To be devastated that my husband won't let our 2yo be a 2yo

[anonymousi]

He works full time, I'm a SAHM. When he gets home around 6-7 the house is a mess because I've been looking after our DD all day and cooked dinner (so DD would have been playing with her toys in the same room as I cook). My husband likes to bring this up in arguments or if there's a particularly big pile of toys sigh, roll his eyes, say something like "you girls have been busy" or "daddy's going to have to clean this up now eh". The reality is, yes daddy has to clean this up because I will tidy up the kitchen area after DC mealtime and prepare her for bed, then put her to bed. Of course, as she's 2 she understands what's being said and I don't want her to grow up to the sound of "urgh don't get your toys out" "no don't tip all the pencils out of your box" - if she's drawing she needs her pencils. The house is never dirty, just mess in the sense of toys scattered. And if I ever have him watch her he will keep getting grumpy at her every time she tries to take a toy out - LILLY, NO! Urghhh why did you get your legos! If she spills a drink "LOOK FORWARDS when you're eating" or "why did you tip that??" I've tried explaining that kids play, that part of their development is dropping things and exploring how they fall, that she's excited to play with her toys as she should be.

There's no way he can do bedtime duty because it would just stress her out - for example during bedtime stories if she gets out a second book or tries to colour and tips her pencils out, he will complain at her. The bath - same - why are you splashing water everywhere, why did you throw that bath toy out, now I'm all wet.

To avoid a drip feed I'll add that I'm a SAHM because we both saved £££ before having our DD, so no he isn't fully funding me. My family have also helped out financially so allow me to be a SAHM as it's always been my dream. We have a cleaner who comes 2 times per week to deep clean (whereas I do more of a daily surface clean) so the house is clean, hygienic and safe.

Or there's sahm like me who realise you have to clean/tidy/wash and teach your child and its not that difficult to keep on top of a house with a cleaner twice a week.
I would be jealous as it sounds great to do nothing but play with my daughter all day but by not teaching her and modelling to her I'd be letting her down

How much detail and time really needs to be spent on a simple week night meal for two? What are you cooking? Is it 5 courses of Cordon Bleu?

Brilliant 😁

My dear dad got me a 13A plug, a length of flex and a couple of screwdrivers aged 4 as it was about time I could put a plug on...

...45 now and can wire a mean plug!!

@TheBirdintheCave

its an important part of a child's development for them to play with 'mixed' toys (like duplo & train set together with character figures and cars).

you should try not to restrict his play, just make clean up as easy as possible at the end.

it messes with my head, but because it helps their development my head has to take a back seat.

I would ask him to come home 15 mins later and have a quick clean up time. I think he has a point about the toys all over the place, he should not have to pick them up.

However I'm 100% with you re the bath times or other things. Constantly complaining to a child is wrong and unfair. They have a short attention span and are naturally clumsy or messy. I am a big believer in making the child clean up their own mess though. If you spill the water you clean it up, if you throw food on the floor clean it up etc. This can be taught matter of factly and playfully 'oh no you dropped it. Time to pick it up' and if they don't fun time is over. Maybe if you start this type of approach dh could follow. I work with young kids and one rule is you never over turn a box unless you will tidy it up again. If they refuse the whole lot can be taken away. If a child is physically capable of taking lego out of a box they are capable of putting it back. All children learn really quickly that it's not worth spilling out all the pencils so they stop. I think you really need to be firm on this.

It's crazy that he isn't doing bed times. You've been with her all day you need a break and this should be a shared task. I think you need to somehow educate him as to what's normal behaviour for this age while working with DD to be less destructive.

I had a box of plugs and a screwdriver from around 4 😂. Seriously I did. I thought I was the only person!

I’m a SAHM. I am not the slightest bit jealous nor do I think SAHM are scum of the earth, obviously. I’m no trad wife - I don’t wear make up or own heels and my husband cooked dinner tonight.

Nonetheless I think it’s reasonable to start setting expectations that it’s unacceptable to throw water or wet toys out the bath and if DC keeps doing that then they are taken out the bath. That you can get a pencil out the pot without tipping the whole lot out - if she’s got too many to find the right one without dumping them everywhere she’s got too many. That you put the book away before getting the next one out.

Of course she won’t do it perfectly, or even imperfectly a lot of the time, but just smiling indulgently and standing by watching and blathering on about it being good for her development while she spills her drink is ridiculous. She won’t learn if she’s never corrected.

He isn’t even financing you!! ‘Daddy’s going to clean all this up now’ : you, fake cheerily: daddy has to contribute somehow- I don’t see him cooking and shopping and he can’t handle bedtime or bathtime with grumping like a second toddler, so honestly daddy should be super grateful to be part of this family!!
‘i can see you’ve had fun’ : you: oh yes, didn’t you want us to have fun? MY girl is going to have an amazing childhood, full of fun!

@AutumnLeaves24 His train set has plenty of people and cars, a farm yard, a garage and bricks and bridges. It's not just trains and track. We just call it the train set for ease of naming 😅

The whole set is massive and literally fills my tiny living room floor 😬😂

I don't like how your DH is expressing it but I have to say that I mostly agree with him. You only have 1 child and a cleaner that comes twice a week but you can't manage to pick up after your daughter? Cooking dinner doesn't always mean hovering over it every second either.

He gets home at 7pm and I assume contributes money. From the original post it looks like op saved and had financial help from family so they can live on one income, it's not like he's out playing golf 12 hours a day and demanding the floors to be scrubbed with a toothbrush.

