Who is being unreasonable re weekend cleaning & DC in bed?

[SuggestedPig]

Me and DH both work full time & also have a toddler DC together.

I find that in order to keep on top of the house it helps to have one of my weekend days having a good clean, bed stripping, hoovering, wiping down surfaces, cleaning bathroom etc..

I prefer to wake up on a Sunday and get this stuff done so we can enjoy the rest of the day.

DHs older kids are teens and stay most weekends. As typical teens they tend to sleep in quite late i.e. 11-12ish on a usual Sunday.

DH thinks I should not hoover upstairs until they wake up. I think this is ridiculous. They can stay in bed for as long as they want but the rest of the house should not have to put their day on hold so they aren't woken.

We have a 3 yo so I am woken up every day, weekend or not, by 7am. I am not sitting around until 12 to be allowed to hoover up in my own house so teens can laze in bed all morning without being disturbed.

Surely that's just part and parcel of family life. You can stay in bed but the rest of the house gets on with their normal day while you do!

Why don’t you just leave the hoovering for someone else to do? Do what you can & go out to enjoy your day, let the teenagers have their lie in. There are other people in the house who can hoover in the afternoon when you are out, or at tea time. Ultimately doesn’t matter when it gets done, so long as it gets done at some point.

Exactly this. Is he spending any of his weekend on housework?

If your husband doesn't want you hovering on Sunday morning then he should do it on Saturdays afternoon

What do you use?

Does he and his children do anything?
Or are you the skivvy aupair?

If the teenagers need their sleep that badly, they should not be gaming until 1 or 2 am and then need a quiet house in the morning.

My teenagers are in bed by 10am, the boys get up at 7/7.30am and the girl about 8.30.

Warn them of your Sunday routine. If they choose to stay up late & sleep in, it is up to them.

Probably a dustpan and brush.

As a night owl teenager I would have been annoyed at early hoovering.

But it’s actually a moot point as it was my job to hoover from about age 14. My mum would pointedly leave the vacuum cleaner right outside my bedroom door if I’d been a bit lax . Tripping over that when I finally woke up and got up was a clear message…

Not unreasonable. I feel very much more at peace when I know there are no chores left to do. 9 is totally reasonable. They are probably awake and scrolling on their phones anyway...

This. Teens sleep late because their body clock shifts at that age not because they are lazy. There are so many other times you (or someone else) could hoover other than Sunday morning. If people are sleeping you don’t disturb them, sleep is important. As a pp said, it’s a dick move.

I would usually do downstairs first, in the order of tidy, clean then hoover. Then move on to upstairs. I dont have teenagers but if I did and was ready to do upstairs by 10am I would and tough! Xx

Second this, you sound really unsympathetic to the teenagers, the body clock thing can be really tough and they need to catch up on sleep. And honestly do you really expect a teenager at the weekend to be putting themselves to bed at 10pm to facilitate your early morning hoovering.

Sorry you have to endure that. I love my quiet weekend mornings with the teens asleep and the house to myself.

does your dh do any housework

Why should the sleep pattern of teenagers take priority over that of a mum with a toddler? Teenagers will truly cope with a bit of disturbance. Either that or they will sleep through it. They have resilience, surely?

I agree, but 9 isn't early morning. It is a late start for many!

Get a cleaner in the week and don't spend your weekend hoovering.

I think if I am doing the hoovering, cleaning etc I will do it when it suits me. If your DH is happy to do it then he can fit it in to accommodate his kids having a lie in, although I guess this isn’t what he would want to do.

I’d get a cleaner to do one morning a week when everyone is out.

I understand your frustration but YABU. Reorganise your day. You can do laundry, mopping, dusting, polishing, gardening, car washing, cleaning windows, batch cooking, admin - loads of other things on Sunday morning. Then take toddler to the park or the pool. When you get back you can hoover upstairs.

Well yes, on wood and tiles. I was assuming carpet. I had an old carpet sweeper as a poor student (not sure what they’re called in the uk?). Did the job. Very noisy though. One of those manual jobbies.

Because teenagers bodies are going through way more physical stress than mum and toddler, and sleep is extremely important for growth and physical health. Their body clocks are shifting, they are growing at pace and going through puberty. They have a lot of life demands placed on them, which are all new to them. Adults are used to the demands of life, teenagers are not. The reason many teenagers stay up late is because late is the only time they get to be awake and unwind, with their games or shoes or books or whatever - they're expected to stand to attention the rest of the time (whether they manage it or not) and abide by the rules of everyone around the, whilst their brains are newly developing into adults . They still need their sleep when they are able.

Why are people so shitty towards teenagers. Teenagers and stepkids, mumsnet can be downright awful to.

You are not more important than your teenage stepkids, sorry to say. In many ways, they are more important than you.

Can’t you do the cleaning on a Saturday morning when the teens aren’t sleeping?

If DH was dictating to me when I could clean I’d stop doing any. Fuck that. He could piss if and do it himself