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?

as others have said, you obviously need to have childcare. You can’t work and look after a child. I can’t believe your manager knows this is going on!

Fair enough they should sort it together
but I read the OP as sometimes she decides not to take dd to her mum or to have her mum round and it sounded like that was her choice.

He should be driving her when he's wfh ... he's a lazy sod!

Both of you have a responsibility to arrange proper child care while you are working. Both of you should stop shortchanging your employers and stop exploiting your mother.

You need childcare for every day you’re both working. If that’s too much for your mum to take on, can you get formal childcare like a nursery or childminder or is there a reason (e.g cost) you’ve not gone down this route?

At my work, it would be a disciplinary issue if someone was caring for a young child and WFH regularly. It happens by exception if someone’s child is poorly or their childcare is closed for a day but anything else would be viewed as an abuse/misuse of company time.

Except it was a shit experience as a customer trying to solve a problem or retain a service. Stupid waiting times and crying children/barking dogs in the background.

tell your dh that on the days he works from home - he needs to sort childcare and take care of baby

on the other three days a week whilst he is on the office you will sort childcare

and this will continue until dc leaves school - he will need to sort the school run on his two days wfh etc

start now off loading the mental load to him

don't pick up his pieces if he fails at first - otherwise he will never take on the responsibility

He can always change his hours and look after your child, but when he is working from home, he is at work. It’s one thing doing something else for a few minutes during a quiet period, it’s quite another thing having full responsibility for a child and being unable to return to the job, possibly at a moment’s notice. If you want to take care of your child when you’re working from home, that’s up to you, but your husband shouldn’t have to just because you think it’s ok.

Sorry but you are being reasonable. I know it’s tough but working from home is working, you need childcare like you would any other day. I do occasionally look after mine while WFH when they are sick but it really isn’t good to have this as a long term arrangement. Also it’s going to get a hell of a lot more difficult to do very soon as your little one gets older. I have a 20 month old and absolutely couldn’t do it.

Surely it depends on the type of job? If people are taking important phone calls and there’s a screaming child and the person can’t concentrate on what the customer is saying and no one can hear each other then that isn’t a good thing.

I remember calling my bank during Covid. The lady clearly had at least 3 children at home. One was crying. One was screaming. There was pepper pig blaring in the background. She asked me to repeat myself multiple times. I felt for her. It wasn’t her fault. She was doing her best in the situation we were all stuck in. But if I rang now and had the same experience I’d be making a complaint.

If someone’s job is only answering an email occasionally and that’s it and it doesn’t affect any customers I couldn’t care less how many children people are looking after because I’d never even know about it.

I’m assuming you both agreed to this (lack of) childcare setup, so in the short term he needs to step up and help with childcare even during work hours. He can make up the time in the evening/at the weekend. He doesn’t just get to clock out of being a parent, this set up is very unfair on you.

However, you are both unreasonable to think you can wfh and look after a baby at the same time. You need to sort out proper full time childcare asap.

You need childcare in place. Easy.

Your poor mum.

You need to be getting proper childcare in place, it’s not fair that she’s having to pick up both of your slack because you’re too stingy to pay for proper childcare.

If she says no she’ll feel guilty and you know it.

She’ll either feel guilty for accepting more money or worry that will be a more regular thing and she doesn’t want the tie of it.

Covid was very different, people had no choice but to wfh and there was no childcare.

Now wfh is a choice and childcare is available, so there is absolutely no reason to be wfh and looking after children.

You wouldn’t expect kids running around in a place of work and if the home is your place of work then it should be treated as such.

And we wonder why so many employers want to go back to everyone working in the office.

There are 2, potentially 3, issues:

1. No, he should not be caring for baby whilst wfh.
2. Yes he should be involved in childcare arrangements.
3. Household costs/bills should not necessarily be paid equally, particularly if one parent is earning more because the other is doing more childcare/chores

@jadeycakes666 just as productive??? Were you living in a parallel universe? Everyone knows that working during Covid was a nightmare. Trying to attend Teams meetings while simultaneously feeding a baby, stopping a toddler play with the knife drawer, or helping a 9 year old with their maths work. Anyone who tried to contact any company during Covid will know that there was zero customer services. Calls weren’t answered, emails ignored. It was awful, and not something I would ever want to hold up as a shining example of how work could be!

I think you need to look at this again OP both logistically and financially and either do 3 days local nursery or childminder and 2 days with your mum or cut down to 3 days work with 1 day at nursery and 2 with your mum or the reverse - I am saying 'you ' as it sounds like your H would be neither use nor ornament with several days of childcare a week

At the moment to me it seems completely unworkable and certainly will be with a toddler

@MumblesParty exactly -

Perhaps should add? Its not because we are stingy. I got made redundant whilst on maternity leave earlier this year. I had to go back early because a job opportunity came around that I couldnt pass up. A friend worked in this job and told me to apply for it because it was extremely chill, and she gave me assurances that I could watch my baby on the days that I am not on the phone. Because the job was unexpected we did not have time to arrange formal childcare. We live in an EXTREMELY densely populated areas and there are waiting lists as long as 2 years.

You need to sort this together as husband and wife! It isn’t helping it’s working together as parents!

Your manager may be ‘amazing’ but your child is going to suffer in the long run. As they become more mobile and need more attention and even more playing with etc. It’s unfair on them to running between work and them.

This is unsustainable, OP. You might be able to muddle through now but before too long your baby will be mobile and deciding to climb things/investigate electrical items/ pull breakables off shelves. Both of you need to put in place childcare for your working hours.

The way round this (and the 12 miles in the car) is to organise nursery/childminder/nanny. Then you aren’t relying on your mum or stealing time form your or dh employer

Neither of you should be doing any form of childcare while working.

You both can't work and look after a baby. You need to arrange proper childcare, he'll have to pay half towards it. I bet when you tell him this and the cost, he'll soon change his mind about helping out!

I agree. If someone can do their job perfectly well while simultaneously looking after young kids, then their work could actually be done in half the time. I would be looking to make half the workforce redundant!