To ask dh to help out occasionally when he is wfh

[Desupi]

Dh and I have a 9 month old daughter. We both work from home, me full time, and him 2 days a week and 3 in the office.

We are in the fortunate position to have my mum looking after our daughter most days. We do pay her £300 a month which I understand is not very much in the grand scheme of things.

In my job I am required to control the business phone line and inbox for around 15 hours a week. During the times when I am doing this, or have lots of meetings, I do try and make sure I have my mum on hand, but not always if it is going to be quiet.

My mum lives 12 miles away so getting a baby who hates car rides into the car and driving that far in rush hour with her screaming is quite stressful, so if I CAN avoid having her look after little one I always do that.

My main gripe is that on the days that I decide not to have my mum help out, I do sometimes ask dh if he can watch our daughter for 30 mins if I get an unexpected meeting request or call from someone. He normally has an issue with it and says "I am working, you should have asked your mum to help today!". He does probably have more of an 'important' job than me, but a lot of the time when I walk in the office he has youtube/ a game on his other screen!

Since I returned to work his working week has not changed AT ALL unlike mine. I organised the childcare with my mum for a low price, I take our daughter there, I wfh either WHILST looking after our daughter, or in my parents house with my daughter downstairs where my lunchbreaks are basically used to give my mum a break. We pay 50/50 on bills so its not even like he pays more.

He doesn't get the guilt of not wanting to burn his mum out and not wanting to take the p* with her kindness, and having the stress of taxiing a screaming baby around.

So AIBU to ask him to occasionally step in to care for our daughter every now and then during the week?

Well if he keeps bunking off his job to look after your dc, he won’t have a jobs much longer
problem solved

or both be part of the planning for who needs to cover when so you sort meetings between you

You can't work and look after a child.

Your husband is right and YABU for thinking that you can work and look after a 9 month old.

Yes, because working from home is still working! Neither of you should be looking after a child while being paid to work from home, you need a childminder or nursery, nobody should be wfh while taking care of a baby. I certainly couldn’t, my husband can’t, I can be free one minute and have a colleague or client on the phone unexpectedly for an hour the next minute.

You need full time childcare for your baby. Neither of you should be looking after her during working hours.

Nope. Neither of you should be responsible for a baby/child when you are WFH.
Sounds like you need professional childcare that you BOTH research/organise and both pay for.

Sounds like you need proper childcare as wfh should not be an excuse to look after a child I find it surprising that your employer allows it

You don’t have appropriate childcare for 2 people working full time.

Neither of you should be working from home and looking after a baby!

You both need to go back to square 1 and find some childcare to cover your working hours. You are both being unreasonable as it is.

Either send her to your mum's 5 days a week or pay for nursery 5 days a week.

You can't look after a baby and work. You definitely can't look after a toddler and work so what is your long term plan?

Neither of you should be looking after a child while working

You need to arrange proper FT childcare - nanny, childminder, nursery - rather than rely on an ad hoc standby arrangement with your mum

It sounds really stressful and not conducive to working properly

Absolute A hole

tell him you want him to do 50/50 and that includes half the nursery fees for three days a week

he is taking you and your mother for granted!!

his life clearly hasn’t changed too much since having a child

I would tell him he needs to sort childcare for his 2.5 days a week. Which days does he want to sort. And let him get on with it.

Yes, very unreasonable. No one can do their jobs properly while looking after a small child.

Neither of you should be looking after a child when WFH!! And if someone is looking after your child they need to do so away from your home to stop distractions. It blows my mind the amount of people that think this is OK.

You need proper childcare five days a week, my husbands working at home today, won’t deliver our daughter to him just as I wouldn’t drive her to the office.

But as others say, it means you need to make proper childcare arrangements.

You need proper childcare and he needs to contribute to his share of the cost and of the drop offs/pick ups.

That's really the only solution.

I’m guessing it was a joint decision not to have a formal childcare arrangement in place? In which case he needs to suck up 30 minutes here or there.

Your 9 month old needs to be in childcare.

Sorry OP but this arrangement sounds completely unworkable. Very few jobs can be done efficiently whilst looking after a baby. It may be OK to occasionally have DD around while you are both working but not as a regular thing.
You need to start again rethinking full time childcare, if you continue both working the same hours full time. You might consider one of you working evenings/weekends if you don't want to pay for proper childcare. Your mum sounds great but as you say, she's risking burnout if she takes on more hours.

You are both being unreasonable- as you are discovering it is impossible to work from home with small children around and it only gets harder as they become more mobile. You are taking advantage of your mum as well.

But he is unreasonable because this is not just your issue to sort out as well as working. He's equally responsible for sorting out childcare to allow him to work uninterrupted.

Others are right - nobody should be looking after a child while working, but...

"a lot of the time when I walk in the office he has youtube/ a game on his other screen!"

... I'd be more concerned about this because when his employer catches him "working from home" on these then he won;t be working from anywhere.

And people then wonder why employers are no longer supporting working from home because they are "just as productive as they would be in the office".

You can't work and do childcare OP. You need something better than the system you have. For your kids sake just as much as yours and your blokes.

Get some childcare.

This is a completely unworkable childcare arrangement. You can't look after a baby properly when you're also working, neither can you do your job properly whilst looking after a baby. With 2 adults working FT, you need proper, FT childcare in place.