Shift worker husband help please

[Blackjack15]

I'm hoping for some advice/perspective here. I workfull time with 3 days at home and 2 days in the office. Husband works 12 hour shifts on a rolling rota including weekends when scheduled. Also 3 hours travel a day we do not see him on his working days for more than 10 minutes. We earn roughly the same salary.

We have a 3 (nearly 4) year old DD. Husband had never had DD alone for a full day or overnight. DD is a energetic child and needs a certain amount of stimulation/activities each day. Won't do any quiet activies such as drawing or colouring just wants to charge about or do hours of imaginative play which makes it hard to do anything. Won't play alone. Husband cannot seem to cope with DD, loses patience easily, no interest in anything, mainly on the sofa dozing. On the rare occasion I've left DD with him for a couple of hours he can't seem to manage to cook a proper meal or get her dressed/bathed etc. Results in screaming meltdowns and DD even more attached to me.

I do all the whole mental load for work school, household, bills, etc the usual story. I do all the shopping, washing, cleaning and the majority of the dog walking. Husband will do a specific task if I ask him to eg will you hoover downstairs but rushes or does a quick job so he can then do something else like sit scrolling social media of playing his Xbox. Does do drops offs and picks ups when he's off.

When husband has his 4 days off in the week he gets 4 full days to himself as DD is in childcare. I get none. Ever. No family help or support. I've never had a day when I've not been either in work or with DD full time. DD still wakes up occasionally and that's down to me to settle her. Wakes up every day at 5/6am regardless of bedtime.

I'm just so tired. I have no life. Friendships have fallen away. I've finished work yesterday evening about 8pm then up at 5.30am today for a full day of looking after DD alone. Plus all the weekend chores to that I dont get time to do in the week. My life has completely changed since having DD whilst his hasn't changed at all.

I feel so sad when I see families at the weekend doing nice activities together and sharing the load. We can't even all have a meal together. I can't commit to anything eg getting my haircut has to be carefully planned around husband's shifts. Joining a regular hobby is a no go as shifts change each week. Husband gets home about 7.30pm.on his day shifts so it's so late to even have the energy to do anything.

Anyone married to a shift worker any advice?? Writing this down I can see it doesn't look good.

My husband works unpredictable shifts, mostly away for 3 days then back for 4, or similar. We have no kids but a very needy dog (I’m not saying this is the same as your situation, just explaining mine).
when DH is home he does most of the housework. Meals are cooked, shopping is done, house admin taken care of.
I think the issue is that your H doesn’t do any of that. If he took responsibility for cleaning, shopping, cooking (whatever) on his days off it would take the load of you.

Regarding planning things, it’s taken a while to get my head round the unpredictability. Sometimes I pay more to do things last minute because I’m unable to plan ahead and that is just a cost of his job. Sometimes I can’t do things. We do split his scheduled time off equally though.

Op I'm a shift work 12 hours shifts with an 2 hour commute including night shifts. Sounds pretty much the same rota. We have a 4 yo dc and manage to share the childcare housework and everything. Eat together on my days off. One day a week we go through our diary's together and work out who's doing what and get equal night outs and hobbies and dc didn't go in full time nursery before staring school either. Planning is everything!

This is so hard OP. Something has got to give here, it really has. Does your husband acknowledge there’s an imbalance? Or is he happy with his lot? I feel for you, I really do. This is not sustainable for your mental health. Financially, do you absolutely have to work full time?

On his days off he should be more than capable of a food shop, cleaning the house and cooking dinner especially if the kids are in childcare. He's an adult. These are things that adults do.

The problem is not that your husband works shifts, its that he is a lazy selfish bastard. My ex was the same. I never found an answer to it, wasted years of my life. I don't know what to advise you but I totally get it and send much empathy.

DH is a shift worker. Some shift patterns and commutes have been better than others. He sometimes needs some direction, but on the whole he can be productive on his weekday rest days and that has meant for example there is very little housework and shopping for me to do at the weekend, or he gets through lots of DIY or decorating. On late shifts he might get dinner going in the slow cooker for me and DS.

It can be exhausting but usually manageable. The problem is more that your DP is not doing what he could to support you.

I don't think this is really about shifts but about your partner. My DH works shifts, 12 hour days and nights and it's really varied patterns. I get things like it being difficult to do regular hobbies. I must say I do carry the load of the admin and life organisation as I'm better at it and he often doesn't know if he's coming or going (which is not helped by erratic work pattern). However we plan each week ahead on basis of his shifts to factor in times when I can nap or do things for myself eg if he is home on a weekend he will take DD out. I have had to push him on taking more responsibility for DD on days where he still has to work or has just finished some shifts. My experience is that he has changed and got much better at making sure I have breaks and rest, however this has been slowly and through lots of small changes and having certain agreements/expectations which then become the norm.

You won't get a lot of responses on MN for this topic as majority only work 9 til 5 Monday to Friday.

DH used to do 4 on 4 off (12hr shifts, 2 days then 2 nights). I had two young DC at that point. It wasn't easy but he would help out with school run before he went to sleep after his night shift. We would eat dinner together really early before he went out to work on a night shift. He would also stay up during the night before his first night shift to acclimatise before the first shift and help with any night wakings so I could get some sleep (during the early years with young babies/toddlers waking multiple times at night). He did food shopping on his days off. Would hardly see him on his day shift, he would miss DCs bedtimes. I had to do these on my own but just got used to it as I didn't know any different with my eldest DC.

You need your DH to step up tbh. DH now does office hours, but for years followed this shift pattern. It's exhausting on the body doing nights.

Weekends were often lonely as you end up on your own regularly looking after the DC.

He needs to get used to having DD more, because as soon as she goes to school (in September?), DH is going to have a number of school holidays with her at home and you at work.

I can only comment on our neighbours, who does 4days, 4 night, 4 off, but 4 night shifts he does the school runs, 4 days off he does everything - if it's a weekend, they do stuff as a family.

I think you should take a day off when DH is at work and DD is at nursery. It's much harder to do once they are at school because of the lack of leave vs length of school holidays.