DH doesn’t want to care for DD when I’m at work anymore

[PoppySeedBun18]

So, here goes:

I came off maternity leave about a month ago. The plan was for DD to have a childminder on Monday and Friday when I’m at work. This would be paid out of my part time wages. Well, a month in and it’s all going to pot already!

I work on ambulances so my shifts are long and I have to do at least one night shift a week. I book my own shifts but often get kicked off them meaning I have to make up the hours on a weekend day/night. I cam back yesterday having done a 12 hour day shift (and a 12 hour night shift on Friday) for DH to start ranting that looking after 1yo Dd is too hard and he can’t cope. His exact words were ‘i need to relax at the weekend, and if I have to look after dd after a week of work it will kill me’.

Now I’m in a predicament. I have to work next Friday and Saturday night (was supposed to be working on Monday but lost that shift) and am working tonight too, and won’t be home till 3am (again I was supposed to finish at 11pm but got moved so now am finishing at 2am). What am I supposed to do? I’ve only been a month on this contract and it’s the most flexible one they offer. I can’t give up work as we can’t afford it and we have no family who can help.

He’s basically left me with this dilemma which I have to figure out. We were planning to have a second child which he’s now refusing (he won’t even sleep with me anymore ‘just in case’).

So I now feel guilty as shit as well as chronically sleep deprived. What can I do???

I think celebrities are in part to blame for completely glamourising having children meanwhile they have a fleet of nannies.

Do the training course. What seems impossible now will get easier. DD won't be one forever, and the settling back into a work routine will get easier. It sounds to me like he just had a rant about finding parenting harder than he expected, and that this is the first time he has really had to do it solo. He found it hard in the same way you are finding it hard to be back at work. It takes everyone, including the child, time to adapt to new schedules.

Do NOT give up the training course

Moving up in your career is your only chance of having more control over your shift patterns

It might also enable you to work fewer hours, if your pay goes up

I am approaching this slightly differently to most. It sounds brutal for both of you as neither have any downtime at all and you don't get to plan anything. It could also be that you aren't having much family time, which is also hard.

It could be that he was just ranting as it was hot and things were difficult this weekend. If not, then something may have to give somewhere as otherwise, if he is like a lot of the other lazy parents you see on Relationships, he will bugger off and leave everything to OP to sort.

I think you need to sit down together and properly listen to each others side of things, without the other interrupting. This doesn't mean you giving up your job, but discussing things like childcare, bills and if possible, both of you having a couple of hours to do something for yourselves each week. If you go in with the approach of suck it up buttercup it will get his hackles up and nothing will get sorted. I am not saying he is being reasonable here, but just that for a couple under a lot of pressure, one of them refusing to have sex in case it means another baby, it isn't going to take much for things to break altogether.

It is hard and stressful having children, especially in these circumstances and communication is really important

You need to stand your ground..... and tell him he's a parent now, there is no such thing as time off. When mine were little I worked evenings and weekends in a care home to earn money as DH ran his own business and couldn't be relied on for childcare in the week. He never "enjoyed" it and often got stroppy but it was tough.

Perhaps you could point out that if he earned more, you wouldn't need to work.............. and give him the option of taking on a second job if he finds parenting that tough.

"He should definitely NOT have any say over his wife's appearance, friends, what she's done with her day at home while he's at work, family." Wtf?

this shows yet another case when you have to wonder if the father really thought it through about having a dc, it sometimes comes across as ' i got her pregnant i'm a red blooded male' [gross i know] and then after a few month once dc arrives the novelty wears off.

If I read your OP correctly, you have childminder organised for Monday and Friday daytime? Does that cover your whole shift or does your DH do pickup or drop off at all? I ask because but many childminders will do a long enough session to cover a 12 hour shift plus travel time.

If you are told that you are not working on Monday or Friday, does your DD go to the childminder anyway? Presumably you’d still have to pay, but I can see how your DH might feel it was unfair that you got one or two days off while he was on full childcare duty for your replacement shifts.

To those people who say that the DH is not understanding that children need to be cared for, I don’t think that it is that unreasonable for him to feel there is a difference between OP and her DH caring for the child together at weekends, versus him having sole responsibility after a full week of work and at relatively short notice. It must also impact your ability to make plans to do things as a family at weekends eg visit friends or relatives, go out for the day to the zoo etc. Doesn’t really sound sustainable.
Would it not almost be better for you to work full time but on a more predictable shift pattern and plan your childcare around that? Could he look into going part time in his job?

