how much do dads really do?

[babylove21]

sorry to pick on the guys, how much do dads help out. I'm looking at the average here. i know there will be some who are on hands 100% and others who aren't.
I live with the latter...... does anyone else? and if so how do you cope?

Dh does nothing in the way of childcare or household chores.I am a SAHM.

He does, though

Wrestling and playfighting
Taking out on trips to fair/bowling/theme park etc
Board games
Teaching how to ride a bike/play chess

Sometimes feel like I'm the boring one who nags about teeth brushing and the like, but generally we feel it works well.

I am a SAHM, part of my 'job' is to run the house so he does whatever I ask him to, but will also change nappies, clean the kitchen, hoover, sort the kids bedrooms out if he sees it needs doing he also offers to cook dinner at least once a week, sometimes twice and gets up with the eldest two DC's on weekend mornings to leave me in bed.

He is terrible at washing (sorting it or cleaning it), the bathroom (gets cleaned by the bathroom fairy) and cleaning up after dinner.

Like tattooed, I do the night shift partly because I breastfeed and partly because he has work in the morning whereas I don't. If it's a job that could do with two people i.e a sick toddler needing to be watched in the toilet whilst vomiting and a bed needing changing because it's covered in vomit, he'll get straight up and help me sort it.

I should add that if I ask for help he would do it straight away(nearly).

But I would have to ask, he doesn't notice what needs to be done otherwise. Or at least if he does he pretends not to and chooses to ignore.

dh has never got up in the night with any of our 3.

With dd1 he did loads of looking after her. ds a bit less, and dd2 is lucky if she sees him during the week. Career progression I suppose - nowadays he usually works 7am to 7pm then comes home knackered.

He doesn't do any mundane chores. But he grows vegetables and makes homebrew and toasts marshmallows on the fire with the dc and initiates bouncing competitions on the trampoline.

Now that I think about it, we have developed quite a good cop/bad cop routine over time. He does all the fun stuff and I make them eat their broccoli.

Lol at good cop/bad cop.

In our house it's more fun cop/boring cop

We both get up with DS in the morning as DH takes me to work. I get DS ready while DH does lunches etc
DH takes DS to nursery, usually picks him up from CM or MIL
I do 'evening' routine with DS unless DH has no lessons and we share it
DH plays with DS while I do other chores
We split the weekend lie in

DH a hologram in our house, never made it a secret that he disliked the baby stage and even now doesn't intervene much. Children do not see him generally between Sunday evening and Friday evening but his job which keeps him out of the house means I do not have to work and we have a fabulous lifestyle. It's like a deal with the devil. The only situation in which this would be a problem is if there was an expectation that was not being fulfilled. I always knew that I would be chief of the house and family and we are all happy with the set up. Having said that now children are older he does do runs to weekend activities and fun things with dangerous items in the garden

DH does everything i do except bfing lol

I am a CM so he does the nursery run on his 1 or 2 days off during the week. He also does the nursery duty and goes on the trips.

I did all of those things when the ds's were little as he worked all the time. Having a different job means he is physically able to be a "more hands on" parent this time round with the dd's.

He does all the "male" jobs as well as anything else i ask him to do.

He is great

serious here at all your fabulously well adjusted partnerships
babylove in terms of how you manage when they dont do enough - well, from personal experience i'd say you cope but you become very tired and very resentful.
i am a WOHM, i work if anything longer hours than dh. he does one day a week full on with ds while im at work (we work different shifts). other than that, it's me who gets ds up, changed, breakfasted, dressed etc before we go to work while dh usually frankly has a liein; me who does bath and bedtime five days a week (two days i work late into the night); me who does about 90 pc of childcare when we are both off; me who does all the boring routine stuff (remembering ds's GP appointments, buying his clothes/toys/stuff). we have a cleaner once a week for three hours, i do everything in between. i also sort out all our finances, am just in the middle of organising the builders, book our holidays, arrange what feeble remnants of a social life we have left, etc etc etbloodyc. he mows the lawn about once a month. and walks the dog about half the time (me the rest of it).
am i happy about it? nope. do we argue about it? yes. does it change? nope. at which point you ask yourself:do you end a marriage solely because your (otherwise lovable, faithful, affectionate) partner is domestically, frankly, lazy and disorganised? not really.
my advice: get a cleaner, ruthlessly outsource what you can, confront your dp if you possibly can, and if you can't get him to do more, your choice is walk out (tricky, with young children - if there's one thing harder than being a married to a lazy father, it's being a single parent) or learn to live with it with some grace.
also worth being honest with yourself about why you do it all. for instance, i miss the baby when im not with him because of the hours i do rather like the time with him when im not working. and if im honest i am also one of those people who's always busy and always finds something to do. ie, at some subconscious level i must want it to be like this. (well not quite like this...but ykwim)
and with that, i am off to screw the side back onto the bath which has been waiting a week for dh to put it back on.....

