To think if you work from home, you’ll have interruptions

[Positivelyperfect]

I have a DH wfh and a toddler. I pick the toddler up at around 4, home for 430. DH finishes at 6, which leaves an hour and a half or so of time where DS is constantly trying to get to DH, crying and having tantrums.

DH ‘solution’ to this is take DS out but tbh I really don’t think I should have to do this five days a week!

Almost every single person on this thread have made many meals whilst looking after toddlers.

I have never done this while also keeping a toddler quiet and away from his father who is talking loudly in the middle of the living area, but not wanting anything to do with said toddler.

Have you?

What kind of planet does this poster live on?!

Oops I tried to quote a pp there, fail!

Put the boy in his high chair. Give him some food. Give him a bath. Read to him. Put the TV on. Get some toys out. Give him a drink.

Or, I know this is impossible, but instead of having DH not behind a closed door and sat ten feet away from where the boy can just waddle too...he could, you know, go in a room and close the door.

And you seem to find it quite unfair that you should have to do "cooking work" while he is doing "employment work" so you can both sit down from work at the same time. What's fair to you, appears to be sitting down to relax at 4.30, because that's when you clock off from the ten minute drive home from your "employment work" not having to look after your own child, not cooking tea, while the other partner continues to work for an extra 1.5hrs, then out of fairness, cooks your dinner for you.

What am I making up?

What has your DH talking loudly got anything to do with making a meal?

You said you don’t want to cook 5 days a week and now have changed it to you physically can’t.

There are many good suggestions on this thread but you don’t want suggestions.
E.g. You could put a baby gate up, DH could work in another room, you could have a playpen whilst your chopping, put him in a high chair with a toy/snack etc.
No one has said you need to do this in silence as that’s impossible but you can’t keep making excuses up as to why you can’t do things.

If you genuinely struggle being a parent (which many of us do) then wouldn’t you want DH to WFH anyway else he’d not get back until late and you’d be doing much more than that 90 mins.

It sounds like you are resentful of your DH but unless you tell us why then we can’t help you and you’re just going to get frustrated that people are coming up with suggestions to help when that’s not your actual problem.

I can't quite believe posters thinking it's perfectly natural for a home to become a workplace. It's wishful thinking on the part of people who don't want to work in an office any more.

There is a finite amount of space. Children and adults use and understand that space differently. That's just life. Children need "home" more than parents do, but parents need it too. Some of the space is dedicated to bathing, some to cooking, some to sleeping. And, in offices, some is dedicated to working.

How isn't it selfish for one person to unilaterally decide that space that is dedicated to cooking should in fact only be used for working, when they are leaving their own working space fallow? It's not like the OP can go cook dinner in her DH's office, is it? Or whatever, seems like cooking dinner is a hotspot. How can the DH unilaterally decide that when a one year old human (who presumably isn't old enough to wipe it's own backside let alone understand work vs home) gets back to its home after a long day out and away from parents, actually it's not allowed to speak to this or that parent, go into this or that room?

Is this actually a parenting website? Have people had toddlers in their homes before? I feel like I'm in a parallel universe here. How on any level can this be reasonable??

@Escargooooooo

Sorry, but completely agree with the "blunt" poster above.

You have an excuse for everything, "I can't put the TV on....there's no rooms where you can't hear DH..."

Parent your child.

You seem irate that you have to put effort in (whether it's at work or looking after your child) for the same hours as your DH puts in.

A 1yo?

You want to parent a 1yo I such a way that they are being quiet, not going to see their dad who is a room with no door. All that whilst cooking dinner Wo making noise even though again, there are no door between the two rooms.

All very good to say ‘just parent your child’ but now I’d like to have concrete example of what you would do to parent say child. Real examples of things you can practically do but just vague telling off.
So @Escargooooooo what would you do? Have you ever been in that situation yourself with a 1yo? Not a 2.5yo, not a 3yo but with a child under 2.

@TravellingFrom

Yes, I have. With twins. Just turned two. I kept them quiet and entertained for hours a day during the last 2yrs while DH worked from home.

OP (and her DH) can't even close a door.

