Parents of young children, how do you split household chores?

[duploid]

I have two young children under 3, and have been feeling resentful towards my husband re the share of household responsibilities. Can I set out what we each do, and see what other families do and how fair our split is?

Context: I'm currently on maternity leave. Our baby is not very chilled - I can't get her to nap without me next to her, so there isn't any baby-free time during the day. My husband works from home. My older child goes to nursery. We have a cleaner who comes once a fortnight.

I cook, do laundry, organise the weekly food shop, do the dishwasher, clean up after meals, tidy after our toddler.

I look after the baby most of the day but my husband takes her at 5 for half an hour before we pick up our toddler together. I tend to get as much of lunch ready as I can before I take the baby out for our morning walk. My husband will normally need to pop something in the oven or make pasta, etc.

We do bath time together. I then settle the baby while he sorts the toddler. The toddler is not compliant - he takes her to bed at 8 but usually isn't downstairs until 9. I've usually settled the baby by 7.45. I also look after the baby by myself overnight (multiple wakings).

My husband tidies too, but probably less than me. He will take the bins out if I ask, repeatedly. He looks after the toddler from bath time until when she's asleep (9).

My husband says I'm on maternity leave, and whilst it's tricky getting chores done with the baby, it is still possible. He says he's often working until very late, and can't see when he'd have time to do more chores. I agree he's very dedicated to his work and does work hard, but my counter is that's his choice, he doesn't need to work that hard, and he's choosing his work to my detriment as I'm having to pick up the slack. Am I being unfair? We're now at an impasse.

always have to remind him that it's his family's birthdays etc. and then pick out present ideas for him to approve or veto. His family communicate with me as he doesn't reply to texts. I know this isn't my responsibility at all but I like them and if I didn't do this we'd speak with them a lot less. Plus I think his parents deserve more than a son who's too busy to text back in a timely manner and send photos of the children.
Just don’t. Call them if it makes you happy. But if you’re tired don’t. Don’t buy them presents. They might deserve more than that son but that is the son they have. No matter what gifts you buy it’s still the son they have.

Context: I work 40 hours over 5 days from home and DH works 20 in a physical job over 3 days.

DH does more cooking and laundry. Everything else is shared.

We alternate who does bedtime with 3 year old DD. The one who doesn't do bedtime tidies the kitchen and the living room.

Every weekend one of us cleans the downstairs and the other one cleans the upstairs. We alternate that too. We order shopping together.

Present buying etc we tend to do together.

Thanks everybody, and @MindyStClaire wow that's really similar to us. Do you feel your set-up is fair then? Maybe ours isn't so bad. I've reflected further, and it's not that I want him to clean into the night or anything, only for him to clean up after himself and do small chores as he goes about his day, and then it would only take 5 mins as a PP said.

I imagine when I go back to work the current set-up will remain. If it becomes unmanageable I will have have another chat with him. I find these conversations so hard because he gets defensive very quickly and then goes quiet, and then the next day is super nice to me so I don't feel able to bring it up again.

Yes, I do think it's fair, but that's because DH pulls his weight. He doesn't need to be told to do things, he worries about his side of the family. He absolutely realises that he has an equal responsibility to the children, and the household, and that his job is equal to mine. The advantage of academia is that it's hugely flexible compared to most jobs and he uses that for the benefit of the family.

He's rubbish at big picture. If it was down to him, the girls would have no Christmas presents, we'd never go on holiday, never decorate, probably still be in our old apartment, indeed the DC probably wouldn't have been planned. But if it was up to me, the bins would never go out, dinner would be ready meals, the house would be an even bigger state. We balance each other well.

In your shoes I would be most worried about mental load.

I think he is doing a decent amount but agree it's the mental load that you're left with that's the issue here. I also think you can look at what needs to be "let go" of and try to simplify parts of your day - nursery pick up, toddler bedtime, the meals you're eating. For me you need to talk to him and keep talking to him - it's easy to leave it to breaking point because we hate having to have these sorts of chats but then everyone is frustrated and annoyed rather than constructive and taking action.

He's been a lot more proactive today in cleaning and tidying, so I'm hopeful he's got my message even though he was very defensive at first. May this continue!

@GenevaMaybe

Get the baby napping properly. I know it’s hard. But that’s the thing that will unlock more time for you.

that's the thing you have the least nfluence over!

Next time he follows up by being super nice to you you say firmly it’s lovely to have you so attentive, but what I would really value is what we discussed yesterday, you pulling your weight around the house. I should hope you are super nice to me all the time while I carry your load as well as mine around the house, but that’s not a partnership and I don’t want to do that.

