If you’re on maternity leave and have 2+ kids..

[Whatever28394]

How do you split evenings & weekends?

We have 2 DC (including an 8 week old) and am trying to figure out how to divide things with DH. I do all housework. DH has a demanding job and is complaining I don’t let him do extra hours in the evening when he needs to. I find it hard to facilitate this as I’m so exhausted from sleep deprivation (I’m doing most of the night feeds). We have no family/help nearby. I get very little time to myself (toddler goes to sleep late so no evenings).

Just looking to see how other people manage the division. Many thanks in advance.

We tend to divide up bedtimes, so DH does the eldest while I do the baby. But we’ll bath then, get them changed etc together.

I do more housework than I was doing before maternity leave, but DH still does some (he does laundry, dishwasher, washing up and bins, I do the rest). We get a cleaner every other week which we were doing before maternity leave and which I insisted on keeping, we’re upping her to weekly when I go back to work.

But I don’t really get any time off of an evening until the kids are in bed and it’s only recently our baby has started going to sleep at a decent time. We do both occasionally go out in the evening though so then the other person will do the whole bath and bed solo.

Oh and I do all night feeds but then DH gets up with both early in the morning and sorts breakfast for them.

We did one each, him toddler and me baby, outside of his working hours. But. If your dh wants/needs to work more than a normal amount of hours, I would suggest you buy in help. Baby plus toddler are hard to be doing 24-7.

I think it depends on his job. Lawyers, accountants etc. don't work 9-5pm and if he has to work in the evening, I think he has to do extra hours if it's necessary. I'd be grateful he was home for bedtime to be honest.

In that instance, priority should be given to bedtime and once that's done, you should handle the admin and he should work. If you can afford it, get a cleaner.

It should be made clear though that this is on the basis that his working day is efficient i.e. no two hour gym sessions in the day or lunch and it ends when you go back to work.

My DH works in healthcare, he works in the evenings a few times a week on average. On mat leave he would do this whilst DC1 was in bed (he'd do the bed time) whilst I stayed downstairs endlessly cluster feeding DC2. He'd then work whilst I was doing this. Initially he also did most of the housework and laundry, he would do this after he'd finished working, yes it meant lots of very late nights for him. I had a birth injury which took a long time to recover from and just generally was stuck breastfeeding most of the time. In the daytime I cared for my two children, I didn't have time initially to do housework too. My eldest initially couldn't really play alone and I also didnt want to go from spending almost all day 1:1 with her to never spending any time 1:1 with her.

Weekends we shared things between us, he never worked on a weekend.

As things settled down, I eventually took on most of the housework, but he still did his fair share. We settled into a pattern where DH did 3 night feeds a week for DC2. He did all of DC1's bedtimes and I did all of DC2's as he breastfed to sleep (and they went up around the same time).

Does he need to do the extra.hours to keep his job? If so, then that is a priority. You getting enough sleep is also a priority.
Him being a workaholic, or choosing to more to get out of house duties is less acceptable.
As you can't do everything, he'll have to do some of it, or provide help in the form of a cleaner/childcare.

When I was on mat leave I did most of the cooking and cleaning- we did have a cleaner but only once a week.

Evenings he would normally do bathtime (so he’d be back by 7ish), whilst I made our dinner if eating separately etc, put a wash on or did a bit of tidying.

I did all night feeds but he would sort the kids in the morning so I didn’t need to get up at 6, and he would drop the eldest to nursery on his way in.

Weekends we split things 50/50- we each tried to get 2-3 hours to ourselves for a hobby, coffee etc and we each had a lie in. But both our hobbies went on the back burner for a good few years.

He had a high powered job but he dealt with it by being more efficient in the day. Occasionally he would also log in in the evenings after the kids were in bed.

Honestly I think he needs reminding that this is a very short phase and he will have the rest of his life to put the extra hours in, but if he bellyaches to you about prioritising work over basic parenting then he might not have a marriage. Or, if he has such a high powered job, he can pay for some more help around the house.

