To ask for your experiences of stay-at-home dad?

[moutonfou]

We aren't at the stage of having DC yet, but I have a career with a nice employer that I enjoy and is stable and well paid. DH hates working and his dream is just to stay home and nurture something (currently a dog!) Currently, if I think about having a short time at home with baby and then handing over to him, I don't think I mind. I had my mum at home throughout my childhood and would really like the same for my kid (that and childcare costs are terrifying), but I don't think I could stay at home myself as I enjoy working and DH just doesn't.

AIBU? Do you think as soon as baby was born I would change my mind and not want to spend a second apart? Would I grow resentful of the fun they were having while I was working? Would our child be much more attached to DH than me?

Would DH struggle to find companionship or are there lots of stay at home dads now?

Not the same, but DH went p/t (4 days) after DS was born, and I also went down to 4 days when I returned to work after mat leave, so have some limited experience in our house of DH being a p/t SAHD. A couple of random thoughts:

1. It was a lot easier for me to go back to work knowing that DS was being looked after at home by family (DH or my mum on the couple of days when DH and I were both at work). No settling in at nursery, no separation anxiety (mine as well as the baby's!)

1. I think you need to plan on sharing things as equally as possible from the word go, and both make a conscious effort during your mat leave not to slide into the habit of you doing all things baby-related because you are there more. If during mat leave you and your DH have got used to him always looking to you to do the thinking and organising around the baby, and provide directions when he does things for the baby (and don't think that could never happen to you as a couple...) it will make it harder to swap over responsibilities when your mat leave ends. You both need to be used to your DH sharing the mental load from the off, even if you are doing more of the hands on caring at the start because your DH is still at work.

1. If our experience is a yardstick, SAHDs are often more isolated that SAHMs - which means the children are, too. For example - my DH couldn't continue taking our son to the baby and toddler group that I'd been attending with him on what became DH's childcare weekday after my mat leave ended, because - as we found out when he was turned away at the door the first morning - they didn't allow male carers to attend "in case breastfeeding mothers felt uncomfortable". DH wasn't able to make "mum friends" to go for coffee and playdates with - SAHDs thin on the ground locally, and the mums operated socially as women-only cliques - so didn't have the support networks that a lot of SAHMs will automatically have, and that I had on my own non-working day. That was fine for a couple of days a week but would have been hard 5 days out of 7, I imagine.

And yes to thinking through the long term financial planning, and to going into it with your eyes open to the crappy implications for you if you and DH were to divorce.

I work full time and DH worked one day a week until this year (dd is 5) and now works 2 days a week

The whole thing has been really hard. These are the reasons

Massive resentment about the fun they have
Massive resentment at the fact that I still do at least 70%of housework
Massive resentment that I work a challenging and stressful job
Massive resentme t at hai four days a week completely to himself while dd was at school

Things have become a lot better since he started two days a week and has been doing up the house.

I don't trust him, OP.

If he can't be arsed to put any effort in at work then why would he put in any effort at home? You'll just end up running around after him and have no time to yourself.

DH is a SAHD to DS(2) and will be looking after our next baby (due March).
In our case this wasn't originally planned but as he was made redundant when I was pregnant and I was in a permanent job we decided to. As we only decided this when DS was 4 months the transition was hard as I was EBF but this time round we'll introduce bottles much earlier.

The big advantage I have found over paid childcare is that if I'm late home the worst is a grumpy husband but usually he doesn't mind although he does like to be able to tell DS when I'll be home.

There are a few SAHDs that I know of (local male-dominated industry collapsed) but they don't meet up (despite us mums encouraging them). DH takes DS to groups but he's not very sociable.

flouncy did you not read my post? I've been a SAHP but got back to work as soon as as was affordable. I also said that it applies to BOTH sexes. How many threads on here do we see women left high and dry because the relationship broke down and they weren't working. Its great we have the choice to take time out but in her first post OP said her husband didn't like working.
Give me a break!

no stress, no chores, no cooking, no childcare issues...what's not to like

My dh has been a sahd for 12 years now. Signs that it was the right decision for us; 1) he was used to working 6 days a week in retail so accustomed to boredom. If your dh works hard at something he doesn't enjoy that will help. Kids will be more fun not less! 2) he already did all the shopping, cooking and most of the washing. I did the cleaning, ironing, admin, money etc. He deferred to me on most decisions so I felt safe to trust him with this. He was very depressed during the first winter when our first dd was tiny. I went back to work much too soon, which I'll regret all my life. I would have preferred to sah I think but it wasn't an option financially and investing in my career paid off. Now I only work 4 days as I don't need to work 5.

I can't see any upsides to being a SAHM. I found ot depressing and if you are ambitious it will drive you crazy. If you are a career type of person then there is no reason this won't work out.

I don’t see any issues with a child having a SAHD. What I would say is make sure you have enough time off work to recover from pregnancy and childbirth. Breastfeeding is another consideration as personally I really struggled with expressing.

My DH is a SAHD but we had to have some talks early on about what I expected in terms of not being the person to do most of the housework or take on the "mental load" of knowing exactly what needs to be done and telling him to do it. It took some time for him to get the executive function parts down, prioritizing tasks, that kind of thing.

Nowadays, I do less than 10% of chores around the house (I do a fair bit of the cooking because I enjoy it and am better at it), get a lie-in every Saturday (I take DS first thing Sunday so DH gets a lie-in then!), and am managing to interview for positions making $150-200k (we're in the States) while 5 months pregnant with barely a care in the world.

