How much time - literally - does your dh/dp spend with the children on a work day?

[zephyrcat]

I'm getting so frustrated with dp at the moment because of his lack of enthusiasm to spend any 'proper' time with dd and ds. DD has just turned 4 and for about a year when she was 2, myself and dp had a lot of issues and spent a lot of time arguing/shouting etc and it took it's toll on DD. As a result she can be a bit 'funny' with dp but at the same time she is literally craving attention and time from him but he just can't see it.

He does work long hours, and 6 days a week, BUT the children are up at around 7ish most mornings and come into the bed to watch cartoons. He will often turn over and stay asleep. When he does finally get up he's only then got time to eat and get dressed and he's gone. He doesn't get home until they are in bed. On a Sunday I have to make him go out and do stuff or he'd happily sit in front of the tv all day long. I can appreciate that being at work all the time he wants some time to himself but I know that if it was me going to work I'd be despereate to spend every spare minute I got with them.

Last night dd and ds were late going to bed so they were up when he came in... dd was so excited to see Daddy but instead of devoting half an hour solely to her he was half playing poker on the computer then when it came to bedtime she was in tears because she wanted more time with Daddy. He gets annoyed with me because I say he should get up when they wake up and have at least an hour of just him and them before he goes to work so they get time with him every day but all I get is "But I'm tired, I work all day" .... but he stays up watching shit tv til midnight....

I just don;t know if I need to keep on and get it through to him or if it's just a 'man' thing and I'm being overly sensitive with pg hormones?!?!

Have been tempted to try that one for a very long time!!!

Yes, taking on a new job at 7 months pregnant is not the best idea !

Mornings - maybe 30 mins or so. When I am working, he takes them to his mum at 7.30am so has the car journey and a bit of time when it gets there as well.

Evenings - gets in at 5pm, they go to bed at 7pm so a good 2 hours.

He used to spend ages chopping and prepping in the kitchen until I told him to stop faffing with fiddly meals on a weekday. So now we have easy dinners (pasta/jackets/freezer stuff) on the days I work and he plays with them instead. Far better.

He is a pain reading the papers at weekends though whilst I ricochet around sorting kids and breakfast out am ALWAYS nagging on this.

Sounds like he should make more effort IMO ZC.
They're only tiny once and he's going to miss it.
My DH starts work very early on a Wednesday and Thursday so he can pick our DDs (4) up from school at 3.15 when I'm at work. He does find it a bit knackering but realises they're growing up so fast and tries to make the most of it by doing something with them.

Dh usually gets up about 7.30am at which point dd1 (7) usually jumps out of bed and joins him downstairs for breakfast. If the baby (10mths) is awake at this point he will get her up as well, change her nappy and then bring her into me if I am awake, or take her downstairs if I'm not! He usually leaves for work about 8.15am.

He tries to get home for 6pm most evenings and he and I will bath dd2 together and then he will go downstairs to spend time with dd1 while I put dd2 to bed (although dd1 is usually more interested in watching tv than doing anything with dh as she only gets 1hr of tv a day between 6-7pm!). He generally give dd2 her bath while I get dinner ready.

After dd1 has gone to bed she writes her diary and the tradition is that dh then goes up and reads it and chats to her about her day for about 10 mins.

Your story zephyrcat sounds so like my own. DD is 4 (ds 1) they come into our bedroom in the morning and dh is cranky, trys to go back to sleep until the last minute then rush of dressing/breakfast and out the door. Rarely home to see the children in the evening (often to late to see me). Only has to work at the weekends once in a blue moon, but never seems to have any enthusiasm to do stuff with the kids (I have to be the driving force behind it).

Like yours mine will also complain of tiredness because of the long hours he works but will stay up watching tv or poker on the computer 'til the small hours. I know that when he comes in from work late he needs to unwind, and I hope that once he is more senior in his job things will improve, but like you I worry that he is going to miss out on so much in these early years that he can never get back.

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DH probably gives the kids an hour of "qualiteeeee" time a day.

As soon as he comes in the door he gets a quick bath and then he plays with both of them right up until bedtime, he just loves being with them and playing with them - much more than I do I have to admit.

