To ask if your dh/dp can look after the children independently?

[Neonprint]

Can your dp/dh/father of your children look after them on his own? Two children aged 18 months and 4.5? Or just tow under 5. No additional needs or SEN.

If so for how long? What set up support would be needed if any? For example getting clothes out, sorting food etc. If he did look after them alone would he manage well or just cope?

Is this something which happens regularly in your home? Or would it be like you owed him something and he'd be a bit put out?

To be full transparent just having a conversation with a friend and she felt it's normal her dh can't really (doesn't want to) have the children on his own. When she is out of the house. I don't think this is normal and most fathers can do childcare independently even for pre school age. I look after the kids I know although I love them it's not easy!

I think she thinks what men can do and what they should ideally do are different. So is it unreasonable of me to think a father should look after two children that age? Not sure if I'm being unrealistic?

Yea my husband looks after our kids alone. Takes them out alone. He’s an adult who is capable of looking after his own children. Really bizarre her husband can’t.

Of course DH can look after his own child. In fact, he is better than me in some ways, especially at organising fun activities. He has wonderful relationship with our DD and is perfectly capable of managing on his own. If my DH, who has a physical disability, can do it, then then I don't see why your friend's DH can't.

Have a 2.5 year old and 9 month old. He’s just about figured the 2 year old out over the past year since I quit breastfeeding when he was 20 months old. Until then he wasn’t too great and he put it down to feeling inadequate when DS wanted breast following a fall or before a nap/bedtime etc. He now puts him to bed and baths him at least 3 times a week which is great. Takes him to toddler football on a Saturday morning for an hour as well. So the 2 year old alone, he’s now pretty confident with although he does still occasionally shout for my help when he’s done a big poo 🙄.

9 month old not so much. I think he struggles with the baby/young toddler stage and he says it’s because they just prefer me at that age and he doesn’t have breasts to feed or comfort them so feels a bit useless.

Of course he could. He wouldn't have had 3 kids if he couldn't look after 2 on his own.

DH, my own dad, FIL and even BIL have all had at least one of our children in their sole care for at least 24h. They're grownups. They also have access to the internet if they came across anything they needed support with.
I think your friend is being taken for a mug

My DH has had to look after our 2 DC independently regularly when I have been at work since they were 2 and 6 months. I used to work evenings so he would collect from nursery at 5 and deal with dinner/ bath/ bed, nursery bags, dishwasher and all those other normal things 2/3 days per week. I now have a different job and they are 4.5 and almost 3, but he still does bedtime a couple of days while I am doing my hobby and has had the kids for a weekend when I have been away with the girls. Would have been more but COVID has stopped our trips.

I have a friend like your friend, and I feel like shaking her. She misses out on nights out or weekends away because she still doesn't like to leave 3 dc (and I'm talking 2 teens, 1 age 9, so hardly little) because the DH can't (won't!) cope. And yes she gets the 'you owe me' treatment. And no doubt her kids will grow up with the same expectations....

I can’t believe this is even a question. It shows just how low the bar is for fathers, holy fuck.

I could die tomorrow and DH would continue to provide the same level and standard of care we do now with two of us. Since the day DC was born there hasn’t been a single part of parenting he hasn’t done equally to me. Tbf for the first few months it was more him showing me how to do things because he had better parental instincts than I did and was a lot more intuitive towards what DC needed than I was. Even when I came to bf, the one thing he couldn’t do, I would pump once or twice overnight so he could do the feeds, changing and settling and I knew I had a couple of unbroken chunks of sleep without listening out for the baby. Then he’d wash and sanitise the pump, and store the milk.

Genuinely can’t believe anyone would think it’s normal for a parent to be unable to parent their children on their own for a bit.

She and he are setting themselves up for her to be the primary carer and go-to parent for the entire of their children’s childhoods. Way to baked inequality into the family dynamic from the get go.

My XH was lazy and useless. Nappies on backwards, not picking up a changing bag when leaving the house, “he won’t settle for me” crap, didn’t know where coats / shoes / whatever were...

At 15 months I returned to travelling for work, so every other week he had sole care 2-3 nights per fortnight. It was fine.

All the behaviour in my first paragraph was a choice - which I recognised at the time. Pretend you don’t know / deliberately do it badly / just don’t do it - all a “strategy” to get out of it.

This will be the case for 99% of men who don’t care for their children. The other 1% perhaps need confidence building, or are actually SEN themselves (and I mean a specific SEN, I’m not saying SEN itself stops you parenting!)

Your friend is in cloud cuckoo land, also known as denial.

I don’t know why these women don’t find their vaginas clamping shut at the disrespect and laziness. Mine certainly did!

