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.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest screen time is highly addictive and will encourage children to wake earlier to get their fix.

no one is suggesting he need to be present every second but he’s literally not present any second if 100% or 2 hours is him watching videos. There’s a balance.

Hello phone addict who can't admit that they aren't a great parent...

You came here for opinions but it seems that you are at best dismissive and at worst argumentative/slightly aggressive if anyone dare disagree.

I think your hubby is on a hiding to nothing and no matter what he does it isn't going to be good enough for you.

You might want to think about toning down the holier than thou self appointed parent of the year stuff or you just might find yourself on your own with the wee ones permanently.

The phone thing sounds fine to me. It is very early! If mine were up that early then I would actively try and be as boring as humanely positively in the hope that it encouraged them to go back to sleep.

Have you told him you've been checking up on him? Tbh, your marriage doesn't sound healthy. You don't trust him to parent but he's their dad too and you can't dictate what he does in his time with them any more than he can lay down the law about what you do.

I despair at how people parent / no wonder children have so many behavioural issues and teachers are on their knees

Because some parents don’t see the issue with being on their phone whilst their children are awake at the crack of dawn?😂😂😂 are your children not able to play with their toys by themselves? I must be the worst mum of the year because when my kids get up early, I lay on the sofa (or watch a show on my phone) whilst they trod around the house and entertain themselves. I guess they’re going to have behavioural issues now <shudder>

!!

So you don’t want him to actively entertain them and it sounds like you wouldn’t mind as much if it was an actual tv show he was watching or a book he was reading but you object because at 5am he’s watching YouTube?

I think if he’s happy to get up on the middle of the night and you want to stay in bed he’s doing what he needs to do to get through - I assume he’s then doing a full days work as well?

YANBU. I agree that phones are addictive and both DH and I have fallen victim to them over the years. When you 'zombie out' by scrolling through videos you can miss DCs looking up to you and communicating and this can't be good for them so ideally, they shouldn't be used like this often in front of the DCs. Now and again, but not 2 hours every morning.

It also unfairly puts the onus on you to have to do everything, because you can't trust your DH to look after them properly. Weaponised incompetence.

On the other side of the coin - I'd be working on teaching your DCs to stay in bed a bit longer. When my DCs got up really early at that age, we'd leave the lights off and tell them to stay in bed. Might put an audio CD of fairy tales or something on for them but the repeated message would be "we wake up at 7am".

I came here to get opinions and I guess I didn’t realise until seeing what people said how much I back what I’m saying/despair about how people parent.

im not perfect with screens either. Certainly at breastfeed stage I was way too much on my phone and had to have a word with myself and actively back off it/not use it unless children were asleep or not with me. The screen addiction for adults is a serious thing and actually the comments on this thread have just reassured me that this isn’t what I want for my children/people are getting very defensive re phone usage.

even the parent who says they used to stick tv on and have baby on their lap - that’s vastly preferable to what DH is doing as it’s a joint watching activity at least!

I will be getting up on my own with the children. And then if I end up alone with them permanently it won’t be a huge hardship as I’ll have them 100% of the week with 0 breaks anyway 😃

Only if the videos are taking 100% of his attention. I don’t give 100% of my attention to my child all the time (she’s now older than yours and neither badly behaved nor addicted to screens, by the way, as well as not appearing in the morning before 7am anymore) and if DH tried to guilt trip me for using my phone while up with her at the crack of dawn I’d have been absolutely furious.

Agreed, with baby 3 (4?! 😱) on the way that’s gonna be extremely hard going. I would think very carefully how you approach it with your husband.

Will def give another go to the lights off stuff and fairy tales - it worked for our eldest. 3 year old could probably be convinced - it’s the 1 year old who is the issue and I suppose since he’s up anyway the 3 year old might as well be but absolutely will try to focus on it! Thanks

So I've been a teacher now for twenty years. Bear with me. It has been shocking how kids have steadily declined in being able to think for themselves. Even 'as a treat you can have 5 minutes extra play time' is now met with 'but what shall I do.'
I think it comes from an incessant need to entertain them at all times. You don't say what your dc are doing op, but you haven't said that they are on screens too which I think you would have. Which means they are probably, mostly, just playing quite happily by themselves. Which I would say is a million times better for their imaginations than being entertained 24-7.

I don’t think being on your phone/watching something for 2 hours straight is parenting, no. Regardless of how well your children play alone - but that’s just me!

It’s 5am and you honestly think he should be more present? You’ve contradicted yourself saying you don’t want him to actively engage with them either because it’s too early, make your mind up.

Initially I had some sympathy with what you were saying, but having read this comment I think you sound judgmental and unpleasant.

I totally credit myself and my early morning doom scrolling/TV watching/book reading while mildly ignoring her for DD’s excellent skills at independent and imaginative play. 😀

Agreed, it’s good for kids to learn to entertain themselves or even (shock horror) be bored!

I agree!

I am not sure what they are doing. That’s the issue. DS1 has over the period of time had a bump and quite a nasty scratch (took a month to go) unaccounted for and as I say I have woken up to him being totally ignored on occasion. But as a PP said I’m not convinced they are just playing happily for 2 hours on their own and not using the iPad. I just don’t know. They generally play really well independently but I don’t think that means it’s ok to totally clock out for 2 hours (the only 2 hours he has with them a day)

I'm actually surprised that most of the responses seem to be that YABU as I really don't think you are.

DCs don't need entertaining all of the time, but it's also a shame when they look up at their parent and are never acknowledged as their parent is glued to a phone.

I was responding to someone saying he shouldn’t be doing some sort of daddy day care entertainment level. Which I don’t expect him to. I’m not expecting firing on all cylinders but I’m also not expecting fecklessness!

Okay, so the usage says 100% but you actually have no idea if he was staring at the screen solidly for those two hours. You're making it sound like he was in zombie mode but you don't know if he was putting his phone down/looking away and chatting to DC.

i have been guilty of this and worked really hard to stop doing it. It’s a huge problem and I think people are massively in denial about it!