The days I work he gets them up, gives them breakfast and takes them to childminder before going to work later himself, because he can be flexible. Otherwise I do the school run and he goes to work early. I always get the clothes out or they look like he dressed them in the dark! I pick them up and do tea every day. At the weekend, we take turns to get up with them. We both cook our meal, shop, clean and play. I do the haircuts, dentists, clothes shopping, swimming lessons, friends for tea etc. I usually go to assembly / sports day and look after them when they're ill, but he will take time off/ work at home and do assemblies as well. As I'm a part-time teacher, I do school holidays. We both do bath and bed-time.

I feel it's pretty fair. He prob has more freedom than me because I'm always at work or with them. He can stop off somewhere - gym etc on way home if he has the energy. But when they're both at school I will have time during the day sometimes - will prob end up shopping / cleaning then!

Looking at this I'm thinking it's more intense when they're pre-school. I do more child stuff because I'm part-time since we had the children. Domestic stuff is shared. I'm thinking I might end up doing more domestic stuff when the children are both at school. Perhaps that is fair, perhaps not. We've managed to be equitable so far. Maybe we should just use the childminding money to get a cleaner.

Yes i am SAHM, well for now anyway.
DP works 6 days a week, sometimes 7. however that is his choice as he is SE, and we could survive if he worked 5 days.
I do feel resentful. Because of his lack of envolvement he often infuriates me by walking in and ruffling her hair flipantly to say hello, when i've just thought she might be actually nodding off. Of course he might want to see her having worked all day, but then surely if he was that interested he would make an effort to be home at weekends.
He does no chores at home and although i don't care so much about that it only adds to his long list of 'thats your job i work to earn money' statements.
So like seashells i am stuck between a hard place and a rock.
I have often contemplated walking out to force him to cope, but love my daughter too much to leave her in the hope he might figure out what to do for her. His part has been so small i think he hasnt even aquired the most basic childcare skills!!
Grrrrr Rant over. Nice to see i am not the only one in this rotten unfair situation.
And yes at all the rest of you who have harmony.
And Seashells, i dont think single parenting would be a far cry from what we are already doing!

but babylove, being self-employed is bloody hard work. He is providing for you and your dd and working very hard.
Although in an ideal world he would be doing more he is probably trying his best to provide for his family.

I am only guessing here of course.

To give you a brief overview of my history.my dp is self employed and when our sons were both babies ( there is a year between them) he worked all hours and I did all the child rearing on my own, everything. We were both exhausted.
He is still self employed and ten years later he does more than he could a ten years ago because he is established.

You need to give the guy a break.

Nice that your batting his corner kitty, and i would go with that if he didnt spend most weekends out with lads drowning in beer.
He has someone else do his ' paperwork' and most of his work is in the form of sub contracted so not as stressfull as some SE people.
i'm having to have a minor op soon and i had hoped he would arrange a day off to care for our daughter or even drive me to and fro the hospital that day, but he says he cant. however he can manage an afternoon off at short notice to go shooting.
I have had to ask his mum, and i am very grateful she said yes but i would have prefered he do it.
I just feel that he uses his work as an excuse for everything, and i dont understand why he doesnt want to help with his daughter. I spend so much time with her that on the rare ocassion i am away from her for an hour i spend half of that time thinking about her.

My dp does more than I do at the moment. I went back to work full time at the beginning of March this year when ds was 10 months. Thought we'd better start trying for dc2 and somewhat to my surprise it worked first time. So I'm feeling tired and sick. Plus I had to have a CVS test and we agreed I should rest and have the next day off taking ds to the childminder - not that it's huge amounts of work, but that it involves a lot of lifting and carrying a very large for his age baby/toddler up and downstairs etc, exactly the sort of thing you're advised not to do after that type of test.

While I was on maternity leave he was great about taking over when he got home to let me have a bit of a rest.

I am hoping to do much better with breastfeeding 2nd time round than I did with ds though, which will change the balance of what I do and make me feel less guilty about dp working so hard.

babylove I can see why you are frustrated. Although my dh works very long hours and often weekends he does prioritise spending time with us as much as possible. Because I see that he is doing his best to balance family and a very demanding job I don't mind so much about having to do everything domestic.

He hardly goes out anywhere socially. He accepts that (usually) but what we have agreed is that every couple of years or so he can go away on his own for a week or so. I prefer that to him being out a lot regularly. Could you suggest anything like that to your dh?

It's quite saddening to read about other peoples partners/husbands who just don't help out. DP and I have our own business, which is run from our workshop at the bottom of the garden. OK, he does most of the work and I do most of the childcare bit, but we don't expect any more or any less from one another. The best part is that as we are based at home, we get to spend more time with the kids when they're not at school etc. I think I am extremely lucky to have DP, he's a good'un! And I'm still smitten after 10 years!

Incidently, DP has taken both kids on holiday for 10 days, (back to England to visit family). I am loving it (obviously), first time without them for 3 and a half years, I do miss them already, but man, it's soooo quiet.....and tidy!

