To not stop DS disturbing DH when he is wfh?

[Mintelderflower]

DH wfh for three days - Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. He is supposed to be at the office Tuesdays and Fridays but often decides to switch days around last minute.

DS attends nursery for three days a week and I have changed these days to accommodate the days Dh is supposed to be in the office because DS is a bit of a nightmare and keeps wanting to play in the room DH is working from and climbing on DH lap, wanting to go out on the bikes (this is also where the bikes are kept.) When he is taken away he throws massive tantrums (he is 2) and also keeps gravitating back. It’s really tricky. Normally DS days in nursery have to be my work days but currently on maternity leave.

I think I need to say very honestly to DH that I’m not going to keep intervening. If he makes the choice not to go to the office on that day then he isn’t going to get much work done. I don’t want to be an arse about this but I sort of feel I’ve done everything I reasonably can to avoid this issue and now it’s on DH.

Your DH needs to work somewhere where there is a physical barrier between him and DS.

It's on both of you. I know my sister has had this issue the other way round (she WFH a day a week, her DH looks after the kids) and finds it unbelievably annoying that he doesn't manage to keep them from bothering her.

Yes it's annoying that he switches days but presumably he does this for a reason (eg a in-person meeting on a day he'd usually WFH). OTOH if he's just switching days for the hell of it then I have less sympathy, but why would he do that?

This^
If DH is working in a shared part of the house (eg living room or kitchen) then it is impossible to keep DS away. It is primarily a home space to use for living, not a work space.

If he is working from a separate home office/spare room type place then I think it should be relatively easy to manage. Just need to lock the door and maybe be consistent with saying to little one “not now, daddy is working”- maybe with the aid of a visual on the door that shows when daddy can and can’t be interrupted.

Ive looked after my grandchildren in their home for 4 years now, all the time their parent was WFH. When they were very little, there was a stair gate on the top / bottom of the stairs. Now they are older they know that they can’t go into the ‘office’ where the parent is working. Their parent does, however, pop down to see them regularly and finishes work in time to play out with them so is in effect much more hands on than they would be if they worked away from the home.
OP, your DH needs to put a lock on the door and put anything that your child may want outside the door. Oh, and come down to have snacks / lunch with your toddler.

Why is DH switching his work days around? I suspect it's probably to accommodate work needs e.g. there is an on site team meeting or some such. It's not always easy for hybrid workers to stick to the same days in the office every week.

My DH has worked at home from when my DC were very small, and it really is possible to teach even a 2 year old that the door shut (or some such cue) means that Daddy is working and not to be disturbed. So I think you should be doing this. If there are things that toddler can't get to, then just move them out on days when the room is in use. You can't expect adults to change their behaviour so you don't have to say "no" to a toddler.

Exactly

I've voted YABU mainly because I don't understand how or why it's got to the point where a young child is ruling the house.

But for transparency, when DH and I WFH even with DC around we have a rule that when someone's working in the study, we don't interrupt them. DC don't get to wander round the house interrupting us when we're working and the other parent holds that boundary.

If you know DC is likely to want a bike, take the bike out the room and have it ready. Then

If DH is choosing to work in the living room then YANBU, but if he's elsewhere in the house (eg downstairs dining room, study, office, spare bedroom, closed off reception room downstairs) and you're letting DC interrupt because you don't want to hold a boundary then YABU.

Presumably if bikes are in there he isn't in a communal room like the living room, I don't see the issue or why it's so challenging to keep a 2 year old out of a room they don't need to be in? Sure you've been accommodating to his days in the office but if there's a suitable room to work from and he chooses to for whatever reason I don't get the huge imposition if they swap personally.

I'd say it depends why DH is moving his days around. If it's for work reasons, I'd say it's hard for everyone, but you have to keep making an effort. If it's just that he fancies a lie-in, for example, I'd say that's not a good enough reason to make yours and DS lives that much more difficult when you've already made accommodations by booking nursery for the days he's supposed to be working from home.

What are you doing whilst your DH is working because if you have the day off to effectively be your child’s childcare then shouldn’t you be out and about or at least doing things to entertain him indoors or elsewhere?

OTOH if he's just switching days for the hell of it then I have less sympathy, but why would he do that?

My husband is a complete and utter self-bullshitter about which days he'll go to the office. Even if there are annoying consequences to himself or others.

He just can't stick to the planned days.

But he gets short shrift if I had planned something for a day he was supposed to be out and he expects me to change.

