Argument with DH over childcare

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I’ll try and keep this short. I work PT and have two weekdays off work to look after our DS. He has been a handful today and I’ve asked DH if he’d consider not going to the gym after work as he has planned. I’ve asked this on the odd occasion previously too.

DH says that me being off work is my choice and we could put DS into nursery for an extra day or two if I didn’t want to have stressful days, and I could work and contribute more money to the household.

AIBU to feel like he’s being unnecessarily awkward and should be willing to forgo the gym to help me out?

He has a valid point

Not immediately, but very soon, when neither of you are annoyed about this, or anything else, you need to have a sit down chat about this.

Does DH feel there are money issues
Do you agree?
Would you earn enough to cover the additional childcare?
Do you want to?

That'a separate from any discussion you may need to have about who does what when it comes to parenting (not helping out, parenting), housework etc

Best of luck working through it!

v difficult one and actually, i think there are two separate issues:

1 Your Dh seems to feel that actually, you staying home to looka fter your DS is a "bonus" for you, and one that is costing the family money. This means he may be resentful of it. Rightly or wrongly, he sees this as you having a lovely little day with DS while he is bearing more of the financial responsibilitiy. This is also making him a bit less accomodating on other things. This needs a converation as you need to be on the same page re the benefits of working less/ nursery less.

2 Asking him to change his plans for the evening because you've had a bit of a tough day.... because of the above, he's even less willing to do this than he might otherwise be. But even without that, I think that asking someone to cancel their plans should only be when really necessary - it feels a bit spurious tha tyou've just had a bit of a day.

Well no he doesn’t not in relation to this as he still wants the gym - I can’t imagine he would want to stop work to collect child would he.

he is conflating two separate points simply because he does t want to miss the gym

Why are you default childcare in the evenings? Are weekends and evenings split fairly between you or does it fall to you because you work part time?

It’s fairly split, no issues with that and he also does the nursery drop offs

I think he has a point in a way, if it was really your choice to be PT and this has happened before.

I may be wrong of course, but the way he's worded it implies that you have complained about staying at home with your son before.

Looking at it from a different perspective though, if either of you had a shit day and make a request like this as a one off, you would want to be supported. It should matter whether it was at work or at home.

I think if you were sick or something out of the ordinary happened then he should skip the gym, but if it’s just that your toddler was behaving like a toddler I’d consider that as being part and parcel of being home that day.

You chose to go part time. You complain about your day with your kid and expect him to forgo his workout because your kid is a handful.

It sounds like your husband is getting tired of being the main breadwinner then you ask him to give up his workout because you're stressed by being the main caregiver on days you don't work. You say he splits care evenly on his days off and weekends and does nursery dropoffs.

Take him up on his offer. Go back to work full time and put your kid in nursery if you're finding child care so overwhelming that he can't even hit the gym.

Sorry I agree with him.

Eh, he has a point.

I'd be pretty miffed if DH decided to work part-time, left me as the breadwinner, and then wanted me to skip my hobbies because he was struggling to look after the toddler he chose to stay home with.

I'm against the grain. I did put DS into pre school for 5 days a couple of terms before he started school despite working three days a week. It was a term time pre school and we were eligible for the full 30 hours so I didn't have to pay anything extra. The reasons; we live rurally and there isn't much to do and he wasn't stimulated enough mentally, it allowed me to do admin, car repairs, DIY, sort the house and medical appointments etc. I also pulled him out for one day each half term and we went and did something special for the day one on one. All that meant weekends were our family time, we never stayed in and we never had to do things like the foodshop or cleaning on those days. It was purely a fab time together that DH got to enjoy as well. We had DS home during the school holidays along with DD.

I don't regret our decision

In regards to your DH I can see why he is a little miffed to be honest. However before DS was in for 5 days I'd often just ask if I could have half an hour around his hobbies to go for a walk or a shower in peace on the really bad days.

Just to moderate some of the comments on here: I work PT, stay with my toddlers 1 day a week and some days are just really hard. I can't wait for my husband to come home and give me a hand.
Yet I still think it's best for my children to be spending that time with me rather than nursery, and I benefit from it too.

I'm still the main breadwinner.
Does it really matter who is making more money in this circumstances?
Do I then have the "right" to ask my husband to skip the gym since I'm the one who pay for the mortgage?

The question IMO is more about asking the other to skip a hobby when having a shit day - but there is no emergency/sickness. I personally would not.

Does it really matter who is making more money in this circumstances?

I think it does matter, especially if the DH wasn't entirely in agreement with being the breadwinner to begin with.

I agree with him. You’re being totally unreasonable.

I think he has a point.

Looking at it from a different perspective though, if either of you had a shit day and make a request like this as a one off, you would want to be supported. It should matter whether it was at work or at home.

The key point here though, is that it wasn't 'a one off'.

I’ve asked this on the odd occasion previously too.

I mean, we don't know how often, but the OP has admitted she does do this sometimes, in her OP, when she is presumably looking to get sympathy from us.

This is mumsnet men dont have a point on here.

How much of the pregnancy and birth did he do?

In that case doesn't it make sense that the days when you're looking after your dc are the days that dh doesn't go to the gym so that you get a break in the evening?

Your dh isn’t unreasonable to say that if the stressful days are too often then maybe it’s time to increase the use of nursery and your working days. It sounds like he has a different view on what constitutes “the odd occasion” and he’s not unreasonable to want to protect his gym time. We don’t know the actual number so it’s hard to say if it’s really the odd occasion.

He is unreasonable to assume that using nursery 5 days a week will mean never having a stressful day

It’s a bit off. I get that you’ve had a tough day but it was a day. If it was for illness or for a longer term issue then fair enough. I’d discuss the need for some structured time on childcare days for myself. The other issue is it’s likely he plans gym time and what he’s working out. I go to the gym 4x a week and get really pissed off if family stuff comes up unexpectedly and I’m asked to forgo a session, it’s better if I know in advance and plan to drop a day or so. I plan my week and know what I’m doing each day. So I think you need to just suck it up today essentially.

How long can you carry on that excuse??

I think he's right actually....unless this was a one off and you've said it's not.

I can see his point. If you were ill I'd see it differently.