*not many childminders

I dont get mn on childcare costs. I pay for dd childcare as my money is extra. Dh money pays the bills.

women's salary can be used for bills, last I checked. At least none of our service providers have complained when they get any 'lady money'.

He's one of those 'doesn't play well with others' people isn't he, in other words he doesn't like to cooperate or compromise he wants to have it all his own way, he's deliberately putting a spanner in the works, not doing his bit to make life difficult for you, to bring you back under control

He basically just needs to pull himself together.

How does he think single mothers cope?

I worked every single Sunday for about 6 years. No it is not ideal, but the idea that everyone can work family friendly hours is pie in the sky.

I agree.

Maybe we should go back to the 1960s, when most jobs were 9-5 and shops etc shut on Sundays. It was really only jobs like emergency services, public transport and health care that had 24/7 shift systems.

.

You what now?
What did he think being a parent was going to involve?
He should try being in my shoes...I work full time days and DH works full time nights. Been that way for years.
He needs to grow up. And if he won't grow up, he needs to be responsible for helping plan and finance a different way of doing things.
This kind of crap would quite seriously be a deal breaker for me in the long run, and I don't say that lightly.

That wouldn’t really help OP, who is a paramedic!

That was to @LakieLady

And if he won't grow up, he needs to be responsible for helping plan and finance a different way of doing things.

I wonder how much the DH was warned, however, that OP might often end up not working during childminder hours and have to do weekends instead? After all, OP herself sounds surprised at how often this has happened. It looks like they made a plan together but it has not worked out.

Think the husband is getting a bit of a bad response here and not sure why.

Sounds like you're both working loads, and through no-one's fault, the plans you originally had for childcare haven't worked out.

This has resulted in DH working a full week, then being basically a sole parent to the little one at the weekend. Again, obviously that's not your fault, but I think he's perfectly entitled to find that stressful and difficult.

From his comment I'd feel like he's overwhelmed with the situation, as I'm sure you are too. And in those circumstances, he's sensible to not want more children until a long term solution is found.

All these 'welcome to parenthood' comments are mean: you both prepared to look after your dd in a sensible way which would have been less stressful, but unforseen circumstances have arisen that have made it much harder.

It sounds like he's frustrated, not genuinely refusing to provide childcare. I think it's just a big indication that a permanent solution needs to be found. It sounds like this is difficult on all involved and no one is actually being unreasonable.

Sounds like he's having a rant. Do nothing and go to work as planned.

He is being an arse.
BUT it is hard working opposite shift patterns. I'm a teacher and DP runs a bar. He does wed/thur, I do Sat/sun and we have nursery for 3 days. We've just come out of a bout of Chicken Pox where we've both had to share the time off (no family support). DS is 16 months old and since he was born we've had barely any days together- like ships in the night! It is really tough and at least once every couple of months one of us feels like jacking in our job to make it easier...
He needs to find things that will help- Dad friends? Days out? Play dates.
You need to let him sort it out though, it really is his responsibility.

What is all this bollocks about the heat?? It was one warm weekend. Are people in hot countries permanently unable to parent (or do anything else)? Honestly it’s pathetic.

To a lot of people, family friendly jobs are pie-in-the-sky. The happy little dream of two parents working M-F 9-5 while the baby is in childcare and then spending weekends “making memories” 🤢 is just never going to happen for many families. The reality is one parent working all day and then the other working evenings, or one working weekdays and the other working weekends.

When our kids were small, we had no choice but to do this as we couldn’t afford childcare so we worked opposite shifts. It was bloody hard work but we just had to get on with it. It puts a huge strain on your marriage as there is always resentment that someone has it easier or isn’t pulling their weight.

It’s tough titty for him! Me and DW work all week and look after our kids before work, after work and on weekends that’s parent hood! We both travel, her more than me, so frequently one of us flies solo doing everything. Or we try to get a bit of family help but that’s rarely possible due to distance. He’s going to have to get used to it, you don’t get a day ‘off’ parenting !

Childcare is a shared cost, same as every other bill in our household.

Agree with app. It could be an adjustment period with him having a rant. The fact is that he will need to adapt just as you have had to. He doesn't get to opt out.

Lend him a sympathetic ear but stand your ground.

Good luck!

Oh and I cover childcare costs from my part time wage. My DH covers the rest. He earns significantly more than me.

Seems fair enough to me.