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!

Whatever 🤷‍♀️ think what you like. But you can't go off at people because you haven't got an echo chamber of 'he must go back to the office'.

It's not reasonable to expect to make no adjustments on your own part. People have told you that but that's not what you want to hear.

So crack on.

Lotty - I’ve no interest in an argument. I think what you said was very wrong and I would actually have some respect if you admitted you fired it off in the heat of the moment and didn’t think about its implications.

Still wrong though. The OP is only having to manage her toddler because DH has a problem with a toddler behaving like a toddler during his work time hmm

This is not the OPs issue, I'm unsure why you are adamant on making it so

I’m not. I agree it’s his issue to solve if HE feels inconvenienced by his DS’s perfectly normal toddler behaviour and by his DW going about using the home as a home.

But he hasn’t complained. OP said she brought up his difficult it was for her and he said go out then.

That’s clearly unacceptably selfish and I hope she told him so.

Next step however is to stop trying to not let it affect his work day.

Only then will he experience the problem for himself and find a solution for himself.

If he genuinely doesn’t believe it IS a problem and he’s happy for DS to scream nearby then he’s never going to look for a solution.

I’m not going off about that at all. I’m ‘going off’ about the post which stated “but if OPs mental state is as bad as she says off the back of the comments of an Internet forum then putting the child in nursery longer and taking the time tween finishing work and picking him up for herself might be the best idea’

I have this issue on some days so what I do is break from work when the kids get home, spend time with them, then log back on when they go to bed. I get that he probably doesn't want to work every evening, but maybe a couple of evenings a week? He can them help with childcare/cooking as well 😁, and you don't have to sit in your car!

The week before Christmas we were told if we wanted to we could WFH. I came in despite being in the group of people who don't live within 10 minutes of the office.

My reasoning? To get away from the DC. It is not a good environment to work in.

@Escargooooooo

Oh, pet.

Nurseries often present their hourly rates for different age groups. Mine does. This doesn’t, alas, mean that we parents who use them pay by the hour. You do not get to save an hour’s fees if you drop the kids off at 9 rather than 8.

Except that's exactly how this one works. Pet.

It’s the discounted full week rate that’s relevant @Escargooooooo

I cannot believe that @LottyD32 or any other PPs are still going with their deeply unpleasant blaming posts - especially as they are clearly in the wrong. I'm pretty disgusted with what have said to OP on here by a minority.

Don't listen to them OP . Listen to those who have understood fully, RTFT and your posts well and are supportive.

I hope you talk to your DH who has unreasonable expectations making it difficult to care for your tired toddler at the end of both your long days at nursery and your work. It is within your DHs power to fix it or put up with being interrupted accidentally as he's trying to work in-front of his own toddler ignoring him - not out of sight or hearing.

I think I used a nursery that did hourly rates but it had parameters, iirc it was a max of 4 hours. I only needed that as it whilst I did a course.

@NoSquirrels

Still wrong though. The OP is only having to manage her toddler because DH has a problem with a toddler behaving like a toddler during his work time hmm

This is not the OPs issue, I'm unsure why you are adamant on making it so

I’m not. I agree it’s his issue to solve if HE feels inconvenienced by his DS’s perfectly normal toddler behaviour and by his DW going about using the home as a home.

But he hasn’t complained. OP said she brought up his difficult it was for her and he said go out then.

That’s clearly unacceptably selfish and I hope she told him so.

Next step however is to stop trying to not let it affect his work day.

Only then will he experience the problem for himself and find a solution for himself.

If he genuinely doesn’t believe it IS a problem and he’s happy for DS to scream nearby then he’s never going to look for a solution.

We it sounds like he has complained as OP asks:

DH should have the right to work in undisturbed silence in a family home?

Hello, all.

As the OP and many posters here have requested that we leave this thread up, we're happy to do so.
We're glad it's still proving useful in spite of the derailing.

Please do post within our Guidelines and report any posts you see which you think are uncivil.

This is what OP has said about what her DH thinks/says:

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.

the thing is it is not DH complaining. It’s me saying to DH ‘look, DS is a bit of a nightmare when you’re there - any chance you could think about going to the office a couple of days a week’ and he looks all sad and says ‘but can’t you go out with him?’

It isn’t DH who is adversely impacted, it’s me.

There’s actually nowhere she’s said he’s asked her to not go in the kitchen, not let DS near him etc.

She’s been doing that, and suffering it, to be a decent partner and human being.

She can stop doing that, and then he’ll need a better solution.

I’m not trying to pick at the OP or be unsupportive, btw. I actually think her DH is a massively selfish dick, but that’s by the by - she seems to like him, after all.

I’m just saying communication here seems more of an issue than anything else - he’s not actively demanding silence, she’s trying to provide it without him actively demanding it.

He needs to say out loud “you need to make this work for me” and she needs to say out loud “no, you need to find a solution that doesn’t involve me making mine and my DS’s life difficult”

@KimMumsnet

Thank you. I really do appreciate the fact you chose to reverse your decision.

I would like to thank those who have been supportive. I know not everyone has agreed with me but I do think there is a difference between those who have disagreed and those who have disagreed by calling my parenting into question, it was those posts I found upsetting.

@NoSquirrels it isn’t so much that I am demanding DS is silent but I’m sure you can see that having to comfort an upset toddler every ten minutes or so at the end of the day is tough going!

DH isn’t a bad, uncaring or selfish man - purposefully anyway. He has thousands of really lovely qualities BUT from time to time he can be a bit inconsiderate and I do think the pandemic and WFH have enhanced these qualities whereas before they weren’t quite as in-my-face.

