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 have been a few phone addiction issues with him in the past

if my husband and I did get divorced, re childcare hours as I’m going to start getting up with them I’ll be having them 100% of the time during the week anyway so that’s not going to make a different to me 😃

Except he'd have them at weekends and you won't have access to his internet usage to check up on how he's parenting them in his time, in his house...

Sorry but at 5am I think he is entitled to scroll on his phone. If it's going on all day that is a different matter. If it wasn't his phone it would be a newspaper or a book etc I don't really see the big deal.

Any ideas re getting a 1 year old to stay in bed I would love to hear! I feel we have tried everything but happy to try more 😃

Is the house on fire? Is anyone bleeding?

Calm down and leave him to it. They're his kids and he is their parent. YABU

my Life is sheltered, yes, but it’s all relative and my parenting is based on my own life and standards. Like everyone else’s.

YABU 5am is still nighttime imo and if I had to be awake I'd be mindlessly scrolling too, that's way too early for involved parenting. Get a Groclock and train your children to stay in bed til 7am.

Are the DC in the same room? Is one waking the other one up? If so, can you separate them? And is the room dark enough – is the early daylight disturbing them? Our DD used to wake up early and it drove us to despair until we realised the cat was scratching at her door to wake her so she'd wake us up and he could get fed! We locked him in the kitchen overnight and she slept through to 7.30!

Can you imagine the howls of outrage if we were talking about a husband monitoring his wife's phone usage and complaining she's not parenting right?

I have used a sleep consultant due to bad sleeping patterns and one thing she highlighted was that we all semi wake up 4-5am but we then go back to sleep and forget it. So kids sometimes dont do that because of habit or overtiredness so they cant settle when they semi wake up.

I will DM you the consultant as she although my kids arent amazing now they are better than the horrors they were! @Hormonalorjustified

Not saying its right or wrong, however agree with previous poster who comments on you being overbearing. I bet you swoop in and take over a lot of the time.

Yes, to sit there and consistently watch two hours of YouTube is piss poor, but you can't dictate what he does when he parents.

You sound very much like it's my way or the highway.

Playing unsupervised

Surely your house living room
/playroom is safe for kids to play in and not be watched every minute

Your dh sounds lovely. He gets up at silly o clock and gives you a lie in and you aren't happy

But by all means you get up at 5am to
Play with your kids

We have gro clocks! We have all the things - works for the eldest but not the youngest.

there are a few things I suspect that I put in place that DH may not have been following that haven’t been helping. Eg not feeding them immediately when they wake up - he probably has been ans so their body clock will think 5am = food.

anywya I’d better go to sleep now as I’m up at 5 🤣 thanks for the opinions everyone, it is good to hear different perspectives

If a woman was parenting like this and her DH was on here complaining, I'd agree with him.

Well, at least you'd be consistently wrong.

Can you see the difference between thinking it’s sub-optimal your husband does this, and thinking stuff like this is the reason “teachers are on their knees”?

It’s not the fact you don’t like him doing this, it’s the hyperbole that comes along with it. My parenting is based on my life experience too but I don’t “despair” of loving (I assume) parents doing something I think is a bit lax, or blame them for a fall in behaviour in society given that there are so many children out there who are genuinely neglected.

When mine were little and up at 5am they were put infront of the TV while I drank coffee and tried to wake up. YABU.

There seem to be a couple of things here

You are disappointed he doesn’t actively engage with your DC in the same way you do, you feel he’s broken your trust and you’re worried about screen addiction.

It seems to me he just wants an easy life and ‘agreed’ to reducing his screen time to keep you happy. He’s trying to look after you.

Also, I'd be absolutely livid if my partner was checking my internet history like this.

As another poster pointed out, you've made light on what it would be like if you were divorced, but in that situation he'd have the kids in his house and you wouldn't have the ability to check his phone.

I think screen addiction/lack of engagement and lazy parenting from Parents plays an enormous part in behavioural issues yes.

as does an abundance of screen time. Screens are not the same as basic tv - iPad and YouTube etc are extremely addictive and cause behavioural issues.

there is a scale - I think iPads and screens cause a colossal amount of damage. It’s all part of a cycle/problem.

But I do need to stop replying and sleep!

Sorry not relevant to your post, but curious what time they go to bed…5am seems ridiculously early!

Yes, there is a certain irony to you posting non-stop for an hour and a half!

I'd be interested to see which studies you're referring to where a connection between adults having too much screen time and their children having behavioural issues is proved. Can you share links?

Ok not the point of the thread but this level of Internet monitoring is insane!

I think you're making a big mistake insisting on getting up at 5 yourself now. The resentment about that will build and build, and you're already talking about divorce. Screen time isn't great for kids but do you really think divorce is a better option for them?!

I’m laughing and totally missing the point of this thread sleep train a child to sleep beyond their time which the now is 5 yeah right not every child will be “trained” they’re not dogs.