I do the "looking after" and Daddy does the "playing with" DD says

cod that was why I suggested zc go to early morning swimming.

Hate to say this but staying up late watching tV and complaining of being tired is what I did pre- ds when I ws unhappy at work/depressed.

Dh works 2-3 days a week where he leaves at 5.15am and gets back after 7pm so doesn't see ds on those days.

On the other days he works from home and those days he gets up with ds (around 5.30am sometimes) gets his breakfast, plays with him, changes nappy, dresses him etc. Then at 8am either I take ds to the childminder if it is a day I am at work or I take over the childcare and dh goes to the library to work. If I am at work and dh is working from home he collects dh early, feeds him baths him etc so that when I get home from work ds is basically reacy for bed. I just play with him, feed him and put him to bed (bliss)

On weekends we tend to do things together or if we need to catch up on house stuff/cooking we do a lot of tag-parenting. You look after him for a couple of hours while I iron then I'll look after him while you cook sort of thing.

I really think you should try and get to the bottom of this. Maybe he feels trapped in work. I do know a lot of men don't like their jobs much and then come home to what they see is a lot of extra work - particularly since they spend so little time with the kids they don't know them very well. The only way to find our what is going on is to really talk to him. He is really losing out by spending so little time with the children.

Agree with Lazy Cow's post. My dh eventually realised he was getting depressed at work and taking it out on me and dd by being withdrawn, over-critical etc. It started damaging his relationship with dd. We had a bit of a crisis at Christmas and he has made big effort to improve. It is a man thing - withdrawing and relaxing but if there's too much of it they start getting cut off from the children. Can you talk to him again or get anyone else to ? I just got really upset and said I couldn't take a lot more of it. Then he came to his senses ...... Otherwise a trip to the doctor and treatment for depression. Problematic with men because they find it hard to admit such a problem.

Mon - Fri DH kinda see's DD in that they have a race to get dressed and he kisses her good bye.
On average 3 evenings he see's her for 15 mins before bed, 1 evening he collects her from nursery and does bath. 3 evenings he doesn't see her.

Alternate saturdays he takes her swimming. The 3 of us will play games like snap together at week ends and once every 6 weeks or so we all go to soft play etc.

But I do most of childcare. This thread has made me wonder why. Given DH and I both in paid work, same commute times etc, work in similar types of professions. Having said that he is doing house stuff when I am looking after DD eg mowing, DIY washing car etc. If he was watching TV while I did it all I wouldn't be happy. But I have been SP so any help is a god send.

I think it is a bit of a man thing - quite often they want to switch of and unwind when they come in forgetting that the work of the day isn't over til the children are asleep.
Mine tends to get the DSs dressed while I'm in the shower in the mornings and, theoretically, give them their breakfast but in reality he takes so long getting them dressed that I usually finiah them off anf get breakfast. He goes to work as soon as he finishes whatever it he does in the mornings (that takes him so long).
At the other end of the day he normally gets home just as I'm getting DSs out of the bath so will read one of them a story and out him to bed - we take it in turns which one.
He doesn't do an awful lot with just him and them at the weekends though - which I find very tiresome

Just in case it's of any use - I'm a WOHM and DH is a SAHD.

We've got three DSs. I leave between 8-8.30 in the mornings. Before that I give DS3 his milk, supervise older two washing, dressing etc, change DS3's nappy and dress him, supervise them having their breakfast (DH makes it), clean DS2's teeth and brush his hair, brush DS3's hair and put his shoes on, and basically try and leave them ready to go out the door.

I am usually home at 6.30 pm when it's straight into the bathtime/bedtime routine - don't get a breather until it's 8 pm and they are all in bed!

About once a fortnight I have to stay later at work and so don't make it home for bathtime/bedtime .

On the days that we both work, we both spend around the same time with them (although I have developed a knack of doing the housework just as it's time to get them ready for bed - he's so much more patient at that time of night than I am).

The time we spend with them throughout the week is pretty evenly shared really.

So much of this is hitting home.... I think it could well be depression/worried about work & money etc etc etc.He did go to the docs a while back - blimey, thinking about it 2 years ago!! He was given anti-depressants but he never really gave them a chance and then just stopped taking them.

