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.

I wouldn't be leaving my bed at five am. Kids would either be put back to bed until at least six or brought in mine with iPad/tv. Given you are pregnant it's good of your partner to take kids down and give you a rest. I'd be pretty grateful for that arrangement.

I'd say there's a strong argument for minimal parenting before breakfast. If we were heading downstairs at five it would be blankets/cartoons and yes a strong coffee and my phone.

After breakfast and dressing the activities would come out. If you are too full on at that hour you are teaching your children that is awake/doing time.

You and your partner should be on same page/negotiating/compromising when it comes to parenting. You are equals. It's also ok to have slightly different approaches providing your general attitude to parenting is similar.

I'd be furious if my partner dictated what I do between 5-7 am. They would be put firmly in their place

To add, I believe in tbe 80/20 rule. Be a good parent 80% of the time. Be lax / do what you need to 20% of the time. When my one was an early riser I would scroll mumsnet for at least 20 mins while having my coffee. And always in the same room and always with an eye on what they are doing at 1yrs old. But then you get involved, no matter how tired.

So he isn’t doing the 80/20 if it’s his only time with them. it is a hard phase in both of your lives though, and I think sometimes standards have to drop so you can both cope, so if you zoom out over a year, is he more like 80/20?

And however lax you are, you shouldn’t be ignoring them and should be able to see them.

i agree early rising isn’t always fixable and sometimes it’s about waiting it out - ours stopped doing it when she dropped her day time nap. So the choice before then was later bed time or early start. We made a choice.

the autoplay thing could be a feature here though, so I’d start the conversation with an open mind.

YABU. To me that’s an outrageous time to be up with kids. I never let mine up and start the day before 7 at the earliest when they were very young. A 5am wake up would have been treated like a nighttime waking and children reassured but not allowed up and told it was still sleep time.
so if you let yours start their day then you would be unreasonable to not expect your husband to be tired.
leave him be and just get up yourself in future.

I can see why you are angry - he could just lie quietly on the sofa - interacting with the DCs now and then. It's when you do so much to help them and he does v little it's bound to be angering.
My DH was hopeless at interacting with the DCs, a 1950s Dad I suppose. However they've turned into normal, happy, busy adults with their own DC. And don't feel they missed out.

Too early for the children to be up, I think at that time and for him to be up with them, it's fine for him to be doing what he's doing.

I can hear that you're not happy though so as you say, maybe you get up with them but I'd try and enforce no getting up at 5am!

But it’s 5am!!!

It does at 5am

I know it’s 100% because there was an incident today with DS and I became suspicious and checked the (shared internet) usage. It’s 100% of the time.

Hmmm, internet usage or YouTube history, there’s a difference. Incoming emails, smart device usage, software updates etc all use the internet. If you checked his YouTube history, have you extrapolated the data to cover the entire time period or did you check weeks of data? I understand your disappointment that your H agreed to something that he didn’t or never intended to follow through on but there’s a constructive way of handling things and I don’t think you are doing that. I think you have both leaned into the gender specific roles and for your H that appears to include not being an active parent.

I agree that the screens interfere with engagement but expecting someone who rarely spends time with his children to engage in a meaningful way maybe out of his comfort zone. Instead of finger pointing and taking over, how about using your ‘expertise’ in child engagement and showing him how to instead of telling him not to.

However, at 5am I would be impressed by anybody stringing two sentences together. Early riser DD was told/ expected to stay in her room until 07:00 am, there was enough toys and books in there to keep her distracted. Toys downstairs were kept to a minimum so her bedroom was more of a pull than downstairs.

He shouldn’t have agreed to your demand but you’re the one continuing to get knocked up by this “feckless”parent.

I can be scrolling on my phone for hours but I’m not really watching it
like now I’m watching tv while on here not giving my phone hours of undivided attention fully aware of whats going on

we all have different ideas of what’s acceptable but I think you’ll run into trouble if you adopt the my way or the wrong way attitude
theres 2 of you parenting and you’ve never going to be 100% in sync

for what it’s worth I think giving children 100% undivided attention just make clingy needy kids that can’t entertain themselves

I think you’re over reacting. It’s 5am, the kids are happily playing with toys, most parents will use the opportunity for quiet and scroll on their phone. Catch up on the news, bit of socials. It’s part of life for most people. My children are 19 and 16, not been harmed in any way, top grades, high achievers, polite and never in trouble at school. 19yr old president of the Uni society, blah blah blah. Me scrolling if they were up early had no impact and they still turned out into well adjusted, well behaved and nice kids. I think you need to chill a bit, bringing another child in you’re going to have times when phones / tablets are used

In that 2 hour window does he not have to change nappies and give the kids breakfast? I like a good scroll myself but I make sure the kids are settled first and yes our TV is on first thing. After breakfast my kids then go off and play and are very good at playing together and entertaining themselves (they are older though, 4 & 7). I think it's fine for him to be on his phone as long as he's taken care of their immediate needs. That he is not fully emersed and still keeps an eye on them and helps them when needed (& your home is baby proofed and generally a safe space).

