DH rarely gets up with the kids

[Mani2024]

I have two children aged 3 and 7. There has been regular conflict between my husband and I since we had our first born about the fact that I get up with our child/children every morning while he stays in bed, sometimes for 5/10 mins or for anything up to an hour. At one point the conflict was frequent and problematic because our kids were going through a long phase of waking up for the day at 5am and I was so very very tired (I also breastfed both so was up in the night too). It’s got easier as our children have grown and now get up at a more reasonable time (between 6-7.30) and most of the time I don’t mind being up with them and having that time before the busy day starts however when there is an unsettled night I can’t help but feel resentful that he never offers to get up. Between Xmas and new year I had to work so he took our children away to their grandparents for a couple of nights so they could see their cousins etc and now he is back he is essentially saying I was given the opportunity to have two lye ins (which is not true as I was working) so why should he get up with them and also pointed out that he does the lions share of the childcare so it all ‘balances out’ (he has my son after school four days a week as he does not want to put him in after school club and has the flexibility to take time away from his business whereas I am working till 5 so his is not an option for me) we can not agree on this. I don’t feel he does the ‘lions share’ because he has my son after school. All he does is pick him up and let him sit on his ipad for two hours while he works on his laptop in the other room. At weekends and as soon as I finish work at 5pm I switch into parent mode to remove the childcare from him. So I’m either working or parenting yet he constantly tells me he does the lions share. I would happily do all the childcare and would love to be a part time worker so I could do the school pick ups every day and have time off with my children but financially we need me to be working. I recently changed my hours to compressed so I work 37 hours over four days so I could have our youngest one day a week rather than my husband having her two days a week. We now have her at home one day each a week but he likes to point out how he did a whole year of having her two days a week. I would have loved to have had her two days a week but again he is needing me to work full time for financial reasons.

it all feels horribly unfair and I find myself feeling restful. When we attempt to talk this through it ends up in a huge row and he accuses me of being completely unreasonable. He says if I want to stay in bed later I should just get out my phone and let the kids watch some TV on that. Just for the record I actually hate staying in bed so don’t fancy lying about, I just desperately want an extra half an hour sleep when the night has been busy with my children waking for various reasons. I’ll of course carry on getting up with the kids but some days I’m just exhausted and would love it if he at least offered to take them downstairs.

I agree with PPs that your oldest would be better off in an after-school club or with a childminder where they'd have activities and other children to play with. That would probably take some pressure off.

I think it's wild that so many people think a 3 year old can be ignored or left to play alone. Mine definitely could not be trusted!

You should have half the available lie ins, so at least one per weekend if you both aren't working. It might help to work out a schedule for the morning with shower slots and who is taking children when. Personally I would give him the first shower slot: if he misses it because his "10 minutes" is actually 30 then he'll have to manage without it.

He is totally unreasonable. My DH was also self employed when our DC were young - he drove for a living and worked late on a Friday and Saturday night so I did the early wake ups evey weekend BUT we did 50/50 Mon to Fri plus he did night wakings the night before his day off.
If he was in late when the DC were babies he would do the 12am ish feed and change so I could get a block of sleep.
Your husband is not a team player.

Honestly, leave this fucking waste of space loser, OP.

He does not care about you at all.

The words aside, the tone of your post is that you don't like this man at all. And I'm not surprised because he sounds useless and horrible.

You don't seem to have given much thought as to what benefit it brings you or your children to stay with him. Are you planning on going through the next two decades hating him, disliking your life but not doing anything about it?

Personally, I think you're making a bit of a meal of things here. What's actually wrong with passing your kids an iPad while you get yourself an extra half hour in bed if you're tired? Or while you get yourself showered and dressed? He is giving you solutions so you both get some rest but you're refusing to do them. Obviously he should be getting up in the night sometimes but kids of that age should rarely be waking in the night. I'm a lone parent of 3, I get lie ins and I can get myself up and ready. I can do the housework and cook tea by myself. I also work full time. There are ways around it. He is having the 3 year old 1 day a week and also helping after school. You need to look at solutions rather then refusing to make any changes. Those ages shouldn't be that hard.