The thing is I don't mind if he wants to stay up all night unwinding/playing poker/watching crap on tv but what really got to me last might was dd was so obviously excited to see him that I said to him - don't put the tv/computer on just yet you've got all night to do that, just play with dd/get her ready for bed etc so he agreed and then went off into the kitchen to start cooking...arrgghh!!

It also makes sense in Lazycow's post that he spends less and less time with them and doesn't really know them... I have to tell him everything that she wants/needs - I've made a point of leaving him to deal with it on his own, after all it is his daughter!, but he goes into a tv trance and ends up ignoring her. Another example is if ds wakes up at night, dp can't settle him - a)because he never did it when he was tiny so doesn't know what works and what doesn't and b) ds isn't used to him doing it.

As I type I can see the answer to that clear as day - make him do it and make the children get used to him doing it... at the moment I prefer the peace of me doing it in 30 seconds than him making ds scream for half an hour!!

Think we need to have a 'talk'

Does this include the 4 hours I spend with a bottle plugged into DD overnight while DW sleeps?
Averaged between the 2 (toddler 23 months and DD 3 months) about 6 hours each. In all honesty though only about 3 hours a night with toddler and all the rest with DD, but thats life and he loves every minute (as do I).

Fastasleeps husband

What about alternating your one w/end day - every other week you go out of the house for a full or 1/2 day, and he looks after them - this means planning something (even just a game or a go on the computer with cbeebies together) not just vegging out in front of the telly. On the alternate w/end you could do something as a family. This way he would have to engage with them, and would start discovering his relationship with them, and you would be getting some time off and wouldn't be around to pull your hair out when things seemed to be going amiss.
My DH had to look after my dd's for a full day most w/ends when I was doing a course and he said that it really helped him to empathise with me, and feel closer to them. He said it was different (better, in some ways) for him to be totally 'in charge' and not have me to fall back on.
In a weekday he spends about 1.5 hrs with them, more at w/end.
Have a big chat with your DH - maybe he will give it a try.

I leave the house before 7 in the morning usually and get back usually between 5:30 to 6:30. dd goes to bed at 7. But that time is devoted to her and we have all the weekend together.

DH spends between 30-60 minutes with DD in a morning. 3 days a week he does the nursery drop so spends longer with her than I do then. In an evening Dh gets hme between 6:15 and 6:30 and DD then goes to bed around 7:30pm. So about an hour then too. He will do baths and stories a couple of nights a week. When he first gets ome he and DD have a mad 15 minutes or so whilst I finish dinner off, and then after dinner she will play with DH again.

We spend most weekends together, doing things as a family - so he spends as much time as me with DD on Saturday and Sundays.

dh normally does breakfast with them in the week, unless he's away or got an early start. So that will be about 20 minutes or so in the morning. Then he gets in usually about 7 and they're in bed at 8 ish between which times he'll eat and maybe hear ds read or give them a bath.

Dh usually spends about 20 mins in the morning and another 20 mins in the evening - he gets home just in time for story.

I can sympathize with you zephyrcat when you complain about your dh staying up late at night watching rubbish telly and then wanting a lie in in the morning on his only day off. It drives me spare.

I have a three month old daughter and she is lucky if dh even sees her on a week day. My dh has never been interested in babies until they can walk and talk.

I am getting a new conservatory though [ironic sigh]

DH and I have recently swapped so he is SAHD and I am full time working mum. I try to spend some time in the morning with DS before I go to work, but is normally just a ten minute cuddle as he doesn't wake up till 7 and I'm out the door at 7.20. I then take sole responsibility for DS three evenings a week and on Saturdays while DH trains for and plays rugby and does a book-keeping course. It does take time to wind down from work in the evenings and although I try to take DS off DH as soon as I get home, some evenings I do need to sit down and mong for a while.

Would it be possible for you to take up a hobby/interest that would get you out the house (even for only one evening a week)? It would give you a change of scene and your DS would have to take responsibility for your children. I started an italian course when I was a SAHM and really enjoyed getting out, being an adult again and using my brain. Was good for DH and DS too.

HTH

CGMum

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