To expect a proper lie-in?

[ClaphamAndCheese]

DH games or watches films or goes out on Friday - always to bed late (2am/3am) and then he has a lie in until 11 or so. I look after both the DC (pre-school) Sat morning.

I work full time and do 9 out 10 night wakes. Which at the moment is mainly the older DS (3.5) who keeps having nightmares and crying for "Mummy please be in my bed etc" and then refusing to sleep, cuddling me.

Anyway - Sunday is my morning. I don't go to bed late on Saturday but that's not the point.

DS1 (3.5) just comes up the stairs again and again from 6am. Waking me up. Turning the lights on. Telling me it's morning. He just covered himself in E45 cream pretending to be a skeleton. He's a tricky kid and is actually on referral pathway for dyslexia or ASD - he can become quite obsessive. BUT - DH doesn't make any effort to stop DS coming up the stairs. It's not easy to stop him when he gets it in his mind I know, but still.

DH just says he's got the younger one and DS is "obsessed with you". After being woken up for the fourth time, I took him downstairs again and said that DH could make more of an effort

DH said "can't believe you're blaming me for DS behaviour again"

WTF. DS is 3. Surely it's a reasonable expectation that DH tries to keep DS downstairs so I can sleep???

DH then snapped "no baby number 3 for you if you're this strung out because your kids waking you up"

I mean. Unnecessary no?

I am tired so maybe it's not a big deal, but it's my only time of the week where I am alone.

I said "Why do you get to sleep until 11am on Saturday, and i don't even get back 6.30am without being woken up" and he said "not my fault your kids are obessed you with"

Next Saturday, send in Mr 3, E45 in hand, to have a lie in, too.

We have a stairgate but DS1 manages to climb over it.

I just came downstairs after my shower and was being cheerful with the kids.

DH says

"Ah mum is in a better mood now"

I said

"Come on DH, it's not unreasonable to expect a lie in once a week"

He then said

"If you worked on your boundaries with them, they wouldn't be so obsessed with you, and then it would it be easier for me"

That's a bit of a jump. God. He's such a shit sometimes.

I agree about no baby number 3 btw. Have done for some time. Just resent it being used against me.

Agree about sending the kids up to him on Saturday morning. He's going to call me petty but who cares i guess.

Why don’t you(both) have a proper baby gate? Your home doesn’t sound child proofed at all. You need a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs that requires adult weight on foot release to open it. You need baby gate blocking access to the kitchen. Toddlers are good at disappearing when you have a younger one to care for, so you have to literally block off escape routes to ensure you can keep them under your supervision.
*by you I mean you & DH. I’m not holding you solely responsible OP.

Get up when they wake you up and go out the house. Get yourself breakfast somewhere and leave DH to it. It's still your time. Use it out the house.

Also.... Yes let them wake him up on a Saturday, see how he likes it. Tell him sorry I was busy looking after the baby, didn't notice

No this is the perfect solution. Your DS wouldn’t be so obsessed with you if he had more time with Daddy and that time is a Saturday morning so that’s fab that he’s decided to forego his lie ins so that everyone can focus on building healthy relationships 😬

I mean you can’t make him less reliant on you if he has nobody to go to in your place so not-soDH needs to be up, doesn’t he?

I’d be pissed off if this was my partner. Massively. Have 1 child currently and we do the same with lie ins. My partner doesn’t tend to take full advantage of his day but I do and he lets me which I massively appreciate. Your partner just sounds like he CBA and lets your child do the easy option which is waking mommy up but then he doesn’t have to look after the children on his own. Very very selfish. Especially when you do the main lot of the work with night wake ups etc (which is the same for me). Utter wanker.

YANBU - he's blatantly sitting on his phone not supervising (used to have one the same...)
Pretty sure if he was engaged in playing with 3.5 year old, making 1st breakfast with him etc he wouldn't be disappearing to attention seek from you.
He actually needs more time either them than less time to make them less obsessed with you.

Please don’t have another baby with this utter twat.

O agree that the only way for your son to be less obsessed with you is for him to step up and even things out. So he needs to do nights. He needs to take the kids out on his own sometimes at the weekend, why not Sunday mornings so you get a lie in and he gets some bonding time going for a swim, walk or a play in the park?