8 weeks is a very new baby. I feel like it's all hands on deck at that point. Theres a few things that stand out. Do you have equal leisure time? Does he have to do these extra hours or is it a choice to progress his career, and could wait for a more convenient time for the family? Is he generally a good guy/ good partner or does he try to get out of things? Maybe you could agree a couple of nights a week he has to do it all in and then help the rest of the time, with the agreement you both get a couple of hours off at the weekend. Good luck with it

Business hours-me in charge of all the kids, cooking, and cleaning.
Evenings-DH everything for the older 2DC, me baby
Nights-DH all night waking for older 2DC (not often tbf), me all baby night waking/feeding
Weekends-DH everting for older 2DC, me baby. Then we'd try give eachother a couple of hours off to do something alone/clean the house/washing/cooking.

It's hard going. We were both knackered.

Is there a reason toddler is going to sleep late?
I'd be trying to focus on getting toddler to bed at a reasonable hour as having a few hours in the evening will make a huge difference.

I had DC2 when DC1 was 2, so had a year with the two of them. My husband has a busy demanding job but for the 1st six months things like overtime were really just off the table. If he had to do more hours, it was always my preference he start work earlier than finish later because I was generally up with the toddler anyway. If he really had to work late, sometimes I used to for go certain evening tasks such as bath time to make it more manageable for just me. My DC1 was in bed for 7 tho, so it's hectic between 5-7 but after that, much

Pressed send too early!

If husband was home, evenings were kind of split. He'd entertain kids while I cooked, both muck in at bath time and then we'd alternate bed time.

Then after toddler was in bed, sometimes he'd take baby while I had a bath etc. or sometimes I'd go to bed early and husband would keep baby with him, then do a feed and bring him to bed around 11 when he came to bed.

So yes, there was no set model but once he was home it was a much more even split. I do think the toddler having a reasonable bedtime is a key part though

I have 3 DC, I used to do everything in the week and my DH would do bedtimes on the weekend and some Fridays if he could get the earlier train.
I possibly could have kept the DC up a bit later but TBH I really liked my routine of early bed times.

We have 3 chn, 4, 2 and 7m old. My husband usually sorts the baby and I sort the other two.

I'd try sort the toddler going to bed late? That would really frustrate me. I like the older two asleep for 7.30 so I get a bit of time.

Having more than one gets rapidly easier so hang in there x

Why do you do all housework?

Thanks all - glad to know it gets better eventually. The logistics of having 2 are harder than I thought they’d be.

I do the housework as there doesn’t seem to be any time to do it in the evening, and doing it at weekends seems like a waste of family time. We used to have a cleaner but have stopped that while I’m on mat leave.

Some great ideas here. It’s a tricky one with my DH because his job is high stress/power, but he’s also massively disorganised (likely ADHD). He wfh most of the time and I can tell he’s not working efficiently, but have to bite my tongue as he gets annoyed when I point this out. He’s mega stressed and overwhelmed at work, but that’s a whole other thread. I’m trying to be patient and understanding but I’m just so knackered I don’t have the bandwidth..

Thanks for all your replies!

I’ve got DC 4,2 and 5 weeks and have a similar dilemma. DH has massively over-committed for work and professional qualifications and while he is home to muck in with the bath/bedtime he also wants to spend time in the evenings and weekends working. It’s tough. I’m doing 90% of housework, all the night waking and would love to just be able to chuck the baby at him for an hour in the evening, but my elder 2 don’t go to sleep until fairly late so it generally doesn’t happen. He takes the 3 out for a walk at the weekend so I get 90 mins to myself but that doesn’t feel like a lot, it’s been over a week since I managed to wash my hair! But the older 2 do spend some days in nursery and the days with just the baby mean I can sort of stay on top of things.

We used to give each other an hour off on each of the weekend days. The other parent had to leave the one with the DC to it. I’d read the Sunday paper or have a bath, my DH would watch the football scores or read the paper.