To ask you to tell me how I should split childcare with DH! We can't agree!!!

[Questionnn]

DH and I are in disagreement over a fair way to divide child caring responsibilities between us, so would like to ask you wise MNs how you would divide it if this was in your household?

Dh has a 'big job' and I have just returned from mat leave to a PT role, previously worked FT.

Dh and I split weekends so each gets a day - one of us Saturday and one of us Sunday. On 'our day' at weekend, we are not responsible for the baby eg feeds, nappy changes etc and have the opportunity of a lay in etc.

On Dhs 'day' he chooses to get up early to go to a hobby he could do at a different time but likes to miss the traffic so leaves house at 7.30am. I don't have any hobbies so on my 'day' choose a lay in or to leave house early with him to take baby out for the morning so we are back in time for baby's lunch and nap. I will also do a bit of housework and cook dinner.

Can you tell me who you think should do

1. bath and bedtime
2. night time wakings
3. sorting baby in the morning

for each day...

Monday- DH works from home 9-6. I am at home all day with baby.

Tuesday and Wednesday - DH is at work, leaves for train 6.20am and gets back 7pm. He doesn't see baby at all.
I get baby up and sort us both, do nursery drop before going to work, then collect baby. One week I have short shifts so have about 2 hours to myself to do housework etc each day, one week I work all day. I do bath and bedtime.

Thursday - DH is at work, leaves for train 6.20am and gets back 7pm. He doesn't see baby at all. I am at home all day with baby, do bath and bedtime.

Friday - DH works from home 8-5/9-6. DH drops baby to nursery for 8am, comes home and picks baby up from nursery after he finishes wfh. I have to leave at 8am for work and get home around baby's bath and bedtime.

Weekends we each get a day off.

I kind of agree with this. Each of you should have a lie-in one day of the weekend and ideally each of you gets a chunk of time to do a hobby or go for a walk at the weekend. After that, you should both be doing any housework needed at the weekends, both minding your baby, and ideally doing something nice with the baby - maybe seeing friends at the park or going for a walk, or whatever. At that stage, we took one day for "work" - housework/errands etc and one day as family time. We spent a lot of time going for walks etc with other couples who had babies and it was a lot of fun.

If each of you are calculating exactly what you are doing and who is doing more - your marriage will not go well. It will become entirely transactional. You need to get to a position where each of you are pulling your weight, each of you want to really contribute and help the other person, each of you appreciate and thank the other person for what they are doing. you have to be in this together. I'd sit down now and have that conversation.

I’ve got no issues with childcare/housework being equally shared when both parties aren’t working. But this variety of it with the tit for tat constant ‘book balancing’ seems utterly soulless and also soul destroying. And I’d argue breeds just as much resentment as when one person doesn’t pull their weight, because nothing can ever be completely equal.

I think he should do more when he’s WFH as he gets to go to work to his ‘big job’ 3 days a week without having to give a second thought about anything to do with the baby. And that’s a luxury many women don’t get.

You’re part time as I’m guessing two ‘big jobs’ wouldn’t work so he does need to do a bit more when he’s actually WFH. Looking after a baby is hard and holding down a managerial job is hard. Don’t let him
minimise your job and what you do with the baby. Good that he does some housework though.

This all sounds a bit weird. We would always do things together in a weekend. Maybe alternate who gets the lie in. But other than that we would get baby up and ready together - maybe one of us would shower whilst other does baby feed then other shower when one does getting baby dressed. Head out somewhere which could be shopping, grandparents, park, national trust etc. Or if we weren’t going anywhere we would chill out or do stuff round the house with no specific allocation to who gets baby fed and changed etc. Sometimes he would head out on a bike ride or to the gym or sometimes I’d go out and do something I needed. We never had a ‘day off’ each. Actually when dd1 was a baby I went back to work for 3 days (compressed hours from 4 days) and DH worked shifts often going 4 days on 4 off and changing times each week. So the ‘weekends’ together weren’t always Saturday and Sunday. If we both had week days off together DH would come to the baby and toddler groups I was taking baby to. Sometimes he would have a day off when I was working so did sole child care. We used my DM at the time to fill the gaps with his shifts if we were both working. Often his shifts did go past bedtime 8-8/9-9/10-10 so he would often pick up bath and bed time on his days off. I always did the night time feeds though- DH literally never woke and always slept through them, but then would give me a lie in if he wasn’t leaving early.

