Agreeing boundaries for a 3 year old with husband

[jazzyh]

I’m hoping I can get a bit of advice regarding setting some agreed boundaries within the home for my 3 year old.

For a bit of background, me and my husband tend to have quite different approaches to parenting. I try to be gentle / respectful but I do believe in setting reasonable boundaries and natural consequences. My husband is very relaxed with parenting and has minimal boundaries, not so much with accepting bad behaviour, but more relating to not setting limits with screen time, junk food, late bedtime, TV, treats from the shop - generally all the ‘fun’ stuff. I don’t think I’m a particularly uptight / strict parent, but in comparison to how relaxed he is my daughter definitely sees me as strict.
This has caused a lot of issues in our relationship but that’s a whole other issue.

My daughter’s nursery expressed concerns today about my her ‘manipulating’ and going to other staff members if she hadn’t had the desired response from the first staff member. I know that in many ways this is to be expected for a 3 year old, but I’m also conscious that a template has been set at home - if I say no she will often go to her dad who will then say yes.

I feel like we need to agree some basic ‘ground rules’ between my husband and I to try and get more consistency. I think we need to keep this fairly basic / minimal for us to have any chance of it working, but I’d be interested to hear what other people set out as a bottom line with rules in the house that both parents stick with?

My dh is the same, so if he's on his own he'll let the DC do a lot more than I would in terms of food/screen time. However, we always back each other up and never contradict each other. So if I say they've had enough on screens the screen gets turned off (he may promise to play the game/watch the end another time). If he says my DC can do something I don't contradict him in front of them.

I think you need to agree some basic house rules around screen time, junk food and then agree not to contradict each other. He also clearly feels good by 'treating' your dd so find other ways he can do this. It could be playing football or having a dance off etc.

He sounds like a lazy pareny. It's always easy to give in or distract with the fun stuff. I don't think it is a different issue that this causes issues in your relationship. Is he going to be on board with the boundaries you put in place?

op you're probably gonna get a lot of responses talking about how much a shit dad your husband is but can you give an example ie a time when you've said no and he's said yes, screentime and things from the shop is quite a broad range

Youre definitely right about it making him feel good... it's just SO excessive! The thing is he's actually great at spending time with her and doing stuff too, so he really doesn't need to rely on being slack for her affection!

Don’t overrule the other parent, ask if she has asked and is she lies then discipline.

the issue is going to different people until one answers - that has to stop so solve that first

We don’t really have set boundaries for screens and treats etc but the main issue here is the fact that you say no and he says yes. If a child senses a chink in the parental armour they will naturally take advantage of it, and this had to stop or it will be awful long term.

He has to back you up and vice versa, even if you don’t agree in the moment - pick it up later on.

Also bedtime routine is bedtime routine and you both need to get it nailed. No late nights in this house!

It's a strange mix... when we've spoke about it before he identifies it himself as lazy parenting. But he also does spend lots of quality time with her, takes her out, plays dolls and dances with her and generally makes an effort so general laziness is not an issue.
If it was just a bit of spoiling I would let it slide but it can really be pretty excessive

Classic disney Dad behaviour. He wants to be the favourite.

I think that you need to be in the habit of backing each other up, so if she asks one of you, say "What did dad say?" or if you're not sure, ask the other parent first.

I don't think you always have to have the same policy or say yes/no to the same things or decide specific limits on things (like a certain number of treats per day for instance). But you should be presenting a united front and backing up/checking what the other has said. It's OK (in fact, I think it's healthy) to have different parenting styles but your daughter should see you as a team.

As an aside, I'm the more relaxed parent in our house, and it was because I wanted to be fun. I thought that by being relaxed and only saying no to things that were really critical, that my children would have this whimsical fun existence and when it was really important, they would listen! In my head, it felt like I knew what the rules were, but I was letting them break them all the time.

But children don't see it like that. When you always say yes you can [break the rule], they hear that the rule is that they CAN do that. It's not breaking a rule to them. It's just normal. The rule that is clear to you is invisible to them. And then the one time that you think oh no, actually, this time I need to be serious, they think you're being really unfair. To them, you have just introduced a totally arbitrary and pointless rule that you have never insisted on before, and they push back against it and think you're being mean and horrible.