Does DH sometimes pop out and play for a bit, or come down when the 2yo is tantrumming to interfere and offer daddy cuddles? It was always much harder when DP did this – breezing into the kitchen at toddler lunchtime going “Just getting some fizzy water, no it can’t wait!” so she’d see him and want him and he’d stop and cuddle/play then bugger off again. If he’d got plain water from the upstairs tap/sorted himself out earlier when we were at the park/waited until naptime it wouldn’t have been an issue, but as it was his “sometimes yes, sometimes no” made for very blurred boundaries and confusion. Miles easier if it’s very clear: it’s a daddy work day, you won’t see him at all today even though he’s in the house.

Why can't your husband lock the door?

I think it depends on whether you're working or not. My husband worked from home until our daughter was about 10, and I was a stay at home mum until she was around 7. I would never have dreamt of letting her disturb my husband during working hours - when he was in his office, he was working and we didn't see him during the day apart from when he came out to make a drink or for lunch. It wasn't difficult to make sure that my daughter knew his office was out of bounds when the door was closed, and we were always so busy playing before she started school that it was never an issue.

But if you're working too, then it's a different matter.

Your DH is being VERY unreasonable. I hate hearing people’s squealing children in the background on work calls, it’s incredibly unprofessional and makes everyone think the parent isn’t focused on work. It’s particularly embarrassing on client calls.

Your child is 2, he’s not going to understand he can’t disturb his dad while he’s working, so your DH has to be the one to remove himself from the house and go to the office on the days your child is home.

I wfh 2 days a week I have preferred days but have to be flexible for business needs so can often change at short notice.

the door to the to room I work in is closed and DH ensures I am not disturbed and I do the same if he is wfh

i am unable to work elsewhere E.g library as suggested by some as it wfh policy states we cannot work from a public space

at first it was hard for the kids but after a while they learnt if the door is closed they can’t go in

Who are these selfish bell-end husbands?!

In your and OP’s shoes I would be EXTRA loud, to teach them a lesson.

I think you just need to make this room totally out of bounds to toddler and put up with the tantrums. It's a bit rubbish of dh to chop and choose days but it doesn't mean that as the parent caring for him at the time you shouldn't be making some sort of attempt to discipline him and keep him away from the working parent. If he isn't tantruming about this he'll be tantruming about something else and if you always pussyfoot around it he's going to learn that it gets him his own way and you're in for years of hell. The easiest way to make your expectations clear to him is to make daddy's work room out of bounds full stop. The tantrums will stop once he realises he isn't going to get his own way.

So a lot of people seem to think that it is where in the house DH is working is the problem and I am not sure that it is.

Ideally, DS would understand boundaries, would get that DH is working and that’s that and we have to leave him alone. The problem is he genuinely doesn’t understand this. Therefore I either have to:

a) just keep removing DS from DH, which is quite hard to do because of the layout of the house.

b) not have DS at home.

Until quite recently I have gone for b and this is still sort of what happens. I generally take DS out in the morning to a group and then we go to the park. We are probably out 9-1, then DS sleeps about 1-2. But taking him out again for the afternoon ‘shift’ is very hard, especially when heavily pregnant and on a lesser note I was getting nothing done around the house.

In short, it isn’t DH who has the issue if he chooses to change his days - it’s me. That’s why I am thinking I sort of need to make it his problem.

@Mintelderflower is he working somewhere without a door? Just trying to understand what the issue is with keeping your son away.

So where in the house is he working?

The only way Ds will understand the boundaries is if they keep being enforced by both parents.

If he's changing his days for no other reason than he feels like it then he is being unreasonable. A 2 year old isn't going to understand that he can't go and see hos dad and it just makes things harder for you

It must be, I guess an option is to find a room with a door on it?

OP the 2 year old is going to have to get familiar with boundaries when you have a newborn.

I don't think you should let DC disturb husband. I do think you should discuss with DH and confirm the days he's wfh.

We have two downstairs reception rooms, one of us is working in them on weekdays, hard rule that DC leave that room alone when parent is working. You just need to be consistent. We've always wfh and have small children. DH is fully remote. He has good headphones and audio stuff to drown out noise.

It's a different story if you haven't been left enough space to play. The bike thing is not a big deal, keep it somewhere else on working days - toddler bikes are not very big.

Letting DC annoy DH is a passive aggressive way of addressing something you should discuss and resolve like adults.

We both WFH, different days/shifts and yes I do expect my husband to look after both kids (4 and 1) and stop them coming into my work room, just as I do when he is working. But we both shut the door and neither work in a room that DC are routinely in.

We've both WFH since DD1 was born and we've never had any massive issues with it. When either parent is working they are generally out of the way and inaccessible in the same way they would be if out of the house.