No one has said you need to do this in silence

@WonderfulYou that’s the whole point.
The OP a says she can’t do any of that because HER DH is expecting silence. Which as you said is impossible to do with any of the proposals.
THE DH is also the one who who doens’t want to do in the bedroom.

It’s all very good to say the OP doesn’t want to. I don’t think that’s the case. It’s her DH who doesn’t want to and expects silence in a home with a toddler, just before bedtime…..

If someone needs a telling off, it’s him because he has titally unreasonable expectations. Which I think he knows. So he is expecting the OP to be out for 1,5hours with his child instead…..

many good suggestions

Which ones would they be?

@WonderfulYou

I cannot prepare a meal with DH booming away (no door between kitchen and dining room) and toddler hanging off me.

Now you’re just making up stuff up.
Literally every suggestion people say you have an excuse for.

Almost every single person on this thread have made many meals whilst looking after toddlers.
And someone else talking loudly in another room is completely irrelevant to preparing food, so that simply isn’t true.

I can make a meal with a toddler hanging off me.

Or I can keep a toddler away from someone in the next room.

I couldn't make a meal, look after a toddler and keep them from disturbing someone working in a communal living space.

If you're claiming you can or that "everyone does it", then it seems to be you just making stuff up?

In the OP's situation I'd probably put the radio on, pour myself a glass of wine and cook a nice meal while the screaming toddler hung off their dad in the other room

Anyway quite why and how this has turned into row-almighty about dinners I don’t know.

To be fair to DH he isn’t expecting absolute silence but when I have raised the fact that the time between 430-6 is not to put too fine a point on it bloody awful he is dismissive - ‘well can’t you go out then?’ Two evenings a week maybe but every night, no.

There is no door between the kitchen and where DH is working so it effectively means the kitchen is off limits if I’m not going to have DS running into DH all the time.

And I don’t know why people seem to think that because I’m in work 8-4 and DH is in work 9-6 that I work part time, or something!

[quote Escargooooooo]@TravellingFrom

Yes, I have. With twins. Just turned two. I kept them quiet and entertained for hours a day during the last 2yrs while DH worked from home.

OP (and her DH) can't even close a door.[/quote]
Poor kids. That's no way to live.

@Positivelyperfect

i would simply have the child in childcare for longer, you have an hour to yourself at the end of the day to relax, do some bits around the house... collect child at 5/5:30 and then by the time you're home it's almost time for your husband to finish work!

Aside from the obvious point that the real loser in this scenario is a extremely young child who is spending 730-530 5 days a week in childcare, none of those things apply. I would leave work at 4, return at 430 and because of peak traffic have approximately fifteen minutes “relaxing” before having to go out again, get DS and then drive through peak traffic so what should be a ten minute journey is probably closer to thirty.

Eeeek sorry I didn't realise you were collecting the child on the way home from work ! ( I don't know why I thought you were WFH)

It's a tough one! I just know we (as a family) have struggled when one person is WFH and the other has to look after our toddler. It's hard work!!!

OP, I think some posters are just enjoying berating you now. DH is WORKING and therefore all must be sacrificed to his needs.

Back in the real world, you both need to compromise a bit.

Is this actually a parenting website? Have people had toddlers in their homes before? I feel like I'm in a parallel universe here. How on any level can this be reasonable??

It's actually weird at this stage. I'm starting to think that some people are just so wedded to the idea that everyone, everywhere should be able to wfh on their own terms that they've got to the stage of being invested in screwing over toddlers to facilitate that

@Positivelyperfect

many good suggestions

Which ones would they be?

There are many good suggestions on this thread but you don’t want suggestions. E.g. You could put a baby gate up, DH could work in another room, you could have a playpen whilst your chopping, put him in a high chair with a toy/snack etc. No one has said you need to do this in silence as that’s impossible but you can’t keep making excuses up as to why you can’t do things.

There's those ones.

Put the boy in his high chair. Give him some food. Give him a bath. Read to him. Put the TV on. Get some toys out. Give him a drink.

Or, I know this is impossible, but instead of having DH not behind a closed door and sat ten feet away from where the boy can just waddle too...he could, you know, go in a room and close the door.

Then there's those ones. And that's just on this page. All impossible though, aren't they...

[quote Escargooooooo]@TravellingFrom

Yes, I have. With twins. Just turned two. I kept them quiet and entertained for hours a day during the last 2yrs while DH worked from home.