@NoSquirrels it isn’t so much that I am demanding DS is silent but I’m sure you can see that having to comfort an upset toddler every ten minutes or so at the end of the day is tough going!

I do get that, and it IS tough going, and it’s ridiculous that your DH apparently can’t see that him squatting in the kitchen-diner is an issue. Whatever his lovely qualities are, emotional intelligence is not one of them.

That’s why you should stop being so bloody reasonable on the surface (“it’s a bit difficult for me”, “perhaps you could go into the office”, “I wish we could” etc) and stop assuming he’d show you the same consideration if this was your problem.

Let DS go to daddy every day for a week. He can give the 10-minute-interval cuddles.

Then have the chat.

I think if you see the discussion as “those that agree with me” and “those that don’t” you are missing that most people have tried to offer suggestions that have either worked for them or they think will work. Of course they have different experiences and children, but they are offering what they can to an obviously stretched mother who importantly ask for the input.

stop assuming he’d show you the same consideration if this was your problem = if this was HIS problem!

If he’s oblivious to the issues or “a bit inconsiderate” then you have to stop assuming being considerate yourself is the way to manage this. Be as oblivious or as inconsiderate as he is. Because he doesn’t appreciate your efforts and/or lacks imagination.

@Positivelyperfect

Of course he could go back to the office but apparently I should sit in my car instead

So you have DH problem not a toddler problem.

He need to compromise - go to different room, back to the office, use headphones and use the background noise cancellation software.

On nice sunny days on way home from nursery you can take your son to playground etc but not on every bloody day.

What will your husband do if son is home with illness? is he is still expecting you to go out for the whole day??

I suppose if he’s not generally an arse, you could see his inconsiderateness on this issue as him just being very, very clueless. He is not thinking about the impact on DS or on you; he is existing in a happy little bubble of WFH cosiness where he can sit himself down right in an open plan living area and expect the rest of his world to sort of shuffle around him to accommodate that. He is not looking at or thinking about what might be happening outside that bubble and he doesn’t particularly want to.

So if it’s just cluelessness: do things that make it harder for him to sit there isolated from the effects of his decisions. TELL him what it’s like for you and DS and that you need him to do xyz things. Or, if you don’t feel like this is something you can properly confront him about for whatever reason, just stop facilitating his bubble and let DS be as noisy as he likes. DS cries if he can’t go to Daddy? Okay then, DS can go to Daddy, crying sorted. Daddy doesn’t like that, Daddy can take steps to fix it.

I haven't read all the replies but, why can't he schedule calls for before 4.30? Why do the calls have to go til 6? Then his voice won't make a sound. Surelu every day he doesn't have a call til 6?
Can he not speak quietly if he has to be on a call?
Plus why can't he carve out ah 4.30-4.45 for a bit of a reconnection with your son time, then get back to work. If DS has this and then DH does continue with calls, it may not bother him so much.
Agree you going out every day won't work.

@5zeds

I think if you see the discussion as “those that agree with me” and “those that don’t” you are missing that most people have tried to offer suggestions that have either worked for them or they think will work. Of course they have different experiences and children, but they are offering what they can to an obviously stretched mother who importantly ask for the input.

I don’t want or need suggestions. I am an intelligent woman who has worked for the best part of two decades in a professional role. I am used to problem solving, finding solutions and compromises.

There are things we can do outside of the home for a couple of afternoons a week. I have no issue with (say) taking DS to the park on a Tuesday and round the supermarket on a Thursday.

But if I have to do this because otherwise I am effectively shut out of my kitchen then that becomes not something I’m doing as a favour, it becomes an unreasonable expectation.

I really don’t want people telling me to start the bedtime routine early or to fill the hours with CBeebies or whatever, that is not my purpose in posting. If it was I’d have posted In parenting asking for advice on how to manage DS between 430 and 6.

@GoldenOmber I do believe it is cluelessness but I am also inclined to think it’s slightly wilful cluelessness, and I also do think he underestimates how exhausting DS is at this time.

You said you didn't want solutions offered but your OP said "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!" And have also said in subsequent posts that you shouldn't have to do the cooking every weeknight either as you both work full time. All the reasonable people on here have agreed with BOTH those things.

But you seem stuck on the idea that the only solution is that DH has to go back to the office 2+ days a week. Which seems excessive when the issue is the 90 mins at the end of every day. That's why people keep offering solutions so that if he won't budge about the office then you can show him the alternatives. If he won't budge about anything at all then you have a bigger problem.

The solution is for the two of you to come to a compromise about those 90 mins 5 x a week. That doesn't mean that your DH has to go into the office for a FULL day if he doesn't want to. And absolutely doesn't mean that YOU have to leave the house each day. But why can't the two of you come up with a compromise on the three issues affecting both of you.

1. Which part of the house is being used as a home office? When home alone DH can park himself wherever he likes - when you are all home he needs to be in a place which doesn't stop the rest of the family enjoying the home. Or set up a permanent desk in the bedroom.

1. Split the days between you for who gets priority in the house during this 90 mins - and bear in mind this is a temporary thing while DS is in this current toddler phase. 2 days a week you do an activity with DS outside the house, 2 days a week DH takes himself out to work somewhere else (a few weeks of moving to Costa to work might make the office feel more appealing)

1. The rule can be whoever gets the house that night makes the dinner - that might be another incentive for DH to get back to the office.

I would not make any compromises at all. You and your son are entitled to enjoy your home after a long and busy day working and nursery. If your husband chooses to wfh, so be it. But let your baby be right there beside him. Withdraw any attempt to keep him away and if that makes it difficult for him, too bad.
Who the hell wants to do activities with a toddler out of the house after work? No one, that's who.
Tell your husband to do one. I am so cross on your behalf!