Husband on phone the whole fucking time he’s with the children

[Hormonalorjustified]

I’m heavily pregnant and extremely hormonal so want to check I’m not overreacting…

DH has been getting up early with our small children throughout my pregnancy. Amazing - what a great dad. So helpful for me to have an extra 1-2 hours in bed. Right?

except that I’ve just learnt that day in, day out, he is, from 5am-7am, just watching YouTube videos on his phone. And they are short videos, 2-3 mins long (eg about football or tv shows or films). So it’s not something he has on in the background (which tbh I also wouldn’t find ideal as 1 and 3 year old need supervision and attention and it isn’t setting the best example/they aren’t allowed screen time in the morning). He has just been actively doomscrolling and watching stuff for hours on end. For months.

I am a SAHM and I have to say this just isn’t parenting for me. I found out he was doing this for a window at the beginning of my pregnancy, explained I didn’t think this was alright and if he didn’t feel up to getting up I would rather do it myself/not do this. He said he understood/agreed. So I trusted him
not to do it. And I find out he has all along!

I totally get some people have different bars for what they do/let their children do and I am not judging for that but AIBU to think I should be able to trust my husband to do what we fucking agreed with our children?! I feel like an idiot I would have rather been up at 5am myself. It explains a lot of things too - DS having a bump etc and him not knowing how it happened, or me sometimes waking up to hear DS communicating but not able to hear my husband responding for several minutes.

Oooooooh okay that explains an awful lot more

@LastSeenInSanFrancisco we run pumpkins out of our neighbourhood in my town. We don’t suffer them. Just another way of calling a spade a spade without getting booted for it.

I'm asking you where I have put in writing in my post...and I quote from what you have stared I did

which is what you claimed was the root of all evil in the world today…

Mine is the same, except its at night time. Mine don't go to bed til late no matter what I've tried, and I end up staying awake because he won't acknowledge them while on PC, so i totally understand how pissed you are. However.. He would never dream of getting up with them every morning so consider yourself lucky!

It's not a great comparison. Did you miss the part that said the OP's heavily pregnant??

Hi OP,
I think it is easy to get caught up on lots of issues here.
I have done the full time mum for a few years and also now I work full time. I could not function at 5am on a weekend day now - there is no way I could use this time constructively with my kids nor could I bear for this time slot to be my only quality time with the kids in the week as it would be a total waste for me - I simply cannot function properly at 5am since going back to work full-time and would probably be in the same position as DH.
Does DH spend time with the kids alone at another time? If not, perhaps this can be incorporated elsewhere in the routine so he has a fighting chance to spend some quality time with less phone temptation? 5am is just not a quality time together time slot.

DH obviously supports you getting up with the children. Perhaps he is struggling in his own way (as we all are in the parenting journey at some point) and just wanting a bit of escapism. I get you asked him not to use his phone so much and you feel let down. Perhaps some compromise to be had here?

I would be very careful about steaming in and taking over as you put it. I did this all the time in the early days out of sheer frustration and it did more damage to the relationship than I could have anticipated. I realised I wasn't making space for another way of doing things, and pushed an agenda of what seemed right to me. This made DH feel useless, and he retreated away.

I get what you are saying about him perhaps not interacting with the kids at all. This isn't really ok and perhaps this is really the thing you are worried about here? I have noticed with many DHs that they don't have the same responses to babies and toddlers as they do to slightly older children. Everyone is different, but I notice this in many cases. Perhaps that might be the part to gently focus on, rather than anything else he may or may not be doing to try and get through this phase of life.

So, are you being unreasonable? Not exactly. It sounds like you have a genuine concern about the kids being ignored when they ask for something. Have you let your frustration take over - possibly?

Remember DH has his own ways of doing things which are very valuable for the kids too. On this occasion maybe it's easier to let it go on the basis it is 2hrs and it is in my view unrealistic to expect quality time to be had at 5am. I totally get the frustration and concern, but there will be other benefits to the kids of having to be independent in those hours.

Perhaps the one thing you need to work on with DH in some way is the being "available" if they ask him something, regardless of what he is doing. However, he may realise if he is too available the kids will want to involve him in their games, which is also not what he probably wants at 5am! Ultimately, I am still learning from my DH how to step back and let my kids be independent, but he had taught me A LOT about that, and I will say there is ever such a fine line between leaving them to be independent and ignoring them.