OP (and her DH) can't even close a door.[/quote]
@Escargooooooo and I’m sure you realise that a child who is 2yo and over isn’t the same than a 1yo.
And again not the same if your DH has a separate office to work from. Or a work space on a different floor.

It’s not the OP’s fault if

• there is no door between the kitchen and where her DH works (so she can’t physically close a door that doesn’t exist!)
• her DH refuses to work from the bedroom
• he has to be loud
• and feels he should still be able to move around the house (Eg go to the bathroom), walk right in front if his child but for the child to ignore him.

Etc…

Why making it the OP’s fault? The OP has said many times she is happy to entertain her dcs. Thé issue isn’t here. It’s the total lack of flexibility from her DH (as I suspect you’ve spotted yourself btw…)

@Positivelyperfect

Anyway quite why and how this has turned into row-almighty about dinners I don’t know.

To be fair to DH he isn’t expecting absolute silence but when I have raised the fact that the time between 430-6 is not to put too fine a point on it bloody awful he is dismissive - ‘well can’t you go out then?’ Two evenings a week maybe but every night, no.

There is no door between the kitchen and where DH is working so it effectively means the kitchen is off limits if I’m not going to have DS running into DH all the time.

And I don’t know why people seem to think that because I’m in work 8-4 and DH is in work 9-6 that I work part time, or something!

It's becoming a bloody awful time for you because you have taken on the role of keeping your child quiet and away from his dad.

Let that go.

The kitchen and dining room are areas for you and your child to be during that time. Use them. Let you child live in his own home.

If your DH then finds that the living areas of his family home are not an appropriate place to be trying to conduct work, that is his problem to solve.

I have noticed this with DH as well @TheKeatingFive

He loves WFH therefore any suggestion it’s actually a bit shit for other people is hastily brushed aside.

Your DH needs to change his WFH location when there are other people at home, taking over a room in the middle of the house is a big no-no and he deserves to be disturbed. He can go and lock himself in his bedroom for a few hours.

As for preparing dinner with a distracted toddler running around, I'd seriously suggest you put him in front of the TV (CBeebies is great, or a favourite DVD) to relax for half an hour (he's been at nursery all day, he can use a break), or find him some really engrossing interactive toy (for a 6 to 12 month old, jumparoos are great, for a 1 year old, not so sure what's best... Fairly sure my lads just loved rummaging in containers filled with random stuff at that age...)

Escargooooooo

@TravellingFrom

Yes, I have. With twins. Just turned two. I kept them quiet and entertained for hours a day during the last 2yrs while DH worked from home.

OP (and her DH) can't even close a door.

Poor kids. That's no way to live.

Oh do fuck off sorry my children aren't screaming all day, which is the way to live then, yeah?

Idiot.

It absolutely beggars belief that anyone would suggest that the OP wants to 'clock off' as soon as she gets home. She literally said upthread she wants to be able to play normally with her son.

She shouldn't have to stick him in front of the TV or do anything else out of the norm just to keep him quiet because a man wants to work in peace and quiet in the house when he could go to the office.

OP has a 30 minute commute to and from work - she obviously must work around 8am - 4pm seeing as DS is in childcare from 7:30am. So she's already out of the house 9 hours a day - if DH starts work at 9am he's getting 2 hours every morning to do what? Chill? Why should she come home and have to stand on ceremony in her own home. It's not about whether she can do it, it's about whether she should... and she shouldn't.

When my DH works from home, I try to keep our DD out of the way as much as possible but he understands there will be disruption - the whole point of this thread is that OPs DH thinks they should go out every night in order to afford him the peace and quiet he wants. Which is far from a reasonable request.

I can't quite believe posters thinking it's perfectly natural for a home to become a workplace. It's wishful thinking on the part of people who don't want to work in an office any more.

Some people are just so desperate to believe that wfh is better for everyone they can't even admit it when it's patently obvious to everyone else!

He has an office he can work from. That's the solution!!

There is no door between the kitchen and where DH is working so it effectively means the kitchen is off limits if I’m not going to have DS running into DH all the time.

Then he moves to somewhere where there is a door. Why is this such a difficult concept for you both?