So many people pointing this out as though children have any clue at all what time it is and can rationalise this.

'Ah yes Daddy is completely consumed by this device which gives me the impression I don't matter and he can't even hear me when I speak to him so I feel invisible, but it is unsociable hour. I know that I do matter because he doesn't use that device later in the day.'

I was going to say this too, children need to learn to play by themselves as long as they're playing and not glued to screens I think it's okay. I do not think you should dictate what your husband does in the morning but he needs to be more aware of what the children are doing so they don't get hurt. Maybe you should speak to him about the incidents and ask how he can be more aware rather than saying he can't look after his own children because you don't trust him.

If you do decide to do it yourself, are you also going to be angry if he's awake at 5, in bed watching YouTube?

If you don’t like his parenting then get up with them
I think 5am is a miserable time and most people would struggle and I don’t see a problem if the children are up and playing and safe then why should he sit and stare into space
if you think he should be role playing well that’s not everyone’s cup of tea either and I’d struggle to do that for two hours
breakfast doesn’t take that long either so once they are fed
what do you expect him to do exactly? Play peppa pig? Dress up , role play? chores?

It is not good for children to be constantly entertained and interacted with every waking moment. It's perfectly fine to set up an area for the children to get on with playing and take a step back. I've early risers and I let them play while I sit beside them on a device. I might be doomscrolling, watching a movie, researching something or doing work for my job. However, I'm always supervising and they don't leave the room I'm in. There are literally right beside me. A parenting fail would be to let them get up by themselves unsupervised. It's silly to suggest that providing a safe, supervised area for children to play while you sit 1 metre away either dealing with the tedium of getting up so early or getting on with some online tasks is letting your children down. My kids are drawing, building forts, making Barbie worlds, making books. Sometimes they are just watching a movie. Its downtime and if my husband had an issue with how I relieved him of having to get up from 5-7, I would be telling him to get up himself. There is a full day to fill with meaningful interaction and and purposeful activities!

Edited to add that I'm also a teacher, and also, like a previous teacher poster above said, notice the children whose parents keep them entertained all the time have poor imaginations and often struggle to take any initiate. Let them be bored and give them things to use their imagination with.

It's not being a parent-in-chief, it's a partnership where you both agree what you feel is harmful for your children and agree not to do it.

You think it's OK for the DF to conceal his behaviour after the OP already said she:

'explained I didn’t think this was alright and if he didn’t feel up to getting up I would rather do it myself'

Your children need to find the 5am starts boring, so there is no upside to continuing. No toys, no cheerful engaged parenting.

Yes this is true but the opposite of being a phone zombie is not 'cheerful engaged parenting', it is not having a phone in your hand.

every now and then it’s fine, all the time, not so much

I disagree with all the "boring them back to bed" posts... What's the point of making them sleep for hours upon hours?! Just give them a later bedtime like most other countries and they'll wake up at a normal time

Not true. Most parents with early risers will have tried this genius hack and the kids just wake up at the same time but extra exhausted and horribly ratty all day.

I also live in a country where children have later bedtimes than the UK, and it makes No Difference.

"If this is too much of a struggle at 5am, you need to go to bed earlier."

Bless your cotton socks.

OP I think it’s fine to some extent. Fine as in you get some much needed extra sleep and honestly as mum to much older kids I’d really go with no sweating the small stuff BUT it does sound like your DH needs a digital detox and rather than being pissed off with him maybe reframing it as getting some help with this. I’m guilty of it too but I’ve just given myself lent off social media and it’s been great but not easy. We’re all so addicted to our phones and sounds like your DH might need some help with that.

Just drug the kids and be done with it. Everyone will get sleep and no one will be destroying children’s futures by looking at phones…

Yes it does. I know of very few people if any with this problem whereas it seems to be a constant problem for UK parents

You can't be suggesting foreign kids are all straggling around vvv sleep deprived, since you think they all wake up at 5am despite going to bed at a normal hour? That's sleep deprivation and child abuse on a mass scale....

To be fair, op has said that she'll get up with them now. I hope not as a martyr, big sigh every morning 'I'll just do it myself then.'

I wonder what response her dh would get if he posted on here criticising how she supervises and interacts with them.