I'm an awful housekeeper and would be bored to tears doing what DH does all day. I love my DS so much, but I need outside stimulation or I go utterly bonkers. DH is so great at taking DS out to parks, the library, et cetera -- DS is a happy, fun little boy who never wants for attention or affection, and I can be my best self with them both when I come home.

I was looked after by a SAHD post maternity til I started school, and then he worked part time and picked me up every day. We had a great time!
However, from my experience I would suggest that whenever you have one FT parent and one at home you are going to get the weird dynamic where the child just knows one parent a lot better - so I felt like my Mum was a bit of a peripheral figure until I was about 7 or 8. She had a classic 'dad' role of appearing in the evenings and weekends -most of my early childhood memories are with my dad alone. We're very close now though!
That's a problem with the FT/SAHP set up though, especially if the working parent is doing long hours. I just think you don't often hear about it from the perspective of the Mum being the one who works.
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DH is a SAHD. He was made redundant when I was pregnant, and it was actually very helpful to have him around 24/7 as our son was born very premature and spent 11 weeks on NICU, then I had six weeks of not driving due to C/S healing, then our son wouldn't latch so I pumped while DH bottle-fed him, then our son developed epilepsy so ended up back in hospital ... We had a pact that one of us would find a job when our son was a year old and the other would stay at home due to our son's SN, it turned out that person was me, and I've even managed to find a career as a result!

I don't do cleaning, and only tend to cook the Sunday roast, DH does the rest. I do the administration as that's my forte anyway. I try to take some time off during school holidays, occasional days, so as to break up the long stretch of daddy daycare. I am very envious of the time DH & DS get to spend together, but we went for the sensible option.

It's not something I would agree to. In the event of a split, he'd get residency as the main care giver.
I'd also not want a non working partner for a variety of reasons.

DH is a stay at home dad. It works well for us. DD isn't in full time school yet, we don't live near anyone we could ask for childcare and I don't want to pay extortionate nursery/childminder fees. I work in the ambulance service so all sorts of shifts; having DH at home means we don't need to be worried about him doing overtime and there being no-one to pick DD up from nursery/childminder etc.

He does the cooking and the majority of the cleaning at home too, although when I'm not working/adjusting my sleep pattern after nights, I try to pitch in an equal amount with the housework. He will let me lie in if I'm sleeping after a 12 hour shift; I try and give him a lie in or at least plenty of time to do his own thing in the days when I'm not working or catching up.

As others have said, lay out expectations and compromise.

I don't think it's automatic that dh would get custody if we separated and in our case two of our dc are more attached to me and one is equally attached. I think at heart our dc know that I need them more than our dh does. Not in the sense of being dependent on them but although they spend every day with him it would break my heart not to put them to bed when I come home. Whereas if he was out at work he'd do the evening routine out of a sense of responsibility rather than joy. The older two would ask to be with me. The younger one would scream every time I left him and it would be obvious to anyone looking that I should have custody. I'd probably try to continue supporting them all and drop then at his every day and collect in the evening!

Not quite the same but if we had another child (whole other story) then I think DH and I would share the maternity in parental leave, so I'd do 4 months or so and then he could do 4 or 5 months.
I did all the maternity leave for DD and struggled (pnd didn't help), and as DH would like the experience it seems fair x

My husband is a stay at home dad. He loves it and is so good at it. I earn slightly more than him so that was part of the decision. It was also because he wanted to it. The bond he has with our children is amazing and I love and respect him for working so hard as a stay at home parent. I always wanted to go back to work and did so after six months of maternity leave each time.

My husband is a stay at home dad. I went back to work after four months. For similar reasons, I have more prospects and he hated his job.

Honestly, to begin with, I hated it. I hated him for pressurising me into agreeing. I resented the time I was missing out on with my baby.

My baby is now 18 months old (I'm aware he's not actually a baby anymore, but he's still my baby) and it has become so much easier. I still do get pangs of jealousy and longing, especially on Monday's after a weekend with him but it isn't unbearable.

Husband is a brilliant dad and is so much happier staying at home.

I still do get comments about it though. Especially if my baby is poorly, people will ask if I'm taking the day off work to be with him and things like that. It makes me feel a bit shit but it does get easier.

I think as long as he was on board with the whole "parenting and taking care of the home" during your working hours, then why not?

Share stuff at weekends. And equal access to money and equal downtime.

Personally I find taking care of the kids way way harder than work, so prepare yourself that he may want to quicj sharpish return to a job.

Dh was too stressed when he was working and looking after the kids. He is so mych more relaxed now he stays at home. If he doesn't care about his career much I think he will love it.

I don't think it's a red flag if someone doesn't like work. Some people just don't! I love working my husband doesn't but he loves being SAHP. If this was reversed no one would question it! Anyway SAHPs work hard. DH does all housework, meal planning and all scheduling for the kids. Can't believe how much people love to stereotype!

Not liking work and wishing he could stay at home isn't lazy or a red flag imo. Not working and staying at home doing nothing would be lazy and a red flag. We all have things we wish we could do, it's what we do that is telling.

You need to talk through everything, just as you would if you were going to be a SAHM.

It's not the big things that cause problems when one person is working and one is at home with the kids - it's the tiny niggly things that become toxic if you let them.

My dad was a stay at home dad. My mom worked. If it’s the better arrangement it just is.

My OH was a SAHD for the first few years of DD1's life. It made sense for our family and it worked really well. We now both work 4 days a week.

A lot of my cohort have taken advantage of parental leave to split the early years childcare. If we'd had DD2 a year later, we would have done so too...