Do you go out? If he is overtired because he chooses to be out or up late, that is his problem. I would definitely be sending the kids in first thing in Saturday and taking myself out for a coffee. No lie in for you, no lie in for anyone.

Sorry, I’ve just seen you’ve decided no baby three. Time to sort the dickhead out or there will be no relationship at all.

Suggest he takes the kids out to the park or for a walk and then a coffee/breakfast while you have a lie in. Doesn’t need to be expensive. They can all arrive back tired out enough for a calm morning!

But also I would have a long talk through with him about this whole thing while you get a babysitter for the kids one evening. Not just the lie in, but the resentment on both sides, how you’re both going to deal with the relentlessness of kids longer term, how you’re going to support each other, how you want to be spoken to/treated in future and spell out your dealbreakers to him. There’s a lot of underlying issues here!

"No baby number 3 for you" tells you everything you need to know about his mindset.

For you? He sees the children as something you wanted and he went along with. He's never going to pull his weight, he thinks it's your job. You wanted them.

Btw if you do that, try to come at it with gentleness. ‘I understand this is difficult/tiring/frustrating’ - acknowledge whatever feelings you see in him and hopefully that will give you a good foundation for a talk.

If he doesn’t match you in that gentleness well there much much deeper issues - couples counselling or break up type issues.

Can you sleep elsewhere next weekend? Book an air bnb of a hotel?

Yes, it sounds deliberate. A very envious, spiteful energy.

He sounds like an absolute knobhead. The passive aggressive comments to the children about your mood are disgraceful. I would be considering if this is how I wanted my future because the lie in seems the least of your worries. His disrespect of you and his refusal to keep parenting decisions between the 2 of you will only escalate as your children get older.

Is he trying to punish you for something? Was baby one and two planned?

I'd get a proper baby gate.

He sounds nasty. Was he always like this or is it new? Is he like that with other things?

I said to him "maybe you need to step up more with overnight stuff and meals and stuff & then they will be less dependent on me"

He said I needed to appreciate him more and i was "bullying him"

GAH

My DH used to get them breakfast and take them out so I got a lie in. Why can’t he do that? He’s being lazy and selfish.

He sounds awful. Truly awful.
Reminiscent of my truly awful ex.
You and your kids deserve better.
The "oh mum is in a better mood" really hit a nerve.

He does take them out. He took them out to the toy shop yesterday. And now he's gone to do the weekly food shop. I keep telling him we should do it online so he doesn't disappear for half the day every Sunday but it never happens. He does do stuff but it never feels actually very helpful!

But the suggestion is that he takes them out early morning so you can lie in in peace - does he ever do that?

It’s very, very hard to control what someone else does. When I had 1 child DH would take him out on the pram/buggy. As soon as there were 2 he didn’t. I used to say that I always saw Dads in the park after work etc

I actually think looking back he didn’t have the skills to manage them and that was maybe part of it. Sometimes reasoning and your expectations of what is ‘right’ don’t work.

So if I had my time again I would have suggested he visit someone with them, book a small soft play so it’s safe and enclosed, or maybe some kind of class where the person running it would help engage the elder.

I’m not excusing it. He’s the dad so should get on with it. I just know this never happened for me.

The other option might be to go to bed even earlier and then leave the house in the morning. Maybe find a leisure centre with a sauna or something. But I know it’s not the same as just relaxing in bed.

Or actually, in lockdown I discovered that unbeknown to me for the last decade my job was actually way busier. So I had to work out how to manage the kids and work. So I set out activities for him to supervise. Again you shouldn’t have to. He is their dad, it’s you carrying the mental load again etc etc. but you could suggest a timetable of eg wooden train track/play dough and containers/utensils in a tuff spot/draw some cafe food and play cafes/watch X

His comment about child 3 is incredibly rude, who does he think he is? Provider of sperm.

I keep telling him we should do it online so he doesn't disappear for half the day every Sunday but it never happens. He does do stuff but it never feels actually very helpful!

This is quite deliberate. He is letting you know who is boss, the manipulator in action.

Of course you have no complaint, he is helping, isn't he?

What a prick.