Finding it hard to bite my tongue.

[Effemelle]

I've just gone back to work full time after mat leave.

My DH and I a both WFH two days a week and on the fifth day, I do a short day at work and do the nursery run both ways. I have a 45 min commute, his is 1h 30.

On 'my days' I have a routine with the kids that works really well. We're all home by 5.45pm, I do dinner, bath, stories and bedtime in two hours and by 7.45pm they're both in bed. Most days I manage to put the previous day's dry laundry away and hang out that day's washing too.

On DH's days it's total chaos. I walk through the door at 6.30, the kids are running riot, climbing the walls with hunger and tiredness and nothing's been done. He'll often choose that moment to ask me what he should make for dinner.

I've been flatly refusing to get involved and have been hoping that by making him suffer the consequences of his disorganisation, he'll tighten it up a bit. At most I will offer direction from the sidelines, but I have to stop myself stepping in to 'rescue' the situation. And besides, my way isn't necessarily the best way and we all parent differently, blah blah blah.

But it's been a few weeks now and nothing's really improving. It's not fair on the kids for them to be going to bed late after a chaotic evening two nights a week. They're tired and irritable.

What should my next move be? I refuse to take on any more than my fair share. And I resent having to spell out really obvious stuff to him. No one spelt it out to me, I just figured it out on my own because I'm a functioning grown up.

he puts his energy into things which benefit him directly, so focuses on work to maximize his earning power, increase his status and consolidate his economic power within the family unit.
'wife work' is low status and unwaged, it doesnt benefit him directly to be competent much better for him to do a bad job which creates a lot of stress and chaos for the OP and the children so that she is maneuvered into doing it herself to minimize stress.

So if he plays his cards right in the long run she will take on all the domestic work and he gets to rest and switch off at home so that he can be as effective as possible in the workplace

Agree with minipie. Give him some guidance initially - you have a process that works so why not at least share it with him?

Then leave him to it for a while so he has a chance to get the hang of it.

Just tell him that they must be fed and bathed by the time you get home.

Some of it might be deliberate it you have form for taking stuff off him when he makes a mistake: trick is to give him more responsibility.

If you’re alternating dinner prep you need a plan so they’re getter bf a varied menu.
Do it together on a Sunday?

Personally? I'd write out what you do and explain you find it helpful. Shuck it on the wall and continue to do what works for you. Let him work it out for himself!

Urgh *stick

P.s. if I intervened in the morning I'd never leave the house!

I too am amazed at the deliberate incompetence of some men. A woman shouldn't have to spoon-feed her H/P but if the idiot man simply refuses to get on with it then the woman needs to show/shame him into doing so. No matter how hard I discussed, asked and later rowed with him he remained completely unwilling to do any proper childcare. I discovered when my children were 2, 8 and 9 , that if I was out their father paid the (constantly arguing) older ones to bath their little sister and put her to bed. He became an ex. Life was easier without him. I no longer came back exhausted to 'What's for supper?' When I wasn't there he fed the children on sweets and crisps and would do nothing to prepare our meal.

Deliberate incompetence is one thing but what I find infinitely more intriguing are the women that somehow see their role as 'propelling' their husbands as some kind of achievement.

There was a thread once in which some women were quite happily taking pride in notions such as "I don't know how DH would cope without me" etc etc and one in particular that basically wrangled her H into moving out of his mother's and in with her, then wrangled him into buying a house and finally getting him to propose. She quite happily admitted that had it not been for her spearheading these efforts he'd probably still be back at home with mum.
Now that's her look out and I don't judge her choices as it's her life. But I can't imagine going through such rigmarole.

Detailed instructions my arse. They run companies, are Prime Ministers whatever and they can't plan a meal or bathe a child? More like they don't want to do it!