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!

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.

Then quite simply yabu.

He's not expecting you to do any of these things and he only suggested those things as you suggested you had an issue.

This is issue isn't an oh issue, it's an op issue.

@miraveile

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.

The hours seem very inflexible 9 till 6 with a relatively long lunch. It’s not what anyone would choose. I’m assuming telephone calls and availability are a large part of the job, which could be why he can’t work in a coffee shop: confidentiality maybe. On the other hand, he does seem oblivious.

I think that’s a good post @Positivelyperfect

I suspect people misunderstood what you were looking for because of your second post

OK so genuinely what do you suggest I do?. And have answered with practical advice on managing the situation rather than what you were looking for.

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?

There might be a valid reason - nearly all my work calls are between 5-7pm, but that's because nearly all the rest of my team is in California. But that's probably quite unusual. When my DD was small, it was well before the advent of zoom so I'd do nearly everything by email and just have occasional phone meetings later on in the evening when DH was home and after we'd all eaten.

@miraveile

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.

Not everyone gets the luxury of choice! I work from home, I do not get to dictate when I take calls or meetings, they are put in my diary and I have to attend. It's not easy. Step into the real world!

I also don't see any reason for the OP to compromise when it comes to her small child treating his house like a home.

WFH is fine if it works. But the onus is on the individual to make it work, it shouldn't involve disrupting family life.

There's a certain contingent out there however who don't want to hear anything other than WFH is great and should be accommodated by everyone. It's odd. Like the OP's situation invalidates their preference so therefore she must be in the wrong.

It's not that difficult to keep a child out of a room for 1.5 hours though, let's be honest. The issue here is that the OP just doesn't want to.

If your DH is working in a communal area of the house, which it sounds like he is, then he can’t expect to not be interrupted by noise and stuff going on in the house around him. So he is being unreasonable. However, as you are not working it is on you to try your best to keep your child entertained and looked after and keep disruptions to a minimum. You don’t have to go out but play in another room, take a bath, read a story. Just keep him away from your DH like you’d keep him away from anything else he shouldn’t be doing, remove him from the situation and distract him.

It's not that difficult to keep a child out of a room for 1.5 hours though, let's be honest.

Have you read the actual thread. It's an entirely open plan ground floor

Basically for that hour and a half you have to treat your DH like a plug socket or a pond that you don’t want your child to go near. It’s annoying and hard work. The ideal solution would be to cover up the plug socket or fill in the pond or put a cover over it… obviously you can’t do that to your DH. He needs to put up with interruptions I guess or find somewhere else to work.

You don't have to do anything OP

Your DH is being UR

He'll have to stop wfh in the middle of the flat those hours after DS gets home

Just get on with your 'returned with toddler DS' day when you get in. Use the kitchen and toilet as you need it. Say to toddler SHushes Daddy is working but you can't stop him crying for Daddy who's in plain sight ignoring his son. That's on DH.

If DH doesn't like the noise, he can move from the middle of the flat throughway into bedroom and try to be quiet.

If he doesn't like that, and if DH is too noisy that he keeps attracting a crying DS, then , he'll get disturbed. It's DH's choice then if He makes WFH viable or not.

If DH says 'can you take him out for a walk he's disturbing me' you reply 'don't be ridiculous I'm not taking our child out in the cold for an hour and half each evening. You move somewhere quiet to work if you don't want to be disturbed. I'm doing my best to quietly occupy him but this is our home. You have an office you can go to. We don't have a second home we can go to. '

@TheKeatingFive

It's not that difficult to keep a child out of a room for 1.5 hours though, let's be honest.

Have you read the actual thread. It's an entirely open plan ground floor

In one of her first posts the OP says

"Of course I don’t have DS in the same room as DH, but there is no way I can totally avoid him either. The room is a through-route to the kitchen so it’s basically saying I can’t go in the kitchen between 430-6 and DH can’t use the bathroom. It’s pretty stressful."

So it sounded to me that she was in a separate room and the beef was not being able to go to the kitchen.

So it sounded to me that she was in a separate room and the beef was not being able to go to the kitchen.

She has clarified in the course of the thread

@CornishGem1975

It's not that difficult to keep a child out of a room for 1.5 hours though, let's be honest. The issue here is that the OP just doesn't want to.

Which is….not unreasonable. I bloody wouldn’t want to do it, and I’d expect some give from a co-parent on how to solve it. Not just ‘don’t be here’. There definitely things he could do, and isn’t even considering, yet we are all over the OP about what she should do.

As someone said, he could go to an office, but they don’t have another home. It’s not like you can just take a toddler to a pub and chill for an hour.

