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.

OK but you could have gone with (say) during a brunch date or country walk which is slightly more comparable to spending time with your kids.

Not sex.

You mean from ten to 9 until just gone 10

When presumably the children were in bed?

@butterpuffed I don't mean him looking after them at 5am, I mean him looking after them at all? She must've observed his parenting at other times or has he never looked after them?

Except he'd most likely say he wouldn't care if she was on her phone during those.

I was just trying to think of some time with her that he will definitely value highly.

*The usage is like this
video 1 5.01
video 2 5.04
video 3 5.06

for 2 hours. It’s pretty clear!*

I mean, he's probably just got a playlist on in the background while he does their nappies and gets their breakfast nothing.

@goldenretrievermum5

How on earth have previous generations coped before our ridiculous helicopter parenting trends came along?

As I said upthread, why do you and so many other PPs think the opposite of staring at a phone for hours is helicopter parenting?! The opposite of staring at a phone is NOT staring at a phone.

If your point was true we’d have most of the working + older population in therapy for their ‘traumatic’ childhoods.

I hate to break it to you but most of them are in therapy or should be. Sadly many just get antidepresents thrown at them, most don't address the underlying trauma and pass it on to the next generation.

Kids used to be left to play on their own and (shock horror) use their own imagination + initiative. Constant parent attention is equally unhealthy and unnecessary - the current generation of kids + teens growing up completely dependent on their parents and unable to think for themselves is proof of this.

The most healthy kind of parenting is mostly silent, watching from a distant but PRESENT. With a phone glued to your face you are absent, but the kids can see you. It's a form of withdrawl, a well studied phenomenon and very damaging.

Wild here everyone giving this man so much love for working FT and getting up for 2 hrs with his children. The only time he sees them. Then ignoring them by doom scrolling so they have injuries of unknown origins.

so what do you think his pregnant wife does whilst he is in his 9-5? Yeah she works doing the child care.
then when he is home late what is she doing? Yeah the child care.
what is she doing with night wakings? The child care
what about the weekend days? Yeah probably still involved in childcare I would bet.

also- if he gets up at 5 he could well go to bed earlier as bedtime is all done when he gets home.

do you honestly think she is only doing 37.5 hrs a week childcare? WILD. Children are more hours than a full time job. Standards are so low for men. It’s so sad.

Nah idiocy is gender neutral. The idiocy of encouraging 5am wake ups. If a parent isn't spending enough time with their children, that doesn't mean it has to happen at 5am. It's so sad and stupid.

I think as a SAHM you will find it a pretty massive difference when you have to house feed and clothe yourself on your own dime instead of his. Yes there will be child support, and depending on how much he earns and if you are awarded a significant chunk of the custody it may be significant, but it is unlikely to be enough to maintain the standard of living you and your children currently enjoy.

You have the capacity to give high levels of focus to your children because THAT IS LITERALLY YOUR JOB. Your husband has to go out and work, for more than the standard 9-5 by the sound of it, and then whatever else he does for the household/family on top. Now I'm not demeaning the childcare work because IMO to do it well it is the hardest and most exhausting job in the world, especially when pregnant. But you have to see why, when it is your entire role, it is easier to have very high standards than if you got home late, did whatever you do to contribute around the home (the fact he offered to get up with the kids early tells me he's not a total layabout domestically but you may correct me), try and squeeze in some leisure time with your wife, and then get up at the crack of dawn, probably with work worries already crowding your brain, to look after 2 toddlers who would almost certainly prefer you to be mummy and will not be shy about letting you know that fact....

No, 2 straight hours of YouTube is not parenting, not what you agreed, and not OK. But you do seem a bit entitled as you say that if you separated there would be "no difference", which suggests to me you don't appreciate his contribution to your joint lives at all which is significant (I E. All the responsibility for earning money and keeping a roof over all your heads).

Same way you get a one year old to do anything I guess - sheer bloody minded persistence! You can't stop him waking up, but you can stop him GETTING up - you just put him back, every single time, without any positive interaction, until he gets the message he needs to stay in bed until a certain time. It's very bloody hard going, and you might decide it's not important enough to you to die on this hill, but you haven't "tried everything" if he's still getting up tbh. My toddlers have both gone through phases where they refused t have their nappies changed; at no point did I throw my hands up and say "well I've tried everything" and let them go around in shitty nappies; so it's all about how important it is to you that he stays in bed. Not very by the sound of it, which is fine.

The part around the 1 year old being injured during the 5am to 7am shift doesn't quite add up. Surely if injured as badly as the OP reports (took months to heal) the commotion from the injury would have been enough to wake OP and for her to see what was going on there and then.

If not a lot of crying, then it's possible that the youngest did hurt themselves, without much fuss, and not necessarily because they were being ignored.

I don't think anyone is advocating being on phones throughout the day, whilst caring for babies and/or children. As a pattern of behaviour it can be damaging and lead on to other issues. But this a different, very specific scenario, we're talking about a small window where the children should really be asleep.

There has been exaggeration on OPs part, he can't be on his phone for a solid 2 hours if he's breakfasting and changing 2 small children during this time. I think OPs views on screen time in general is colouring her response which isn't fair.

It’s not that he works or that standards are low, it’s that it’s bloody 5 am! They’re both responsible for this and could do more to keep their children asleep and in bed.