Parenting when feeling unwell - what is fair?

[Giraffe24]

Looking for advice as I’m struggling to work out what is fair in this situation, and am aware I’ve not always handled it in the best way.

DH and I have a 1 year old DC. Once a month or so, DH comes down sick with sinusitis or something similar (unpleasant and worse than a cold, but not incapacitating). When this happens, his preference would be to sleep it off in bed. If it’s a work day, he can take a sick day and it doesn’t affect me. But if it’s at a weekend, that’s when the problem arises.

Before having DC it would be fair enough for him to spend a weekend day in bed, but IMHO now that we have DC the boundaries around this have shifted. DH works quite long hours during the week (whereas I work part time and do more childcare during the week), so the weekend days are really important for us all to spend time together, and for me to relax a bit knowing that he’s there to share responsibilities with me. I therefore feel that if he’s under the weather on a weekend day, rather than going to bed he should try be in the living room with us - happy for him to base himself on the sofa and not exert himself too much, but that way I’d at least have a bit of adult company.

We’ve talked about this several times and he does understand my point that now we have DC, the threshold for going to bed ill is higher. What tends to happen, though, is that the next time an illness comes round, he will stay asleep in bed until I come and get him up. This means we inevitably re-hash the whole conversation around what is fair in these circumstances, and I often end up quizzing him about exactly how ill he is feeling (which I’m aware is not great of me). He then does get up, and manages to be in the living room with us, but has said it feels like I am annoyed with him for being unwell (which to be honest I think is somewhat true).

I guess my question boils down to, what is fair with a young child when you are unwell, but not incapacitatingly so? Obviously if he had D&V and could not leave the bathroom that would be completely different!

I would like to add for context that aside from this issue, he is a very involved parent.

This is important information.

But I do think this thread is really tough to give a judgement on because as you rightly realise OP, it really depends on how unwell your DP actually is.

I agree that with no kids it's fine to spend weekends full of cold sleeping and laying on the sofa watching films and eating whatever you want etc. That's like what me and DH used to do pre-kids and honestly one of the hardest and worst parts of being a parent imo is being unwell and just not being able to do that. If one of us is very acutely unwell we may spend most of the time in bed and only surface occasionally for urgent things or whatever where possible/where needed but that would be very rare. For example a short term, intense tummy bug for a day or two, or the very worst couple of days of a very bad flu-like illness.

Regular run off the mill sinusitis/bad cold type thing we would expect the other person to pick up more to allow some extra time to rest and recover, and we would not do anything non-essential. We'd pick everything back up again when everyone's well. Neither of us would be hiding in bed for days with a moderate illness like that. We would perhaps have a lay in, and go to bed early, maybe even a couple of hours nap in the afternoon, so other parent would do a bit more childcare/chores than the usual split to facilitate that. But not completely opt out of it all and there would be an expectation to continue doing some minimal level of domestic work at least to assist. Less so childcare as better to keep distance anyway. We are a family of 5 so acutely aware of how impactful it is if illnesses pass all around us so that's a major consideration for us.

I do think your DH sounds like he needs to look at improving his immune function though. Healthy diet, healthy weight, good sleep (as far as possible), exercise, vit D, vaccinations and probably most importantly - good hand hygiene. Once a month for that type of illness is understandable for a nursery aged child with limited immune system and unable to practice good hand hygiene but your DH shouldn't really be getting unwell that often on a regular basis, I'm sure there's changes he can make.

It’s difficult to compare as I’m not getting ill so frequently, but generally I’m more likely to soldier on, or if I want to rest for a bit I’d set a time limit on this in advance. I take your point that this is something I need to stop doing, as I’m potentially making a martyr of myself/holding him to an unreasonable standard as a result.

The GP’s response to sinusitis was basically “go and get xyz medicine from
the pharmacy”, which I think has fed into me not viewing it as particularly serious, but I appreciate what posters have said that it can be much more painful than you realise.

I just want to say that I appreciate all the responses, I have reflected and realised my expectations are unreasonable. From
now on at the first sign of this sort of illness I will make plans to take DC out for the majority of the day so that DH has time to rest, rather than waiting around to see what happens and getting into the cycle of handling it badly that I’ve been in until now.

does he use daily nasal sprays and do steam baths (head over a bucket daily) when DD suffered with did a salt nasal cleanse daily (get from pharmacy) daily anti histamine (to avoid allergies although this is to be avoid if do t have allergies) and weekly steam inhalation also had a dehumidifier in her room to help as well. Then when it started to appear use a stronger nasal spray a decongestant (but only when it started get worse)
around 18 months of this and she grew out of it for the most part!

I think he should at least be doing the salt nasal cleanse everyday we used Sterimar

I had D&V after Xmas… lying on the sofa trying to sleep with a toddler is not fun. You get no sleep

Soldier on

That’s not what op said . He comes down with something WORSE than a cold .

@Giraffe24

Ours are 3&4 now and and it took about 2 years of parenting before we got to grips with ‘what happens when we are unwell’ and stopped arguing and resenting each other.

You have to figure out your threshold. Both of you need to be on the same page. It’s still fine to need to be in bed but the threshold is much higher than pre kids. To take to bed you have to be really very unwell and unable to push through. You have to have already taken paracetamol and any other obvious over the counter drugs to help and the other person has to be feeling significantly healthier than you do and able to manage alone. We have a ban on ‘pushing through’ work days and then hibernating in bed all weekend/days off. DH was awful for this, would crawl through work and then expect to lie in bed all weekend. NO WAY! We have a severely disabled child too so we actually need the help of two adults! If you can manage at work you can manage at home. If you can’t manage take a sick day!

I don't know how your DHs sinusitis affects him (obviously) but I had it for months and had some horrendous migraines when all I could do was lie in a dark room. I remember I was having a dispute with my phone company at the time and they called me up. Just talking on the phone was excruciating. I would get him down his GPs for some effective migraine relief if this is the case.

He needs to start taking vitamin C and D and possibly zinc and magnesium

Is he doing enough to combat these recurrent bouts of sinusitis? Does he do nasal rinsing/steaming etc? There's lots he could do to help himself.

Sickies need to be resting in their room until as well as possible. Why risk the children getting sick?

Bring food, drink and Panadol to them
.
Keep sick Dad out of common zones and sleeping as much as possible in the hope for a quick escape from the illness, for the whole family.