Something that stands out is that your toddler is going to bed really late. Especially after a day at nursery.

Could you try doing their bedtime at 6.30 or 7 instead, that would leave your husband much more time for tidying. I can imagine he’s tired if he’s not escaping till 9!

I know 9 is so late as some PPs point out. We've tried doing bath earlier but she still just doesn't go down until 9. She wakes up at 7 and has a nap at nursery. We really don't understand why it takes her so long to sleep.

@duploid can you put her down awake and leave her to fall asleep? Since about two my eldest sings in bed for a while before he drops off. It’s great if you can get them used to doing that.

I also struggle to get any chores done with my baby around, so all cleaning/housework is done in the evenings and on a weekday morning when baby is in nursery and I’m not working (our house is not that clean!). The eldest is in school. I was alone with both kids five days a week during lockdown which did get me down as my eldest has suspected autism so is very full on and the baby was wanting to feed all the time. It’s a hard time to be a parent at the moment isn’t it.

My husband does: food ordering online, bins, tea making (very important!), my eldest’s bedtime and ummm not much else! He does ad hoc jobs like cleaning out the sink pipes, fixing things that go wrong, taking stuff to the dump.

@Debradoyourecall I've suggested doing this to my husband but he's just not keen. I don't blame him. Toddler will absolutely have total meltdown if he tried to leave (we have tried to do this a couple of times before, when she was younger). We've agreed to try again from this weekend. I've reminded him he can't be lying next to her to sleep until she's 18.

@duploid I’m struggling to remember how we got it to work with my son to be honest. I think some gradual withdrawal methods can work, for example I got him used to me sitting in a chair in the corner while he dropped off, then that turned into me sitting in my bedroom next door. It’s hard at the beginning but getting your evenings back is amazing. Good luck.

Dh and I both work, so slightly different, but even when I was on mat leave(s), I did everything I could during the day and then we shared things 50-50 when he was home. I'm also an academic and I will tell you that the extra work in the evenings is not 'want to' optional work. We just have a 60 hour workload piled into a 37.5 hour week. You can not do it if you wish (and very few people do it all), but you can't just clock off at 5pm and be done until the next morning. It isn't how it works.

You can have boundaries though. I don't work from 5pm until dc are in bed at 8:30pm. Then I work until 10pm. Between 5-8:30 dh and I share all the household chores. On the weekends, I generally don't work at all unless there is some pressing deadline. Realistically, if he's working, he can't do the cooking and hang up the washing and put the baby down for a nap, because he can't do everything. But it sounds like you both need firm boundaries about when is work time and when isn't. And when it isn't work time, he needs to do 50-50 and not just sit around relaxing.

Also on a practical level, if you are at home, I don't see why he is doing the nursery pick ups. You can do them as you aren't working. Unless he wants to do them to get some fresh air, but sounds more sensible to use that time to work to free up quality family time later. Same with things like cooking during the day. I wouldn't expect him to be cooking lunch for the family, only preparing his own food and generally cleaning up his own cooking (even if it isn't until evening when he has time). If you aren't working, it makes sense most of the mental load and household admin falls on you, because it's possible to make shopping lists and do online orders during the day while baby plays or naps (even if you are doing it on your phone lying next to them).

But things like sorting cards and presents for his family and communicating with them about arrangements, nope. Leave that to him. It's his family and he can manage his own relationships. That's the area where you can stop making work for yourself.

@mindutopia I do drop-offs and my husband does pick-ups. I can of course do pick-ups too, on my own, but he does it because he likes to and it's after 5. We do it together unless it's really wet.

DH works full time and I work part time so I do more chores but honestly it's still a pretty even split. DH does most of the cooking, the laundry and bins.
I do dishes mopping hoovering and deep cleaning.
Dh does probably about 90% of the life admin, car insurance house insurance etc he does all that, I do most of the kid admin.

To be honest your DH sounds like he is pulling his weight and it sounds more than fair given you are not working and he is....

I'm happy to accept that it's fair ☺️ childcare is hard isn't it. I love it when I've had a decent night's sleep, the sun is shining, and naps are going smoothly. But 90% of the time the above is not true and I'd much rather be working.

That's how I felt during my first maternity leave OP. It sucks when it's hard.

Sounds like your last post has hit the nail on the head OP. From suggestions people have made you don't seem to want to think about doing any of them. This will just keep the cycle going, and a big part of this cycle is how you feel about it.

@Wherethereshope I think a fair few posters have said our split is fair, so I was just accepting that.