I never comment on threads but I dusted off my password for this one.

I feel compelled to tell you that my husband and I also split weekends up a bit like you. And we have designated jobs for designated days during the week.

I noticed that most people on here are saying you are weird/strange etc. And maybe so! But then we are too 😂

Each of us has a 'morning' to themselves on the weekend. I usually have a sleep in on my day. When I wake up, my husband brings me a coffee in bed. I then get up and we all play together before baby's nap. While she's napping, we both do whatever we like. Clean, cook, shower, go shopping, chill out... whatever! Then after nap time, it's family time.

On his morning, he usually likes to get up and do a hobby. Or maybe catch up on work (he is self employed). Again, we generally do whatever we like until after nap time and then it's family time.

We don't split the tasks as rigidly as you on a weekend, it's more flexible. But on weekdays, we have everything divided up so each of us knows who is doing what on each day. He works FT, work PT.

This might sound a little odd to some of you, but it works for us. We went through months of arguing about who does what. Exasperated by exhaustion. DD is 18 months now and we have a system that works and keep everyone happy. DH is someone that likes to know exactly what he has to do and doesn't really like being asked to do things that weren't on the plan. He likes routine and schedules. It's not that he is lazy or doesn't want to contribute, it's the opposite actually. He gets overwhelmed if things are sprung on him. It took me months to realise all of this (I thought he was just being a d**k for many months), but I now lovingly understand his needs and we have figured out a little plan that works for our family. (Btw, yes, I do realise some of his traits might indicate he is somewhere on the spectrum. We've never discussed it. I don't care either way, he's absolutely perfect to me as he is).

OP, I hope me sharing my experience might help you feel a little more normal!

That's one of the strangest things I've read on here and I'm a real old timer.

I can't imagine checking out one day every weekend. It feels pretty sterile to me.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

is this for real

What a bizarre set up

I actually think this is a really useful thing to do even if just as a thought exercise. I've even thought about trying to build a tool so that people can play around with it on a website/app etc.

Most couples end up with one parent - usually mum - in "default parent mode" ALL THE TIME. Trying to shift that so it's more equal can be really difficult to do. Dividing up periods where one parent is "on duty" and the other one is not can be one way to do that, but even when you do that, it can end up being really unequal and it can still feel biased one way. Being able to literally divide everything in half and allocate it to one parent and the other is one way of really measuring that and I think it's often surprising how it turns out.

It's a bit like the thing where if women speak more than 1/3 of the time in a mixed sex meeting, they are perceived to have dominated the meeting. The literal meaning of dominating would be to speak for over 50% of the time, which is what the men are actually doing in a 33/66 scenario.

I wonder what the tipping point is where couples feel that a man is doing most of the parenting - I wonder if it's under 50%.

Hubby gets a sleep in on a Saturday and I get an afternoon nap on a Saturday afternoon. That's about the only split we do. He works and I don't, anything not done, needing doing he helps do when he comes home. We have 3 kids (14yr old autistic, 2.5yr old possibly autistic and an 11mth old) and couldn't imagine having a whole day like that. We all do what we can x

Sounds very organised OP! Think we just muddled through, spent weekends together if we could (though my DH played footy Sat afternoons etc) I was a stay at home parent & my DH worked in the office & was gone 7-7. It's hard trying to claw back any free time. Those baby days were bloomin hard work & I'm not sure how I coped with my family 140 miles away. I deserve a medal. We ALL deserve a medal!! Is your DH also cooking meals when he is around? Don't spend your 'day off' cooking & cleaning if he is spending his 'day off' doing his hobby. Maybe batch cook so you don't have to cook at all at weekends? Unfortunately I think in the early years the child often spends far more time with the Mum than the Dad - doesn't seem fair but it often ends up that way. 😕

This is why being so 'regimented' works, because if not its too easy for a parent to excuse themselves ( let's be honest, normally the male parent ). There are some good suggestions on her OP, just because he has the 'big job' he needs to muck in at home. Some posters might be coming from the privileged position of having OH's who wanted to be 100% involved when they were at home and some posters might be coming from the position of, husband does nothing so I just do it all, it's their normal. Routines like this make it simple so everyone knows where they stand and don't get to duck out. It's so easy to slip into the 'I only work part time so must do everything else to prove my worth'. That only ever ends in resentment.

