Is DH deliberately leaving DD at Nursery? and why?

[ThreeDaysAWeek]

First post, but long time lurker.

DD (whose 2) goes to Nursery 3 days a week. I drop her off at 7.30am, and get to work for 8amish, then work 8.15am – 4.45pm apart from Friday when I finish at 3.45pm. Nursery closes at 5.30pm so there’s no way on a Tuesday and Wednesday I can get to pick her up in time.

DH works full time but does 7am-2pm, and works a short walk from our home, so is home by 2.15pm every day. On a Tuesday and Wednesday we agreed he’d walk the mile to the Nursery and pick DD up, we pay for her to be in until 5.30pm so I’ve said to DH that as long as he gets her by then he can game/chill out at home for those 2 and half hours he’s got spare. Literally all he needs to do is take care of DD for that walk as I’m usually only a few minutes at most behind him getting through the door usually I get in just before they do.

Last week I had to attend a Staff Meeting after work on Tuesday and there was an accident on the motorway on Wednesday so I got stuck in traffic so was home late both days. I’ve just received an invoice from the Nursery –I deal with all paperwork regarding the Nursery etc so it comes to my email-- asking the payment for “unarranged late pickup” for two days last week; Tuesday and Wednesday (it’s not unusual to receive these things in the middle of the night as the finance manager is also a member of normal nursery staff so works with the children in the day!). According to the invoice on Tuesday she was picked up at 5.45pm, and on Wednesday at 6pm. This is the 3rd time in as many months I’ve received an invoice.

DH won’t tell me what he’s doing to make him late to pick DD up from Nursery and claims the Nursery are being overly fussy about “5 minutes or so”. I know they won’t be as it states in the contract with them they only charge from 15 minutes or more lateness so I know he must be being late to pick her up by that much. So my only conclusion is it must be deliberate.

It’s not a huge amount of money (£5 for every 15 minutes your late so £15 for the entire invoice) and we can afford it but it doesn’t seem fair to be delayed deliberately when DH has the time to pick her up.
DH is definitely not cheating/having an affair, firstly he works in a mostly male environment where the gossip is rife and no-one can even go the toilet without someone knowing and secondly my brother works with him (DH recommended DBro for the job) so my brother would be aware and would most definitely tell me if DH was getting some somewhere else –we’re twins and have always been close, we literally predict when we’re going to text/phone each other, even my mum finds it weird!--. He doesn’t go anywhere and has no hobbies apart from “gaming” (don’t get me started) so there’s definitely no OW.

So AIBU to think DH is deliberately leaving DD in Nursery? And if so what’s he doing?

7am-2pm is hardly fulltime - I assume he has a break as well which makes his working hours definitely less than fulltime. And he needs plenty of downtime does he? He already gets that due to his working hours. He sounds a bit precious. Never mind mopping the floor once a week, he has time to do that every other day, especially as he can't even be arsed to pick up his daughter from nursery on time.

But OP you still don't know why he is late and lying about it?

I never understand it when people moan about gaming being lazy.

You could be sat on your arse watching TV all evening/watching a box set/surfing the internet/social media/mumsnet etc and that's fine.

But when you're playing a game it's suddenly terrible

Sitting on your arse is sitting on your arse.

But he is crossing the line when he's regularly late to pick up his daughter. That's not on

It took dh a while to get my dd there on time when he took over the school runs. Explain to him that he needs to leave at x time to pick her up and be there early, otherwise it's upsetting for her. I imagine you'd rather spend that money on something else too. Maybe give the nursery the ok to explain to him that it's not acceptable to be late...

I do however think men need more free time than women because women are more natural multi taskers, they can juggle watching a toddler and making a phone call/doing housework much more naturally than a man can so I think they find it tiring when they have to do it, so need more time away from the family to relax and recover from that experience. I'm not saying DH is a bad father he just requires a bit more time away in order to be a good parent.

My DP would find this pretty insulting. I know loads of male parents who are just as hands on with their kids as their other halves without any extra “me time”. You’re trying to justify the fact your DH is a reluctant dad with lazy stereotyping about men and women to avoid the real issue here...

Your husband is finishing at 2pm and going home to do gaming and chill while you’re at work and your 2 year old is at nursery. That’s so sad, your child is only young for a short time. Why is he not picking her up earlier say at 3pm as she’s there so early, it’s such a long day even till then. They could then go to toddler groups or the park. Children may be up early, but being in that kind of environment is a tiring day for their kind of hours and it’s not something people opt to do if they don’t need to.

and no I wouldn't expect him to pick her up early why should he?

To spend time with his tiny daughter? To give her a change of scene from being in full-time nursery 5 days a week?

