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?

300 a month for full time childcare is unsustainable - your mother is doing you a massive favour.

You could tell him that your mother will do 2.5 days a week for 300 a month - that's your half sorted. What is he going to organise and pay for for the other 2.5 days? Nursery?

But really you should both sit down and face the fact that you both work full-time and need childcare and need to pay for that. If your mum will cover some of it as a favour, that is great but you can't expect her to do it full time.

And why are you doing all the drop offs etc? why isn't he carrying his weight at least with that.

Neither of you should be looking after a child whist you are being paid to work. It annoys me as this sort of thing will end up ruining the opportunity to wfh for the rest of us.

YABU - when your DH is working he is doing exactly that. He's paid to be on the clock, and he can neither give work his full attention if he's providing childcare, nor give your child his full attention if he's working.

Most employers would take exception to the idea that their employees are looking after their children during working hours

Surely that's the "perk" of "wfh" - free time to arse about on YT/and or free childcare/ school run/ walk the dog/do the dishes/peg the washing out etc.
If he's arsing about on YT he has time to do childcare.
This is why so many people are being called back to work now, Covid is over and it's time to get back to the real world of work.

Did you both agree not to have the baby in childcare or was it more your decision?

Even if it was a joint decision, it clearly isn’t working so baby needs to go to nursery.

Every time I see a WFH thread I think it's an utter piss take and no wonder employers want people back into the office.

You could ask your Mum to have baby 2 or 3 days a week and the other days at a nursery. You can't work effectively from home with a baby nor should you try too. Your DH is not being unreasonable in saying you should have asked your Mum to care for your baby.

If it is just half an hour here and there and he's not actually busy at that time then he should help

Why do you do all the baby runs?

Yes, you need childcare if you work.

YABVU you need other childcare arrangements as others have said.

A quick skive (same as having a chat at the kettle in the office) is very different from looking after a baby for a longer period.

Neither of you should be working from home and looking after a child, especially a baby. Does your employer know you are trying to work and do childcare??

YABU

This is a crazy set up. I'd be fuming if I was your boss and you were so distracted from work. Your child needs to be looked after properly whilst you both work, probably in nursery or with a childminder.

I agree with other posters that you need to have adequate childcare in place whilst working, so probably need to employ someone instead of or in addition to your Mum.
Your DH needs be involved in that. He clearly thinks that you should be arranging childcare so that he can carry on unaffected.
You need to insist that he changes this mindset so that your own work doesn’t suffer by you always being default childcare/ transport to childcare.

Yes YABU.

You need proper childcare and dumping your baby on your husband because you didn't want to use the (badly paid) family childcare you have organised is so far beyond unreasonable it's untrue.

Get proper childcare.

I should add, when i am not manning the phone my job is extremely chill i.e pretty much nothing to do. I have an amazing manager who is aware of my situation.

Absolutely no one is actually "wfh"! It's a joke now. The posters saying they need proper childcare are clearly peed off that they have to pay for it and don't have the luxury of free childcare.
As I've said before, fun time is over, get back to work now.

If you've both decided to not have childcare in place then yanbu to expect him to be looking after her (at the same time as working) for half of the time. Why is it him who gets to work interrupted the whole time with the childcare falling to you? When you made the joint decision to not have it in place, did he just assume you are the default parent?

However this is a moot point because you are both unreasonable for not having proper childcare in place for the entire time you are working. You need to organise and fund it together and take an equal responsibility for drop offs and pick ups etc...whatever works best but avoiding at all costs the attitude that you are the default option. By all means ask your Mum if she's willing but just ask her to do one reliable day a week and use nursery or childminder for the rest.

Absolutely no one is actually "wfh"!

Really, how do you know this?

I should add, when i am not manning the phone my job is extremely chill i.e pretty much nothing to do. I have an amazing manager who is aware of my situation.

But the situation is clearly not working. You can't reasonably ask your DH to stop working a sporadic times to do childcare when he's working.

I don't think you understand WFH why would your or his company pay you to watch your child you are off your head. It is people like you who end up dragging the rest of us into the office because your an untrustworthy employee. Get a grip and pay for childcare like the vast majority of decent employees

Can you afford proper childcare like most working parents?

Sounds great, but unfortunately it's still not working out.

Proper childcare needs sorting your situation is not sustainable.

WFH is WORKING from home.
Neither of you should be looking after a small child while working, you need to sort out proper childcare

You can't work from home and look after a child at the same time. Either of you. That's the problem here. You're either working from home, or a stay at home mum, you cannot be both.

Arrange childcare on the days you're working from home, it's literally the only way around it.

You shouldn't be expecting your husband to look after the child during working hours - but you shouldn't be either!

Neither of you should be working and looking after DC. Cut your hours or find childcare.