Children after a day in creche are so hard to manage and I wouldn't put them (or me) out any more at the end of the day. If your DH isnt happy he needs to work around you; go back to office or go to bedroom and drop his shouty voice. It was different in the height of lockdown but now there are options. At 4.30, DH comes out, say hi to DS and a 5 minute play, tells him he will be back in a bit and then goes back to work. The poor child wants to see his dad and will keep shouting til he does which is awful for the 3 of you. I don't think you're wrong to expect DH to put up OP.

Agree 100% with Lindaloo. OP's DH is just being lazy - we're not in lockdown anymore. He can go to the office a few days a week just like OP does every day.

Plus what about the toddler's right to be at home in comfortable and familiar surroundings for a decent portion of the day? 8 hours in nursery is quite a lot already for a small child and to be out for an extra 1.5 hours because daddy doesn't feel like leaving the house is just asking too much.

Just remembering how my daughter used to be when she was 2 and I'd pick her up from daycare. She'd scream and cry and tantrum at everything, often in the middle of the street on the way home. The caregivers there said it was a common reaction in toddlers- in an institution, even if children feel comfortable they still cannot be free with their emotions as they can with primary caregivers, hence they let it all out at home. I have worked in daycare since and noticed that toddlers who had been happy as larry all day had a screaming breakdown at their bemused parents upon pickup. Totally unreasonable to suggest OP keep the toddler out for a further 1.5 hours in that state of mind.

You’re right, Cornish. There is a separate room (with a door the toddler bangs on if he hears Daddy). DH is working in the open plan kitchen-diner.

So OP and DS can be in the living room, bedrooms etc etc but anything involving the kitchen means DS sees his dad, who tries to ignore him.

It’s academic, anyway. OP doesn’t want advice. DH doesn’t want to work from the office. It’s unclear if DH is demanding silence or OP unnecessarily fixed on providing it. Toddlers are mardy at 5pm. Two full-time working parents is tough all round.

@Sparticuscaticus

You don't have to do anything OP

Your DH is being UR

He'll have to stop wfh in the middle of the flat those hours after DS gets home

Just get on with your 'returned with toddler DS' day when you get in. Use the kitchen and toilet as you need it. Say to toddler SHushes Daddy is working but you can't stop him crying for Daddy who's in plain sight ignoring his son. That's on DH.

If DH doesn't like the noise, he can move from the middle of the flat throughway into bedroom and try to be quiet.

If he doesn't like that, and if DH is too noisy that he keeps attracting a crying DS, then , he'll get disturbed. It's DH's choice then if He makes WFH viable or not.

If DH says 'can you take him out for a walk he's disturbing me' you reply 'don't be ridiculous I'm not taking our child out in the cold for an hour and half each evening. You move somewhere quiet to work if you don't want to be disturbed. I'm doing my best to quietly occupy him but this is our home. You have an office you can go to. We don't have a second home we can go to. '

Perfect. You get it

@TheKeatingFive

You do not get to save an hour’s fees if you drop the kids off at 9 rather than 8.

😂

She's coming right round to stupidly endearing now.

Where did Catherine De Burgh fuck off to I wonder,

To live my life, actually. And wfh. And badly parent those children I haven't got (who are teenagers now, and have survived being shushed when their father (or I, for that matter) was working).

And now they shush themselves just fine.

They are horribly suppressed.

And for the record, OP, if you had asked AIBU to ask DH to go into the office because him wfh in the evening when I want to be cooking and with ds in the kitchen annoys me? I would have said YANBU, provided only that he didn't have a long commute.

It's the way you stated it was impossible that made you come across as a bit silly tbh.

And badly parent those children I haven't got

I don't think it was you that was suspected of making up children.

So, hmm, what an interesting comment 🤔

Did the OP say it was impossible?!?!

@CornishGem1975

It's not that difficult to keep a child out of a room for 1.5 hours though, let's be honest. The issue here is that the OP just doesn't want to.

Well I think it’s fair enough the OP doesn’t want to.

For starters, she will want to feed her dc around 5.00~5.30pm which is going to be hard if she can’t access the kitchen.

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.

That’s a very good point.
There is a difference between doing something because it’s an expectation (eg your DH saying he is expecting you to be out of the house so he can work in peace) and you doing him a favour (which 1- should be appreciated but not expected and 2- isn’t going to be the default position).

I’m curious to know why your DH thinks he can set that sort of expectations from you Wo any apprécié of how much hard work it is to try and work around him and his wish to wfh….
It also makes me wonder if he has a tendency to set expectations to meet his needs even if it goes again in yours.