Husband keeps telling me I don't cook fast enough

[Soon2under2]

We have a 16 month old and I'm currently 36 weeks pregnant. I'm truly trying my best to be the best mother while battling pregnancy aches/ insomnia and so on. Amongst other things that irritate me at the moment, my husband keeps telling me I don't cook fast enough and the meals are not ready fast enough for our toddler. I'm trying my very best to cook healthy, nutritious and tasty meals for my toddler and both of us multiple times a day and sometimes, I simply can't go faster. I'm not going to serve undercooked food and also need to wait for it to cool down a bit and cut into small pieces before giving it to my toddler. It can be stressful and is a lot of work. My husband absolutely never cooks, nor helps with cooking or preparing the table or anything. I told him multiple times not to stress me when I'm cooking, I'm doing as fast as I can. He probably rushes me because while I cook, he is looking after our toddler. Otherwise, he would be following me everywhere in the kitchen and that's not safe with knives and hot oil/ water on the stove. Today I'm particularly tired, didn't sleep well and my husband did the same thing, telling me that I'm delaying toddler's nap by not cooking fast enough. I completely lost it and told him to stfu. I feel really bad about it, about swearing at my husband in front of our toddler, but it just got too stressful for a moment and he doesn't get it/ respect. Please tell me, am I in the wrong here? Am I missing something? Should I apologize? I get so confused with hormones and lack of sleep.

@Soon2under2

what a twat.

why is he not doing his share of cooking??

you are not his house keeper or Mum. Tell he's now doing 50%. If he says he 'can't' tell him to learn. Plenty of you tube.

tell him he stops talking to you worse than hired help or he'll be living alone doing 100% of the cooking

but yeah, as almost everyone has said, your toddler doesn't need 2 cooked meals a day!! Plus you just need to put some aside for him
for the next day etc with some fresh veg is fine.

you don't need to offering up former meals to be a good mum!!

id love to know what else he's an utter tit about!!

Your husband is a fucking idiot and deserved every second of that STFU from you. I'd have cracked months ago and given him short shrift.

You're 36 weeks!! You should be putting your feet up and HE should be looking after you BOTH, at least for part of the time.

What a cunt.

Does he look after your toddler any of the rest of the time?

@Soon2under2 you could apologise for swearing but he needs to help out or shut up, preferably both.

This

Why doesn't he help with the cooking??

And had another kid !

Only cook once a day, especially in summer. Plenty of nutritious food that doesn’t need to be cooked. Also you can prepare sliced cold vegetables, hard boiled eggs, and have them in the fridge ready to serve with bread, cold potatoes, rice etc.
Tell your husband to stay out of the kitchen when you are cooking, no negotiating, no fussing!

THIS.

Mum used to cook properly and I remember as a young kid so much the gnawing pain of hunger while she was peeling and prepping vegetables - 🌽 🥒 🥕 🥔 🍆 knowing it would be a good hour plus before dinner was ready.

Kids get grumpy fast when hungry.

Could you possibly freeze meals so they can be heated up faster?

Cooking from scratch ''multiple times a day'' is making work for yourself.

How many meals are you cooking a day?
How long does it take you?

I ask this because we had a similar argument in my house. Obviously none of this might apply to you but just incase it does

DW got a lot of anxiety when pregnant with our second. It manifested in wanting (understandably) to be a really perfect parent especially in term of food

She was providing home cooked breakfast lunch and dinner which to be honest was impossible to keep up. She had a lot of guilt about using things that were processed, and set her self too high standards

It was great food however that she was in the kitchen a lot, and often the food was super late. It came to a head when we had been swimming, came home and was preparing muffins for lunch with some roasted veg (she wanted time alone to do so) Which is fine but Dc was incredibly hungry, and incredibly grumpy, and simply wasn't going to wait for the roasting and then the cooling. We ended up having an argument about having quick alternatives eg if a sandwich with a bit of jam/peanut butter was OK as an answer.

In the end we had to have a separate conversation about it. We settled somewhere in the middle, where we don't do big dinners anymore (it's all batch cooked) because we were losing the evening to her cooking, and the food was often out of routine. Lunch eventually became less complicated as kids aged, and school provided. We also made sure we had some healthy quick alternatives to have if they were reaching a crisis point

I know this might not apply to you but my wife really did have a lot of anxiety about acceptable foods and I hadn't realised how deepseated it was until that point
She really didn't believe that you can give packet food, sandwiches for lunch etc and still be a good mum

It's because he's having to look after his child when he could be going more important man things.
Please don't put up with this! You are doing brilliantly and caring for your toddler.

This!!!

Interested to know what you are typically cooking each day!

It's also worth saying that i wasn't being the other useless mum. Cooking was her thing away from the kids and important to her.

I'd also say she'd often say "it only takes 15 min" but all recipes like that massively underestimate so if you're boiling brocoli , it doesn't take long to Cook but the time the water takes to boil, then it takes to cook and cool means that often it felt like an age if you're looking after an over hungry baby. The veg prep always says 5 min but always take forever

This thread is the reason why there is the cartoon trope of women dinging men around the head with a frying pan.

Dont feel guilty op, he needed to hear it.

My husband absolutely never cooks

If mine choose to never cook he would need to live off raw food because I wouldn't be doing it for him. Time to knock that one on the head.

Aside from the obvious about your DH.
No-one needs 3 cooked meals a day. One is enough and even that can be simple. A balenced nutritious meal for a toddler does not have to be cooked or hot. Bread, protein and fruit or veg is fine.
At 36 weeks pregnant with a toddler standards have to slip.

Are you making elaborate recipes? Even if you are you can make double and re-heat the next day.

why are you cooking multiple times per day op?

cooking only needs to happen once per day

Firstly this sound like an annoying situation

id first ask the person critical to show you, then you can model their way of doing it

oh the person critical has no fucking iddea how to do it…

look at taming twins batch cooking and slow cooker meals.

these are meals that can be prepared on grocery shopping day, popped in “dump” bags and placed in slow cooker at 6am ready for 12 noon to eat. The slow cooker will cook then hold warm for a couple of 3 hours - so will be ok for tea time.

one per day and double mixture and freeze half. Then get out of freezer at 8pm the night before and heat in microwave for lunch or dinner

I'd like to see a man telling me to cook faster, he wouldn't be alive for long.

Are you cooking a hot meal in the day. I have never cooked in the day for lunch. Apart from Christmas and the odd Sunday lunch.

I'm sorry your husband turned out to be a total incompetent, but don't worry, if he can't learn patience, how to look after a toddler and how to cook you can ltb and have 1 fewer child to look after!

He needs to batch cook at least a couple of times a week. If you have a freezer you don't even need to cook once a day. Toddlers cannot wait for meals. But he needs to organise and help.

I'm trying my very best to cook healthy, nutritious and tasty meals for my toddler and both of us multiple times a day
that sounds very laborious, really not needed very day.

Tell him to fuck off and do it himself if that's his attitude. Honestly, YABU to put up with this sort of behaviour though, OP. Stop being a doormat.