to feel resentful I’ve used my AL for childcare while DH saves his for child-free time?

[CrazyCatMom]

I am absolutely knackered and so overstimulated I could scream.
Nursery is closed over Christmas, so I’ve had to book annual leave to care for my 21-month-old full time. I work in healthcare, so my job is already exhausting and emotionally draining, and this leave is meant to be precious recovery time… except it hasn’t been a break at all. It’s been relentless toddler care, no downtime, no switch-off.
Meanwhile my husband, who works in sport, has been at work every single day between Christmas and New Year. He’s deliberately saved his annual leave so he can take it later for child-free time.
What’s making this harder to swallow is that I’m the breadwinner. I earn roughly double his salary, cover the majority of the mortgage and bills, pay all of the nursery fees — and yet I’m also the one covering the bulk of the childcare, including taking annual leave when nursery is shut.
It feels like my annual leave is automatically assumed to be for childcare, while his is protected for rest and enjoyment. I know nursery closures aren’t his fault, but the imbalance feels really unfair, especially when I’m already carrying most of the financial load as well.
I’m resentful, touched-out and completely fed up with being the default parent who absorbs the impact of childcare logistics on top of everything else.
Not sure if this is an AIBU or just a vent, but I’m so tired of this dynamic and don’t know how to make it feel more equal.

Why are you letting him get away with this. That is crazy part. Use your words OP, communicate with your husband.

Prepare him from now that he needs to take his annual leave for Easter and staying with the bubba! As you deffo won't be booking yours during that time! And hold your ground- he'll give in eventually.

Agree with this. My husband and I had to cover the holidays between us. His time will come! You could say you can’t have next Christmas off to make him do it next year.

Definitely need to have a conversation about this and agree it before you have any more children and definitely before they start school and you have 14 weeks to cover! DH and I do alternate weeks - I did the week before Christmas and he did the week between Christmas and new year. We each do a week at Easter, alternate half terms, split summer holidays. We plan it all at start of year to try to make sure everything is covered. You can't just assume what he will do

Saying all that, he does sounds like a bit of an arse who is going to work as an easier option than being home.
I suggest booking yourself some childfree days and when next closure comes up 'sorry, I'm out of leave, this ines on you as I did the last one'. He can cover it or arrange cover.

I don’t understand why you booked it all off with no discussion?! I would have said “there are 8 days we need to cover, which 4 do you want?”

I don’t know how it came about that you took all the holiday. I would have simply said I’m booking x&y day off and you are booking a&b off. It wouldn’t have been a discussion.

but I would at generally, in 18 years of parenting I don’t think I’ve ever taken a day off holiday just for myself. It’s either been childcare or family time. We have so little holiday time that it is too precious to ‘waste’ a day when it could be family time

Why should she have to ask? If he'd considered the issue at all he'd know that nurseries close in the holidays and there might be days when his child needs looking after but the OP would be working.

Why is it her job to manage all this alone? They should both take equal responsibility and share AL used.

OP if his sporting work is seasonal can you foresee a time period when he can do the majority of pick ups, drop offs, sick days and be the default parent while you work and also take some time for yourself?

Is this the first indicator that he's a selfish twerp who doesn't mind you running yourself ragged?

Has he agreed he'll rearrange his time off to cover the next batch of days nursery is closed? If I remember correctly some have time off at Easter and summer.

The solution to this is that he now has to do every short notice illness absence between now and March and in March when your leave is about to reset, you sit down together with the nursery closure dates and you split those days equally between you and write it up on the calendar so he can't forget.

When DD was very young this happened with DH and I. He’s not a bad husband or dad but in that instance he was thoughtless and yes a bit selfish. It was also a symptom of coming out of maternity leave, then initially me being part time, I definitely fell into the trap of being the default parent - if not practically then for all the thinking/ planning/ organising childcare stuff.

DH wouldn’t necessarily have been keeping it for days to himself, though I think he did end up with a few, but more just complete lack of thought. Plus we both work from home so he persisted in the belief that we could somehow manage DD between us whilst working, which quickly became apparent that was never going to work.

So yes, it took a conversation in which I said, ‘look this really isn’t fair, you need to use your leave for childcare too’ and he said ‘yes of course, sorry’ and it’s not been an issue again. He actually has quite a bit more leave than me, so he covers a little more of the school holidays now.

I hope @CrazyCatMom that you can have a similar conversation and that your husband realises he’s not doing his share and rectifies that.

Have you bought this up?
You shouldn’t have to but you need to tell him.

Failing that, you are in a good position in that you could afford to be a single parent and not miss the extra “help”.

You need to have a serious chat with him about division of childcare labour. It's obviously unreasonable that he just assumed you would magically cover all the childcare.

So go to him with the list of nursery closures dates for 2026 and ask him which half if them he is going to book time off to cover

Yanbu but it sounds like you've not actually had this conversation with him? So I'd start there. It's irrelevant that you earn more but total nonsense that you're the default parent when you both work full time.

Just a heads up though, nursery generally shuts 2 weeks a year, schools shut for 13. Once he's in school you'll both need all your annual leave to cover the holidays so this is a short term issue!

This applies to both of them. I find it bizzare that neither parent wants to spend their free time with their toddler.

I’ve voted you’re being unreasonable because you’re on here moaning about this instead of having an adult direct conversation with your partner about it.

If you want something to change, voice it.

It’s not hard to say exactly what you’ve said here to your partner.

Don’t become a martyr who puts up and shuts up and does everything and then one day moans nobody else does anything.

Being resentful is useless. You need to TELL him this is equal shared annual leave very forcefully as you are not the default parent.
Women are terrible at enforcing our rights and we need to do so loudly.

Don’t say that - you will be called a dick for insinuating that parents don’t want to care for their children!

Is there a reason you haven’t just had a table talk about this? You get a wall planner, sit down together and work out between you who is covering which nursery closures and divide it so it’s equal. This should be an easy conversation of “I feel I’ve done the lions share of covering the nursery closures this year, let’s sit down and plan for next year so we both get a break and things feel more equal”.

if you can’t do that or he doesn’t engage then I think you must know you have some significant marriage issues. You sound quite resentful, this will destroy your marriage over time unless you’re honest and he gets on board.

You need to talk to him and tell him that things are unbalanced, unfair and not working. The conversation should have happened at the ttc stage tbh, but better late than never. If you quietly soldier on without ever speaking up, then yes YABU.

Now is a great time to map out who will do what over the holidays in 2026. Get the calendar out and sit down with him and map out who’s taking what days with the dc. Also book ‘family time’ such as Christmas, and make sure you both have the same child free days off

Or tell him tha as you’ve covered Christmas this year, he can book time off for Easter

Well you never discussed it, you just stepped up and took on the default parent role. The guy probably thinks he hit the lottery.

Long past time to have a come to Jesus meeting on how childcare gets sorted when nursery is closed.

yanbu, it is completely unequal and you need to put your heads together and plan it out so you both get child free time off, family time off and individual time off with the child,

Time for a sit down conversation with your diaries to sort out the next years plans OP. You should both be sharing the load and if he needs it explained at this point he might get the benefit of the doubt. 🧐 However not going forward. If you’ve booked leave in advance for 2026 then it’s time for him to take on some of those days instead and you cancel the leave to give you some to actually get a rest too.

This. Talk to him asap.