The op has explained he doesn’t contribute more money than her. What was he spending on while the op saved? any dad who can’t bath his baby or do bedtime needs to take a good look in the mirror and step up.

i have 3 kids and they can create so much chaos on literal seconds. The eldest is very spontaneous and really bad at thinking before he acts, the youngest has some kind of superpower that leads her to the non washable textas, the playdough and all the mess and despite firmly saying multiple times a day since she could crawl we only draw on paper, and taking any textas off her that are used to draw on anything else, there is still drawing on every floor table and wall in our house. What i am trying to say it is totally not clear that the op is parenting badly, although the pencils during bedtime story seems easily fixed, story gets read well out of pencil reach.

YABU. Why does your dd have so many toys scattered around that it's messy? She needs to learn (yes- from 2!) that she tidies up after herself. Absolutely get the pencils all out. Use them, love them, go wild. Then pack them up before starting your jigsaw or shops play etc. It does not take so long to support this that dinner burns, or you neglect your daughter for a minute to stir or chop. Actually playing alone for short stretches will be good for her. I say this as a previous SAHM to four kids (only ever toddler & baby at home at one time though but no cleaner) and as an EY teacher who meets many 3 year olds who don't know how to tidy up.
Your husband may be extreme and have issues, but you could certainly help a little.

I agree with your DH.

Well, he can go and make dinner while you take your time tidying up, can't he?

Maybe say
Did you have kind people when you were growing up?
Or did you not get to be a child?
Mess up and learn from that?
He needs to grow up. Not the kiddie

@JMSA I agree with you. I'd think what are you doing all day, if I came home to that. I work F/T, definitely no cleaner. If I am wfh, I do dinner at lunch time, so it's basically done and the kitchen is tidied. Me and OH rotate wfh home days. I would hate to walk back into chaos after a day at work.

Definitely Team DH here.
so what if she’s 2, it doesn’t mean there should be no boundaries in place.
it sounds like you want to be super popular mummy but it’s doing her a disservice as you appear to have no boundaries at all.
It’s perfectly normal for a child to throw wet toys out of the bath but it doesn’t mean it’s ok.
and story time is for reading/listening not picking up other books or colouring in.
You clearly won't let him do bedtime because unlike you he has rules in place and your daughter who does what ever she likes with you doesn’t like boundaries as she doesn’t normally have them.

mum taught me at a similar age. dad literally did nothing so we had to do it all.

Stop him just as he starts to complain. At this early point in her life it's ridiculous for him to bitch and moan.
She is two years old. There will be toys lying around as you try to get on with other tasks. That is how you are able to get on with those tasks.
If he doesn't like it he can create a game where he gets her to tidy up toys with him while you're cooking. You cannot be in all places at once. Make a point of telling him that she's going to go through several stages in life and he needs to get on board with her development as she ages to understand.
He can't have it all ways. You're doing the full time with her. He's coming home after work and complaining about the actual basics of parenting he’s left with. There will be toys out of place, she will spill drinks (motor skills at this age), she will splash in the bath. He needs to understand that she is two years old!
It says something serious that he can’t even do bedtimes with his own child.
Your DD certainly isn’t the problem.
She’s his daughter. I’d be asking why he can’t even try to understand the developmental stage she is at. It makes the future look poor for his relationship with her from here on. If he can’t even understand when she’s so little, how is he going to when she goes through each age and stage or if she was ND? This is his problem. He’s only digging himself a deeper disconnect with his little girl.

I used to let my kids get out as many toys as they liked but the deal was, they helped clean up before lunch and again before I started dinner. So that when we ate, the house was tidy enough to be able to relax. Then DH would do bath time and bedtime while I cleaned up the kitchen. Was it always easy? Nope! Did it make life more bearable overall? Yep!

She can have fun all day but that doesn't mean spending 15min at 5pm popping a few toys in the box is going to harm her? Its a good pattern to get into.
And if i was reading to my toddlers then yeah id discourage them from going and getting another book/tipping out crayons, rather than actually listening and engaging with the book - he's actually helping to build her focus and concentration skills by encouraging her to stay engaged rather than tipping out crayons?
It sounds like theres a balance to be struck here - you dont need to be constantly tidying but surely you'd tidy up even a little before he gets home, a lot of people wouldn't like to arrive home to a bombsite its hardly relaxing is it. Make putting a few toys in their boxes into a game, encourage her to sort, 'cars in this box, sylvanians in here, can put the animals together?'

I agree with this. (edited to add quote as it had inexplicably disappeared...)

However, your husband needs to learn to become a parent. I would suggest you both attend parenting classes - (a) because this should be a joint endeavor, and (b) because it's unlikely that he'd go on his own.

She will learn as she develops cognitively and neurologically.

Not from verbal instructions to accomplish habits that are not age appropriate. All that will accomplish is frustration and timidity on the part of the child. It should be safe from an emotional standpoint for a child to explore the many properties of the items in her environment.

She's not looking for a 'single pencil' at age two. She's enjoying the tipping. Ooh, the colours! Ooh, the sound of pencils hitting the table!

She's not concerned about bathroom mess at age two, and rightly. Her focus is the splashing, the feeling of the water, seeing the toys flying.

Surely anyone with any experience of toddlers understands that the best way to encourage findness for reading is to take out half a dozen books and read through them depending on the interest of the toddler, suggesting new ones as you finish each one, with the toddler on your lap, not both of you up and walking around between each book. Then you can put them away, if you dare, because five minutes after the toddler gets up and runs off, chances are she'll ask you to read to her again.

Everyone can learn in good time to play with toys separately, to understand the purpose of the bath and that mum and dad don't want to spwnd the evening mopping the bathroom floor, to reliably eat and drink while simultaneously taking care to avoid spilling, to spend a good while focusing on one activity and then put it away and move on to the other.

That time is not the age of two.

It's the expectations of the father (and some posters here, sadly) that are out of whack, not based on knowledge of child development, and in need of recalibration.

Agree 100% @Chucklit

Well said.