Conversely, you have to actually establish some rules in the first place to give you something to allow them to break. So you have to say no to something 9/10 in order to make the invisible, in-your-head rule be a rule to them. Then when you do let them do it the 1/10 time, they think you're amazing.

He's definitely not a shit dad. There's a lot he does really well, and he's generous with his time with her and he does an equal amount of the mundane stuff with her.
Some examples of the problems... buying her a toy every time they go to the supermarket (not something small / cheap - normally over £15, sometimes multiple times a week). She asks this from me but I say no - she pretty much expects something to be bought for her whenever we're near a shop.
Bedtime routine with me includes watching one video on the phone while we brush teeth (she has dental problems so whilst not ideal it ensures teeth get a really good brush). Phone then goes away (despite protest) then book / sleep. She'll push with him and end up watching more on the phone, sometimes even playing games on it. This results in bedtime with Dad being about an hour later than with me.
Hope this gives a bit more of a picture

maybe you could set a reward system and a price range, say she does something good for 2 weeks in a row she can get a small treat, but don't contradict him if he says she can have something not detrimental remember he loves her just as much as you do, screentime maybe say she can have 15 minutes instead of just one video, then you're both compromising instead of just him, you have to let up just as much as he needs to stop giving in, adress the going to the other parent thing, if she wants a treat and you automatically go say no maybe go discuss it with him or something or straight up say no and if she goes and asks her dad and he says yes then just straight up either take it off her or say 'no, i already said no' but obviously nicer, yes she will tantrum but you and him are a parenting team so you're gonna have to go through that initial tantruming before she gets that you and him won't be pitted against eachother.

I think parenting works best if you have one strick and one more "relaxed" parent. But that's includes a lot of communication and teamwork.

However, from how your daughter act with the caretakers I would say she is used to that the rules are changed for her if she wanted. That doesn't work.

For example it's ok to be less strict with tv time and for your husband to allow her more. But only if it doesn't involves you. If you say no, that's it and turn it off then she shouldn't be allowed for more if she asks.

You need to have this conversation with your husband and explain that he can not overrule your decisions. He needs to understand that if you take away the tablet and say no more for today than it cannot be changed no matter what.

Not saying this is an answer but I had things I allowed or not and my husband has his things, we are fairly similar though

But unless it was really dangerous our child just learnt to follow the parent at the time

I really don't remember any issues if I allowed more than my husband less than our child has the amount of tv that parent in thr room allowed at the time

I didn't really need to feel we had to match each other same as our child had to follow nursery and grandparent rules even if we did things differently

So I would probably explain to our child again as it has been raised 'at nursery you need to...'

Wanda it's not about matching or having the same rules as each other. It's about OP says no more TV, and the DD goes to dad and says can I watch TV? And he turns it back on. This is unhelpful.

So what I've come to realise is that I don't think this is a case of my husband undermining me intentionally. I think it's because he can sometimes not use (what I feel should be) common sense to make decisions...
For example, I might say no to having sweets 30 mins before bed, but my husband was in a different room at the time of conversation. I then go upstairs to do something, return downstairs and she is eating sweets. My husband hasn't deliberately undermined me, but I've not communicated to him that I've said no because (to me) it's fairly obvious to say no to sweets this late. But this kind of thing doesn't seem to be on his radar.
Likewise with bed time, I say no to the phone because of the consequences of a late night (there definitely ARE consequences- she can be really grumpy and difficult to get up in the morning), but he just doesn't seem to register this stuff and see the sequence of events.
I've really tried to be hands off to let him learn to do things his own way, but the problem is he just doesn't seem to put the pieces together and have any desire to do things differently. I really do accept that there will be differences with how we do things, but I'd just like there to be some kind of baseline to avoid making our own lives difficult if that makes sense?

I definitely hear you about things not having to match, and I've had to do a lot of work myself to be more accepting of us doing things differently in many ways. I'm generally relaxed with tv / screen time in the day and understand we both have different perspectives on these things.
I guess where it creates problems is that because he buys her so much stuff (it genuinely is excessive) I feel like I'm having to balance it out by not buying her stuff as I look at the longer term and don't want her to have unrealistic expectations for life - but this means she perceives me as the 'no' parent.
Because I leave him to it with bedtime and it's much less boundaried she doesn't like me taking her to bed. But I then see the consequence of her having late nights and being tired in the week at nursery.
I just feel like we need more balance in these areas to prevent any more divide