Feels like jack all in this house atm . I know I should be a bit more understanding of DH - he works long hours as he is self employed and our financial situation is a bit delicate at the moment. I am a SAHM, having had DS 8 weeks ago so I do all the housework and childcare of the 2 dc's. DH goes to work. And that's it.

Dh and I agreed that I would do the majority of the childcare and housework stuff, which I do and am quite happy to do actually. I hated being a SAHM first time round and couldn't wait to get back to work. This time however, I am managing to keep on top of all my duties (as I like to call them) which has made the whole SAHM thing much more enjoyable. The one thing DH said he would do was to get up for DS' feed between 3 and 4 in the morning, so as he was up in plenty of time to get ready for work (we are both pretty rubbish at mornings). This arrangement meant that I would feed DS between 12 and 1 in the morning and then could sleep through until 6-7.

Dh goes to bed between 9 and 10 and I do whatever needs doing around the house or with DS in that time, that I find difficult to do, especially with 4yo DD running about. Now hoever, this arrangement has fallen by the wayside and I am now up and down all through the night, even waking DH for work with cups of tea (and the cold shoulder treatment more often than not).

When he is here, DH sits in front of the telly or browses the internet and watches me running around sorting dinners and bedtime routines, whilst trying to juggle DS and all his baby needs. Last night, for example, I had set myself up to do the ironing (a mammouth job in this house) and DS woke up. Rather than DH getting off his arse to help (all he had to do was heat the bottle, sit and give it to DS) he started moaning about how tired he was and how his day had been far more stressful than mine and how it is unreasonable of me to expect him to come home and start "faffing about with the kids". My retort to that was that if he wanted ironed shirts in which to go to work, he would have to get off his arse and "faff" around with DS to enable me to provide this, other wise he could do his own ironing. Needless to say, DH resentfully fed DS whilst I ploughed my way through the first mountain of ironing.

DH went to bed and blatantly ignored DS when he woke 4 times in the night. I know he was doing this as he was sighing and swearing under his breath. 5:30 this morning, DS is awake again and is hungry. I wait quietly in bed, pathetically and somewhat childishly pretending to be asleep in the hope that DH will get up and sort him out, as per our "arrangement". 6:00 comes and DH decides he is late for work and starts running around the house, continuing to ignore DS who is now crying for a bottle. DH still finds the time to make endless cups of tea and browse the internet before heading off for a terribly stressful, child free day.

I do understand the pressure he is under to provide for us and I like to think that I try to make this easier on him, as I do not expect him to do any housework related things other than wash his plate, knife and fork after dinner if everything else has been washed up. I don't think it is unreasonable of me to expect however, that he does a bit more in terms of childcare.

There is a 4 year age gap between DD and DS and the main reason I was reluctant to have another baby was because I did not want to have to be the only one who ever did anything for them. DH assured me things would be different and that he would help out more. He doesn't and I resent it.

hi dannat, i can see why you are feeling so bad. but 8 weeks is so young and if your anything like me (dd 14 weeks) then your still adjusting. your hormones are all over the place which doesnt help with rational thinking.
try getting a meal ready for when you are alone. its harder for him to develop an interest in telly then or ignore you. explain to him how your feeling. give him a chance to digest it all and if it falls on deaf ears tell him you need the pc ALL evening lol. oh dont yyou just hate men.

babylove dd1 is not dh's i have been a single parent and it was actually easier. there was less washing and ironing and dinner does not have to be on the table for a certain time and no one is going to come in and have at go at you over what you havent got around to doing yet i.e. "i see that you have tried to tidy the toy corner but what else have you done?"

and dd1 would have no one to argue with if dh wasnt there as they are like two spoilt toddlers when they are together.

I am a sahm with 4 kids. DH has always come in and helped in the eve. Feels i have worked harder than him during the day so it is a joint effort for the eve so we can enjoy a half hour to ourselves before bed. Married 11 years, am sure he has been exhausted some evenings but never complains!!

oh cikecaka we all feel better now
No, seriously its great that you have such a caring husband .

My dp is not working atm and he does the garden, helps out with cooking, cleaning, getting washing in/out, playing with ds, taking him out, bit of shopping etc. He generally doesn't do nappies or bathing of ds (unless I am out) and doesn't get up with ds or put him to bed but I am happy with it like that. When he was working he would only help out a bit on weekends as his job was 40 hrs a wk manual labour, he did shifts and he was knackered all the time. I did everything but as I am a sahm didnt expect much else. I am expecting no 2 any day now and have made it clear that he may have to help out a bit more with the childcare of ds as I will be tied up with the baby! If he goes back to work I expect I will have to struggle on my own again.

I work 27 hrs a week, DH works full time approx 1 hour commute away.

I do packed lunches in the morning, he baths DD and gets her dressed, tries to do her hair and gives up so I do it!

He empties bins, puts washing on, gets it out, I cook every night and he washes up. We take it in turns to iron. The cleaner cleans the house! LOL

He doesn't do clothes/shoe shopping for DD though, that's my domain!

DH is very domesticated having had to look after the house for his working Dad from the age of 11. He can even darn socks!