What to do when you're ill and a SAHM?

[ssd]

This might sound strange, but I was wondering what other SAHM's do when they are ill?
These last few days I've had a viral bug and I've felt HELLISH,my oldest ds is also been off school feeling miserable.I also have a young ds who's full of beans!!
My dh has insisted he can't take time off as it is unpaid but I've desperately needed his help.
Does anyone know what the law says re if you work F-T (ie dh)but your wife is at home ill,surely you can take some time off to help her with the kids?
BTW my friends and my elderly mum helped a bit, but if my dh had had time off I'm sure I'd be feeling much better by now instead of still feeling rotten....

Not sure on the "law" for it. But many places now allow parental leave. I think that an employer has to allow a certain number of days parental leave for the first five years of a childs life.

For my dp he can take parental leave but this is unpaid. My work do pay for parental leave. Either way it protects the employee from using up annual leave, or looking like they have a bad sick leave record.

Hope you all get better soon!

I don't see why there should be any difference for your DH to take time off just because you are a SAHM. He is still entitled to time off to care for a dependant. He probably has much less time off work than men in his workplace whose wives work, so it's just a one-off anyway. If it's that much of a problem for him he should call in sick himself. Poor you. I hope you feel better soon!

There is something about time off for domestic emergencies too, I think, which can include sick children, partner etc. But I think it's unpaid, just means you can't be sacked over it iirc.

unpaid time I'm afraid - we had this situation where I work, and you are entitled to time off to care for dependents, (i.e. wife, children) but it is unpaid. A few people I know have said their work have said to pretend he is sick, with a nod and a wink, but unless he himself is ill then he's not entitled to any money. I think it's really unfair - there have been a few times when he's been ill, had time off work, so I've done everything for the kids while he was in bed, then I've been ill and he's back at work, so guess what, I've done everything for the kids.

Sorry, just saw that you mentioned the reason was it was unpaid. I think that is very unfair. In my company it's mngt discretion and all parents normally get away with a few days paid to care for sick children.

put on videos or cbeebies, try to be pleasant as much as possible but don't beat yourself up for losing your rag over nothing

being pregnant when children are very young helps .. DS was able to get me a glass of water from the age of 2.5 when I was retching into the loo (came in handy today that one)

rely on friends who can be wonderful

its horrible being ill and still not getting to rest isn't it, DH never seems to manage to get home when I'm poorly

hope you feel better soon (then again, I hope I feel better soon)

I've been ill for the last week and not been able to look after dd at all for most of it. Dp had to take a week of work - he normally works from home a couple of days, but took a couple of days sick as well. I think there is an entitlement to parental leave but we didn't get round to checking it out this time.

I wouldn't have been able to cope at all without him though as I was in bed for 4 days.

I was extremely ill after the birth of my ds in December 2003 luckily my dh's employers were very understanding and gave him compassionate leave. They also gave him compassionate leave when I had to have an amnio as I didn't want to be on my own.
I had flu in the latter part of last year and dh had to take time off to look after my two but he still got paid as he made up time by doing as much work as he could at home in the evenings and at weekends

It's basically crap - use friends and relations as much as possible and watch a lot of telly

Basically, you're f**cked.

MAJOR drawback.

Oh, my dh has taken the odd day off because I've literally been throwing up and unable to look after the kids. They've just let him take it without taking leave, quite lucky really.

I've been in this situation this week. I used neighbours, called in favours, I owe new favours, and DH stayed home one day.

If I'm really ill, he'd take time off, and nobody would make a fuss. But he'd still do email when off - he did the one day he was home this week.

His work does provide emergency day care, but I don't like it much, and would rather DS1 was at school (half-day), and DS2 is exclusively breastfed, so it's not much use for him.

I can remember sitting in bed, bf ds (4 months at the time), wretching into bucket, holding book for dd (just 2) to read. It was one of the hardest weeks of my life, I couldn't stop being sick!

I agree that it's crap!

GDG: I like your summary!

It is hard isn't it? Dh works from home 2 days a week and can do more occasionally which helps and luckily my PILs are great at babysitting and I have a few understanding friends and neighbours but there are days when cbeebies is the only answer!