*those not their 🙈

My personal opinion is that your Oh should be spending time with his daughter not sitting on a PlayStation when she's already in nursery so much aged 2.
As for the lateness ,it seems the PlayStation is the answer.He needs to grow up .

women are more natural multi taskers, they can juggle watching a toddler and making a phone call/doing housework much more naturally than a man can so I think they find it tiring when they have to do it, so need more time away from the family to relax and recover from that experience.

Please, please don't bring up your children to believe that bollocks load of old tripe.
This is the 21st century isn't it?

Your comments on men needing more downtime than women get more and more preposterous each time you try to explain them.

This thread is so sad! Please OP, make changes before your DD notices that she's always the last to be picked up and in childcare when there is no reason for her to be there! I don't understand why her father doesn't want to spend time with her! Very sad!

The main problem here though isn't the 'me time' that he apparently needs its the fact that his 'me time' means forgetting his child at nursery and inconveniencing others just because he's too lazy/disorganized to get his act together. Two hours 3 times a week is plenty of 'me time'. Its more than most working parents get, including his wife, by the sounds of it. He should be able to have his set time gaming or whatever and give plenty of time to collecting his own child from nursery on time. I also think he's done a number on the OP. He's got a woman to mother him, make excuses for him, sort out the bills and work full time while he can basically shirk his responsibilities to his child.

I know loads of adults who do online gaming. Usually late teens early 20s. I don’t know many who have children but I assume that’s an older demographic. I regularly chat to ds’s online friends to check who he’s playing with. There’s probably a lot more to this story than the OP has shared.

In nursery and primary school ds was always first to be dropped off and last to be collected. It didn’t have any lasting effect on him but he knew that I was at work rather than at home without him. I did occasionally have time off and he still went to nursery but that was because I needed to get things done at home and didn’t have the benefit of having a partner.

Here it’s less about dd being left at nursery and more about the reason for the late pickup.

We always collected our dd at 3pm when the children came out from nursery. She missed 2 hours of nursery every three days. We did it because it meant that my MIL and my dc would have had to hang about to wait to get her or come home to go back to the school to collect her and they would have to walk which would have been a bit too much. She loved nursery but loved coming home. We also chose to give her the Friday off so that she had alone time without her other sibblings to do things with mum and dad.
I had no issue paying and losing out on the hours. I agree that your dh should pick her up early and spend time with her. Time is precious with little ones and it quickly slips away.

*Children came out of school not nursery!!!!

I agree that it is very selfish of him not to collect on time. These are people doing a job that also want to go home. It really is a cheek that he has time on his hands and yet still manages to be late and clearly does not respect the nursery rules.

Loving the digs about nurseries as well. Got it all this one

I for one am glad the little days are long gone. They’re much more interesting when they’re older.

There's no difference between me doing the crossword and my OH playing FIFA.

Yeah they're exactly the same

Your poor little girl.

Being brought up to think her time is less valuable than that of her future brother/ husband/ male lovers if she has them.

And to answer the question, your DH is leaving his daughter at nursery because he has a huge sense of entitlement, which he has been socialised to have.

He's treating the nursery workers and his DD with contempt.

But hey, he makes a great lasagna so all good.

Women settle for so little from men.

Poor nursery staff who have to sit around wondering when they will be able to leave. Doubt they get paid any extra on top of their already pathetic wage. I wonder if any of them are now having to pay late fees to places looking after their children. Nursery may well say your daughter is having a great time with them (unlikely they would tell you she was really tired and would really prefer to be collected at 2 if that was the reality though). I dontfor a minute believe she isn’t tired. Why would you leave her longer than needed? Never understood such parenting.

OP you are deliberately ignoring a lot of very sensible advice you’ve received. Sigh. It’s quite sad actually.

Really? That’s what you see? What’s sad, sigh is that people want to jump in and judge the way the OP and her OH have worked things out. You know, in a way that suits their own family. Rather than answering her actual question which was ONLY about the fact he was late in a few specific instances.

The “advice” that is being given is that she is amdoor mat, setting a bad example, that he is a lazy bastard and that none of them seem to care that for TWO WHOLE days a week their child does a full day at nursery and why the hell did they have kids in the first place. None of it is advice, it is judgement. She is happy for him to have time to umwind after work, she just want him to be on time. Why the hell do people feel it is necessary to criticise the whole set up?

Why the hell do people feel it is necessary to criticise the whole set up

Bandwagon init?! Makes them feel superior while they cast judgement on mumsnet while ignoring their own kids.

He's a lazy git. Why do gaming for hours instead of spending time with his DD. If I was him, I'd pretty much pick her up after I got home from work. Poor DD.