DH WFHis not working

[Grumblegrumblegroan]

DH goes into his office 845 for his meeting. 2 yo ds cries as daddy has gone.

DH comes out of his office at 9 for breakfast.ds delighted.

DH goes back to his office at 930. Ds cries.

and out 945 for a poo

and back at 10

all.day.long.

A logistical problem for the adult, yes.

Not the feverish sick child

The poo scheduling is the best aspect of this thread.

That’s the thing @Sparklingbrook

@BloodAndFire in fairness I have acknowledged that there are advantages to DH WFH, but there are downsides and as I’ve said some of these downsides are petty and some have a bit more of an impact upon my life.

As the username suggests it is a grumble and a groan. I don’t believe for a moment I have sole jurisdiction over the house and I am very considerate about this but someone working in a family home is very different indeed to someone just living in a family home.

A lot of people I know like their partners working from home.
There is one who find their DH create a lot of mess and interferes in her day rather than working, but that is a bit of a one off.

My DH gets more work done as he doesn't get mithered but the trivial things as his team will only contact him now if they really need him. His team is more productive as he's said they are from home as well if they still want to be.

My DH works from home and we find it great, but then our DS is school age. We can all have tea together as I've finished work by then also, we get to have breakfast together, where when he was in his office he set off before DS was up for breakfast and came back after DS had needed his tea so it works great.

If it's a long term thing your child just needs to get used to daddy being at work, he will come and go. Or both work together and your DH takes his lunch while you are out with DC to minimise his upset

I stand by ‘in theory’ but it would all depend on the demands of the job and the employer I guess. In an emergency I can totally see the advantage, but answering the door to get a parcel or seeing to a feverish child while you’re supposed to be working not so much.
So many variables.

Oh, I remember you! You’ve posted about this before, haven’t you? At least twice?

Posters make lots of suggestions and advise talking to your husband, you say none of the suggestions will work (with limited explanation as to why), state that the situation is irresolvable (when it clearly isn’t), you were just having a moan and that there’s no point talking to your husband (again, limited explanation as to why). People get a bit antsy about all this and you leave the thread, never to return. Rinse and repeat.

You are being a martyr by refusing to tackle with your DH anything about working from home - it is difficult to get used to and a compromise but it shouldn’t just be you not liking some things and refusing to ask him

This.

The OP must spend her

But if you were in the office, nursery would call you and tell you to come and collect t

I think if DC us getting wound up it’s reasonable to say your husband needs limit his quick breaks to only 1 or 2 a day
I disagree with this. It is up to the Dh how he many breaks he has within his working day. However the child should be distracted be told "no daddy, is working he will see you when he is finished' He may not understand first time but it needs to be consistently repeated until he gets the hang of it.
Years ago when Dh was wfh, before wfh was a big thing like now, I had the same issue with Ds1. No problem with Ds2 , he was ok but Ds1 would shout 'my daddy, come here!!' I used to take him by the hand and tell him daddy is working but lets play with the cars ( or whatever) we had a few tantrums but he soon learned and the habit was soon broken.

I have to say personally I dont like the idea of WFH (and we are in jobs with zero flexibility, every bit of our life schools runs, childcare for holidays etc has to be planned so carefully). But when im home (or Hubby is off), we are completely off so theres never any conflict between work and home life. Both our jobs cant be done at home either so that helps. I guess theres alot of people after Covid adjusting to the idea its not so clear cut anymore, but personally I like home to be home (even if that means no flexibility) and work to be at our workplaces. Perhaps you could suggest trying to keep things abit more divided during working hours - I dont think its unreasonable for someone to stay in their working area during work hours (obviously a break for lunch at his normal lunchtime).

@RishisProudMum i don’t believe I have , actually.

@Tiswa - actually we have; our house move was not entirely but partly prompted by DH needing to have a suitable space in which to work, but while I realise some MNetters disagree, it is impossible to have someone working from home and their existence to go unnoticed.

I totally sympathise OP. Baby, and an older child here, and both get really excited when Daddy comes out of his office, and stop playing, and then he disappears again leaving me to sort out getting them back into what they were doing before. We don’t get any of the benefits such as being able to leave the kids with him, because he can’t work and look after them. It’s tough, I don’t know what the answer is!

Different scenario. The child is at home in bed asleep with a fever being looked after by the non working parent but the school run needs doing. They aren’t at nursery.

He's working. Leave him alone and stay out of his way. How he manages his breaks and workload is none of your concern. Imagine he's not there and "the problem" vanishes

Most people can answer the door to take a parcel if they are not currently in a call, and many people don't spend every working minute on calls.

Being able to leave a sick child sleeping in bed instead of hauling them out in the rain is a huge advantage. As is knowing there's another adult in the house if you yourself had an accident or emergency (these things do happen and are not that rare). I'd have loved to have this option when mine were tiny. Would have definitely felt less anxious.

Op still hasn't said how many kids she has though, despite saying she has had experience of looking after multiple small children while her husband works away from home.

But if the child was too sick to go out, then the working parent would have the option to take time off for dependents.

I think the other thing is that things like people being ill, especially hospital admissions, tend to be quite rare events (and I hope you are fully recovered @BloodAndFire - sounds like a scary experience.) However, everyday sort of annoyances are obviously more frequent.

And it is an annoyance, a grumble. It isn’t a huge thing that I need to have a serious conversation about and besides, I do of course want DHs life to be as pleasant as possible. But it is not always easy.

I can see the advantage in some instances.

Not a serious conversation perhaps

But at least a conversation!

@BloodAndFire I do only have one child, although I am actually expecting another although early days.

However, I did go back FT initially when DS was 10 months, and I worked FT for a year before dropping two days. DH mostly WFH but sometimes he does work away. You are right of course, more than one child is an added complication.

So there multiple posters with the exact same issue, the same unusual layout to their homes (which isn’t explained, but makes all conventional solutions unworkable), the same refusal to engage with any suggestions and the same unwillingness to speak to their spouse?

How curious. You could all form a club!

@Grumblegrumblegroan my DH wfh and it can easily go unnoticed. He works up in his office in the loft and only comes down for lunch. There is a bathroom up there.

Our DCs are at school but even if they weren't they wouldn't know he was at home unless they saw him at lunchtime.

Size of the house is factor in this I suppose.

Are you saying if 3pm rolled around and your feverish toddler was fast asleep in their bed, with an adult in the house, you would wake them up, put them in a buggy, and take them out in the cold and rain for 30-60 mins rather than leaving them sleeping in bed, on the off chance that they could wake up and disturb a work call?

I wfh and so does my husband. There are a few calls/meetings where I or he absolutely couldn't take that risk. But those are rare. In general people would be understanding about this situation, assuming it didn't happen often

I was in an important online meeting with someone the other day when he got a phone call to say his adult daughter had flipped her car over. She was ok but really shaken up. Of course he went to help her and of course it didn't cross my mind for one moment to be annoyed by it. Most people understand that occasionally emergencies happen.

Its a completely hypothetical scenario but what I thought it was was that the WFH parent would be looking after the feverish child, while the other parent did the school run meaning feverish child that could go out wouldn’t have to.
All a bit of a tangent. 😄