Yes!
Indeed, like a previous poster, I went on work trips from when the kids were about 2y and 4y old, and he did the whole week.
The only thing DH never did was feed a baby milk (ebf, no pumping, for first 6ish months)

We only have 1 DD 16 months and DH can look after her on his own without me sorting anything before I go out. He would gladly look after her for a weekend if I was to go away.

If he's looking after her while I go somewhere for a few hours, I tend to get her clothes ready and sort a packed lunch or whatever. But that's more for my benefit of making sure everything is ready.

On the flip side BIL & SIL have 3 kids (8, 4 & 4) and he is rubbish at looking after them by himself. Prior to MIL becoming unwell, he would take the kids to PIL's house or have MIL go to theirs to "help" (look after the kids)
SIL will often ask her DM to look after the kids while she's at work, rather than leave them with BIL because the bare minimum would be done

At that age I could leave DH for 2 nights with them. I only needed to remind him/write down the times of activities or parties they might have.
He would do everything including taking them shopping.
We’ve always been. Very equal parenting partnership. I expect him to do everything I am capable of doing and to be honest I wouldn’t have had children with him or married him if I thought he wouldn’t.

Not normal. I don’t have kids, but several friends do and all of the male partners take a fair share of child duties, be that swimming lessons, bike rides, getting them up/dressed or looking after them while partner is at work/out seeing friends.

They are both parents. They both parent.

DH could, but circumstances meant he rarely did (he worked away a lot). I would need to leave reminders about school and nursery times for example (especially this past year when they had different times). But the actual care bit he's fine with.

It was a standing joke that he'd only ever had them one night by himself in 9 years until last summer, but it was circumstances (I can't blame him for emergency recalls to work for example, which happened a few times when I arranged to be away... And these were real.)

When mine were that age DH had no option but to take care of the youngest on his own as DC1 spent quite a lot of time in hospital. He was also capable of looking after them both on his own (and DC1 had complex health needs & learning disabilities). Even my 70 year old FIL, who had not really been hands on with his own DCs - as men weren'tin those days) managed to care for DC2 on his own when DC1 was in hospital and DH needed to be at work.
I find it ridiculous that men are unable to take care of their own children and to me it is just another one of those tasks that if they fail to do properly or say they can't do then they hope they won't be asked again!

My DH can do a few hours, anything longer and it's a day at his parents for backup. He's never done an overnighter on his own.

Yes of course. I've left our son with him since he a couple of months old so I could have a break, usually for a few hours at a time. He would be absolutely fine for as long as necessary - I'd happily go away with friends or for work now we have a toddler.

It's not nice to think about, but what if something happened to her? Would he just hand the kids over to the next closest female?

My DH works four days a week, as do I, and has our kids on his own one day a week (they are 20 months and 4 and he's done it since the oldest was 6 months).

I’ve regularly gone away on business trips since my youngest was 18 months.

DH is very good at looking after them, even if he finds it stressful on his own.

My dad would be alright I expect. We’d have been down the beach every day and fed fish fingers all week long probably.

DH could (and did) do everything I did apart from breastfeeding. He’s a teacher so all the holiday are on him whilst I work so he does more childcare than I do. I wouldn’t have tolerated anything other than him coping and he wouldn’t have dreamt of not rolling his sleeves up. Doesn’t mean we don’t collaborate to remember to do stuff but isn’t that just teamwork?

No, he can't manage the tiny clothes with his big man hands.

Of course, he looks after his kids. They're his children! Sometimes he takes them out and meets his male friends who are also looking after their children.

Yes, of course, because he is an adult, just like I am. He's been looking after them alone since they were born (they're 3 & 8). I went away overnight when eldest was 9 months and I went to Australia for 2 weeks without them when she was 16 months. He manages just as well as I do. It's boring being home alone with them for long stretches without another parent to help, but it isn't hard.

In your friend's case - it's not that he can't. He just doesn't want to.

Well we only had one, but I spent a month in hospital after I had her snd they sent her home with him alone, no family support. Health visitors don’t even visit till the mum is discharged. So yeah he was capable, why would he not be, he’s not got additional needs.

@MsSquiz

We only have 1 DD 16 months and DH can look after her on his own without me sorting anything before I go out. He would gladly look after her for a weekend if I was to go away.

If he's looking after her while I go somewhere for a few hours, I tend to get her clothes ready and sort a packed lunch or whatever. But that's more for my benefit of making sure everything is ready.

On the flip side BIL & SIL have 3 kids (8, 4 & 4) and he is rubbish at looking after them by himself. Prior to MIL becoming unwell, he would take the kids to PIL's house or have MIL go to theirs to "help" (look after the kids)
SIL will often ask her DM to look after the kids while she's at work, rather than leave them with BIL because the bare minimum would be done

Why would someone keep having kids with a person like that? It’s unreal. If I had a child with a man who turned out to be a shit father I wouldn’t saddle more kids with him too.