Knew a family once that split childcare by child

If you want a long and happy relationship I would advise to stop making counts of who does what... as long as everyone is trying to pull their weight... at times this will be unbalanced, someone might be depressed, going through a rough phase... just be partners, be a team.

For goodness sake do not have another child with him.

Another "amazing" father who spends very little time with his child and likes it that way.

Look after that career of yours and protect it, I suspect you are going to need it.

His "big important job" is waster code for avoidant selfish men to do as little as they can get away with.

He may be fond of your child but he's no doting father, with his need to spend so much time apart, specifically not being around you on Saturday.

Not normal interested father behaviour.

Absolutely selfish avoidant behaviour.

Bullet proof your contraception and look seriously at going back full-time or you could find yourself in single parent territory with two children battling poverty.

He is progressing his "big important job" on your back, and you will be so disadvantaged by your naively going along with it.

He is building his pension.....what are you doing for yours?

Too many silly women wake up to these things far too late.

Same. Never seen a more odd set up. Surely regardless of the date on the calendar you’d want to meet your babies needs? It’s a human not an object you can switch off from

We also have a morning to ourselves every other weekend. For example. It's my lie in so I will slob about in bed until about 11 playing on tiktok or fb and doing when the hell I like. My husband will take our son to the milking farm for fresh milk and to the park. We are both then up for the day around 11ish. That's as far as it goes.

We take it in turns with bathing and betime. He goes to watch football so if it falls on his night then he will pick up an extra later in the week but if he dosent then it's fine. We are a team.

He might suggest something like you make tea and ill chuck him in the bath. Something like that.

I do all childcare all week and Saturday I work to days a week Friday my partner takes my 18 month old to nursery and as I can’t drive he picks her up then r 8 year old and then me dosent take him long maybe half hour. He has them all day Sunday I am at work x

I’m pretty confused by this.
What about team work, or family time?
Nobody I know has a system like this, we all just muck in. Children should be a joy, not a task to be scheduled into your days.
I’d have a rethink if I were you.

And if looking after a baby is as easy as he implies, why doesn't he do more of it at the weekend then? be cause @Questionnn you don't let him. He has a day to himself, so defeats the object for him to take DS put that day. You have a day to yourself but you won't jeans him with the child so whilst he does stuff, it's under your watchful eye. If you want him to do more, step back. Sunday becomes movie day, coffee day, book in the park day, lunch day. Just actually leave for a few hours.

He feels he is very stressed at work so likes to be able to just go into another room and not really interact with us

I'm guessing that the 'regimentation' is to try and ensure he pulls his weight.

It didn't surprise me that he chooses to do his hobby on his day off, while your family time is in your 'day off'.

I'd encourage you to consider how the 'equal time off' might work differently for you. In the end though, I suspect that I would get a nanny and go back to work full time.

The sad fact of life is that women's careers are typically much more impacted by having DC than the father's. It's exactly because he does his hobby out of the house while your hobby is 'family time'.

I'm sorry it's like this.

It strikes me as a little too much organisation and not enough family time.

What’s the point in being a family in this situation? Your weekend sounds like a shared custody set up to me. But we spend most of our time all together unless we’ve got a night out or one of us goes to gym/class/coffee with friend but we don’t track time off rigidly and pay each other back hours etc. I find this Mumsnet thing of days off and wanting time away from your family really odd and don’t know anyone like this in real life!

Would have a family shared day at weekend and alternate other weekend day for each to have a lie in/hobbies. It's important and you can all bond together when shared uet still have fun and enjoy it. Xx

This seems a bit ott! I’m a SAHM and partner is a teacher. If he’s had a rough week I’ll let him have a lie in one day over the weekend a vice versa. But then when we are up we will figure out what we are doing for the day. If he goes out then he goes out. Usually we will do something together though. Same in the week. If I’ve had a rough day I’ll leave him with our 8mo twins and get a bath when he gets in. Same if he’s had a rough day. We do all the bedtimes together. It’s not a competition. You should both be there just to help each other if the other needs it.