Star nah, DS watches CBeebies while I MN

With the exception of frozen pizza. Which DH is notorious for turning to charcoal, I have cooked or part prepared every meal we have ever eaten! When DC were babes he may have drained (rice/pasta/potatoes/veg) & dished up. But I have always arranged and planned.

Yes I get p'd off on occasion doing all this - but what really gripes me is the clearing up.

I also make it very clear to DH that whilst I'm cooking it's a good time for him to talk to me! I can cook & converse!! Not later when I want to chat to friends or do some work! Especially if he is LAY watching TV whilst I literally slave over a hot stove!!

OP maybe the cooking isn't the issue - it's the doing it alone whilst DH does as he pleases - especially if you haven't had much adult company all day.
Perhaps this is he point to address - instead of a row about cooking.

It's a tough one!
Good luck! x

Thanks mother, I've been fuming about the same all the way through!

I don't give a fuck if throwing dinner together can be done in minus 50 seconds, that doesn't mean it's suddenly the OP's job to do it every night.

The same arguments can be made about why it's easy and quick for the husband to cook dinner.

Just because her job is (mostly) at home and his isn't, doesn't mean he's magically won the right never to cook again.

It's even not beyond his capacity to spend five minutes attending to a slow sodding cooker before he leaves the house.

He doesn't leave till 8am. He's back at 6pm. People are carrying on as if he were doing a 14 hour day plus long commute. He could leave something marinating in the fridge. Or assemble something that he can 'slam in the oven' at 6pm to be ready for 7pm. Or take advantage of the other helpful tips proffered here.

It is soul-destroying to spend your life serving up another bloody meal to a bloke who does sod all, just expects his dinner on the table. My mum did it all her life. My father is utterly incompetent in the kitchen and now lives on microwaved ready meals or eats out. Putting his food on the table every night while my mother was dying - let alone the day after she died - was unmitigably grim.

Reading the thread the majority if not all posters agree that the DH should cook too and that it should be shared across the week. The pearl clutcing by some on here laughable.

OP my DS sounds like yours. He's 4.5 mo and not an easy baby. He's a screamer. Doesn't like being left. Barely naps and if he does it's on me. During the day I try to keep the house tidy and do things I can do in dribs and drabs, I.e. Hoovering, wiping surfaces etc. Also when possible I walk out 2 dogs. I also do bedtime routine but DH is home in time to put him down.

DH invariably cooks although we do share this, I cook when I can but it's not often. He doesn't mind at all and understands that DS is hard work. I don't think it would hurt your DH to give you a hand a bit more. Not all babies will be left to nap for hours or to entertain themselves. That being said clearly a lot of others disagree.

Oh, and I have just bought a slow cooker...

If cooking just involves bunging/throwing/slamming things in slow cooker/oven/microwave then there is absolutely no reason why men who have worked all day can't do it.

I lived by myself for years and would you believe it, I had to cook my own dinner when I got in at the end of the day. Sometimes I used to fall asleep slumped over a hob as it was all too exhausting. Oh the injustice!