Prepared to be told I'm being UR if I am!
Myself and DH have two children aged just 3 and 6 months. I'm a sahm (and happy to be so, was my choice) and we're in a good financial position. Not loaded by any means, but perfectly fine. Not showing off, it's relevant. My days, as you can imagine are busy busy busy.
With my first, I stressed out so much trying to do everything perfectly and be supermum and wife. She had health and feeding problems and I suffered with postnatal anxiety to the point i needed counselling. I'm fine now, as is she. But it took me a long time to be confident and happy as a mum, I found it so hard.
Second baby comes along and I decide to have a new attitude - whatever works and makes my day easier this time is what I'll do. So a good example is feeding. Breastfeeding wasn't working (again) and it was making me miserable (again) so I stopped and FF. Bought two PP machines in the sale, one for kitchen and one for bedroom. The one in our bedroom means I can get bottle to baby into at night very quickly before she screams and wakes the toddler. Easy win, only one child awake not two! (Toddler is a great sleeper generally but if she's woken abruptly in the middle of the night she will really kick off and it'll take her ages to get settled again).
Happy days, baby 2 has no health issues and eats well. With baby 1 (who was also FF after BF failure but hated any milk - she had horrible silent reflux) I would stress so much going out, taking one thermos with hot water, one with cooled boiled water and recreating a perfect prep to make up bottles. I hardly left the house her first year because feeding her was such a constant struggle and she was on medication that meant she had to eat well before she could take it or she could get ill. Baby 2, no such messing about, I carry a bottle of ready made. Done. Easy. I get out lots and it's so much better.
I also take other shortcuts these days. So I'll buy pre-prepared mash, frozen chopped onions for example because between cooking for the toddler and baby and then preparing our dinner (we can't all eat together as DH doesn't get home from work until after the children's bedtimes) I just don't have time to fart about peeling spuds and chopping onions. I mean I could, but it's so much easier and saves me time to take the shortcut.
DH works Mon-Fri and is out of the house 7am - 7:30pm. He works very hard in quite a high pressure job and has an hour commute each way. He's also out one evening a week sports training and all of Saturday afternoon playing sport. 99% of the time he comes home from work to a not perfect by any means but a clean and tidy house, dinner cooking and the baby asleep in bed, with the toddler ready for bed waiting for him to read her stories which he likes to do.
I'm doing ok I think. Much better than last time anyway, I'm much happier and much more chilled.
Only thing thats annoying me is DH nitpicking about these shortcuts. He saw a tub of fresh mash in the fridge this morning and had a moan about it. 'It's not hard to make mash, why are we bloody buying it?!'
He always moans about the ready made formula (it IS way more expensive than powder but I only use 3/4 bottles a week when I'm out which costs £2.80). Things like the onions - he just doesn't understand why I'd buy them chopped and frozen rather than doing it myself.
There are lots of other small shortcuts I take to keep my day running smoothly and make sure I can get everything done, whilst actually enjoying my day. It's not causing a huge problem or anything but he just niggles about it when he sees it. Baby is weaning at the moment and I mentioned I was going to get a few Ella's pouches, again for out and about. Cue frown, and a 'Why? Why can't you just make them?'. I do make most of her food, she actually mostly eats finger food anyway but again for convenience when I'm out I want to grab and go.
Am I being a lazy witch with my cheaty options? Or does he (as I've told him) need to get his head out of his backside and let me do what I need to do while he's at work without interference or comment? As I've said it's not like we can't afford these bits, if we were on a strict budget obviously it'd be different.
I should add, he does help around the house at weekends it's not like he sits about and doesn't. But at weekends we have the luxury of time with both of us here, or one has the children while the other can get on with stuff.
Thoughts?