Perhaps DH needs some additional time with the kids at a time when he has a fighting chance of doing some awesome parenting and spending quality time :)

Wishing you all the best xxx

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I said no such thing, ever. That is sick.

No it doesn’t. It’s completely made up. I have never said anything like that and it is not my view.

Agreed. Look I totally get how hard it is and we are all glued to our phones/ (actually mini computers) these days. Banking, shopping, communicating, planning- literally everything is on there and I try my best to not show my daughter that I need to be looking at this thing all the time however it’s unavoidable at times.
What is avoidable however is being on it watching meaningless crap 24/7 where your children are present-harmful to them as they are being ignored & almost neglected -it’s teaching them they are not worthy of their parent’s attention as much as the damn thing in his hand he is constantly staring at, the parent is not really present or interested in them. A couple minutes while they engrossed in something-ok….the entire time he’s with them- absolutely not ok. Pretty disgraceful in fact. I’m annoyed for you OP.

It’s 5 fucking AM. He is not subservient or accountable to her in how he spends that time managing children, especially when she won’t get out of bed.

I hope you are not looking after the kids at the moment considering you are clearly distracted from watching them

Sleeping brains do you think “oh I must wake to watch TV”.

The early mornings are hard and the days are long i think you need to do whatever gets you through it. You can be as engaged as you like and your children may still have behavioural issues. You dont get to choose. My son has always had behavioural issues and we are both very actively engaged parents. While my friends are able to have lazy days watching tv with their children we have to be doing activities constantly to keep my son focused and engaged. I'd actually love if he would watch a screen for a while!

How old is your 1year old @Hormonalorjustified ? I'm asking because there is a big difference between leaving a 23 month old and a 12 month old to play whilst semi paying attention.

5am starts a brutal, when my (now) 2.5 year old goes through phases of waking up early i normally just close my eyes with bluey on in the background. I have a 9 month old too so when he wakes up early I have to play etc and i hate it.

I am trying to limit time on my phone though- I have never noticed how much I go on it infront of them but my toddler said "no phone" the other day so I now leave it on loud in the other room until nap time.

You are pregnant, with two young children. You and your husband must both be totally exhausted (I know we are!) It's hard but i don't think this would be the hill I'd be willing to die on. Having 3 kids under 4 will be tough with 2 of you, let alone if you decide to do it alone.

Also, going against the grain a bit here but I don't think he's dad of the year for getting up with them in the mornings. One of you has to and you are growing a human. It sounds like getting up and going on his phone is literally the least he could do but I wouldn't get a divorce over this either.

At 5am I'd be snoozing on the sofa to be honest, way too early. To be honest I would march them back to bed and say too early and only allow them up at 7am. My kids learned very quickly that getting up time was later.

They should be ignored at 5am!

Btw it's not that I ever did this with my kids because they hadn't invented smartphones and home internet was very expensive! Children don't need to be entertained constantly, certainly not before 8am

I think he wouldn’t be able to win no matter what he did. He probably agreed with you for a quiet life and even though you say you’d have discussed it if he hadn’t agreed, from the way you’ve presented yourself on here, it wouldn’t have been a discussion, it would have been you telling him what was happening with no thought for his opinion. This esp comes through when you’re all “well, I’d be having them 100% if we split up.”

The fact that he’s happy to get up and let you rest when he has what’s presumably a long day of work ahead (going by you saying these 2 hours are the only time he sees them) is a good thing. Not that I’m suggesting being a SAHP is easy by any stretch but there is more room for flexibility in plans than when working.

You say these are the only 2 hours of the day/week that he gets to spend with them - why? Is that because he works long hours? What about the weekend? And what would happen if they did happen to sleep until say 7? He’d not see them at all? Because that wouldn’t be his fault (unless there’s a massive back story that he deliberately works long hours to avoid being at home).

Regardless of your opinion, there are plenty of people who see no difference between reading a book or being on YouTube etc and as an adult, it’s his choice. And when you say “well, I’ll do it then”, I’ll refer you back to my first paragraph. You sound very much like a martyr.

At the age DS woke up at stupid o'clock in the morning, I would sleep lightly on the sofa while he banged duplo together 🤷‍♀️

You can't ignore a crying baby at 5am!

Bit of a stretch. It's also silly to act like parenting isn't hard, requiring compromise, and that single parents are having a whale of a time. But do go on acting like ending a marriage over something so petty would be a reasonable outcome here 🙄

We're not talking about crying babies. We're talking about kids getting up at 5am and a minority of folk thinking they should have a parent 'interact' with them.