Sharing the childcare post ML - DH won't engage with me

[AndBingoWasHisNameOh]

The short version:

DH and I have a 9 month old. I am on maternity leave but am returning to the workplace full time in 5 weeks. We have recently hired a nanny who starts in a few weeks time but I am concerned that responsibilities for being there every morning and evening and covering her holiday is going to fall to me and I?d like advice on how to avoid this.

The longer version (sorry for how long it is but want to avoid drip feeding):

My job is pretty senior professional role and I am well paid. DH works in a different field at a comparable level of seniority but is paid quite a bit more than me. Both of our jobs can involve quite long hours and during my maternity leave DH has been able to come home from work essentially when he felt ready and sees little of the baby during the week. I currently do nearly every night waking (several a night) and am breastfeeding (although baby will take a bottle). DH also goes when he wants week nights and weekends, far more than me. DH is very quick to tell me how very tired he is even though he doesn?t get up at nights and moves to the spare room on the odd occasion he is disturbed by the baby and I find the competitive tiredness frustrating. He has not looked after the baby for more than about 3 hours at a time and that has only been occasional and I normally get texts asking me when I?m going to be home...

Whilst I?ve been on ML I haven?t minded the above (too much) but I?ve stressed to DH that it can?t go on like that when I?m back at work ? that he will have to share night wakings, nanny handovers etc and he goes ?yeah yeah sure? and rolls his eyes at me like I?m being ridiculous.
Anyway, our nanny has some prebooked holidays coming up in the next few months and I?ve tried several times to discuss with him how we?re going to cover them. And basically he won?t talk about it. Apparently it ?will be fine? and I need to ?stop stressing?. We have very little family help available to us (none locally) and so one of us will need to be off work or we need to try and make other arrangements for care for the baby. He also is reluctant to discuss how we will manage one of us getting home for the nanny in the evenings. I can?t help but come away with the impression that he views all of this as my problem rather than OUR problem. And this can?t go on ? whilst I will of course want to see our baby whenever I can but I simply cannot guarantee that I can get away on time every single time ? he needs to pull his weight and do his fair share of childcare.

Generally DH is not an arse but he seems to have a blind spot here and seems to expect the flexibility he?s had for the past 9 months to continue. Downsizing my job is not an option.

Any advice?

I think this situation has in part been created by the roles you've taken over the last 9 months. He hasn't pulled his weight while you've been on maternity leave and has got used to being allowed to think of the baby as solely your responsibility. Whenever a baby is born but only the lifestyle of one parent changes its heading for trouble.

He needs a massive wake up call and fast!

I would divide the night wakings, perhaps you one week and him the next or alternate days. The same with who gets home in time for the nanny assuming neither of you have irregular late meetings. If that's the case then you need to decide each week but make sure it equal. Same goes for holidays, sickness etc. Keep a record and make sure its equal.

Yep, he wants you to not stress about it, as in, not to discuss it with him because he wants you to do it all. Tell him that how it comes across and he needs to realise that's not acceptable.

I would ask him would he like to pick which days he's doing the mornings or afternoon handovers, or would he like you to just inform him? Also ask would he like to pick which of the nanny's holidays he's covering, or again, would he prefer you just tell him?

Then do it. Make it clear you won't cover the slack if he's not bothered to feed this info to his assistant.

wthmum. Why on earth do you put up with that?

There has been some studies showing that when women go on ML and take on all the HW/childcare, this is how it stays when they go back to work

• even when the HW was equally shared before hand
• even when both partners work full time
• even when both partners have similar ish jobs...

OP you be able to get it back in balance, you will have to fight I am afraid. Look at it from your DH pov. It is so much easier if you take all the responsibility.

My DH referred to looking after the kids while I went on a course as 'babysitting'and sighed that he might just be able to do it. I may have shouted spoke very clearly to him while I explained that he cannot babysit, he can only parent our children.

He works away a lot so I am a single parent half the time, and he can sleep through children screaming at night so I do that bit. Through lots of shouting and nagging support I have encouraged him to be more self-sufficient and responsible for the kids and we are a team, most of the time.

Yes was married to a similar man I ran myself ragged sorting house child care etc. he used this spare time to have an affair, because I had no time for him.

He hasn't changed DD (8) cried the other night as she hates going to Daddy's as she has to do all the organising!
Stamp this hard now or you could live to regret it.

Lots of posts, thank you.

DH grew up with a reasonably traditional family set up. His mother stated at home until he was 5 but his father did a very much 9-5 job and I think was pretty hands on.

I don't think this is a particularly gender thing for him. Simply that it is easier for him if I do all the heavy lifting.

Someone asked who wanted kids - it was much more him than me. We had a rocky road getting where we are and our baby is much loved by both of us.

Night wakings are an issue as the baby expects me and my boobs and so won't settle for DH. Last night he got late from a work trip and let the front door slam hard which woke the baby. Having been asleep 30 minutes myself I ended up having to get up myself to deal with it as well as the usual ones.

DH did say that he found it hard when I was bf to get involved as I always had to be there (hated expressing). I think it left him feeling a bit out of the loop and he needed permission and encouragement to start his parenting at 10-12 months.

Maybe your DH doesn't know what to do and where to start. My DH was worried that he'd interfere with what I was doing to be fair he did a bit. Maybe you have to leave them alone and let him get on with it his way, in order to give him confidence?

DOnt want to hijack someone else's thread but to those who ask what i get out of it, tbh, i don't know. I guess i dont want the children to come from a broken home, and dont want to have to share custody (DH would try to get sole custody - what a joke!). As it stands, DH just gets the fun bits, like taking the children to the park on a weekend or something, i get the stroppy, whining, organising, feeding, bit - you know the bit that is called being a parent - he is just great fun dad, while i am boring mum making them do their homework. BTW i do not resent my DC and love them more than anything and i dont feel like looking after them is a chore, i just wish DH could take some of that responsibility

I'm lucky in that my job can be done flexibly so i can work from home, or one of a couple of different offices and can stop at 5 and then do more in the eveing when kids are in bed, but its all so tiring

OP - please dont end up like me. Your DH needs to treat this seriously and take some responsibility. Maybe you need to tell him that if he can;t or wont then you refuse to go back to work - would that buck him up a bit?

Your posts have made me so sad wfhmumof2 :(

wfh - the fact that you've even had a conversation about custody is pretty telling tbh :(

Having been asleep 30 minutes myself I ended up having to get up myself to deal with it as well as the usual ones

Why did you have to? What would have happened if you'd left it to him?

Does he have a PA? If so, can you liaise with them to make sure his diary is blocked those days? When I was a PA, my boss's wife's PA and I used to have to speak to each other re various childcare arrangements.

I wouldn't do that actually caurniebred, he's already acting like a child with no responsibility, he needs to sort this stuff out for himself. He doesn't need yet another woman (probably) sorting his life for him.

I agree - ok for a quick change to the arrangements but not to set up the principle of sharing arrangements.

I think sorting the night wakings might be a good first step. Unless you really like bfeeding in the night, or you really want to, then 9 months is
a good time to persuade dc that they need to sleep through. And it is a really good idea for the non-milk provider ie DH to do this. I went back to work about a similar time, and beforehand we had a whole month of only DH going to the baby when they woke in the night. It took about a week for the baby to be OK with no milk, and about a month for me to be confident that they were OK with no milk and so would settle with either of us without feeding.

When does the nanny start? If she starts before you go back to work then try to get a two-parent routine going as soon as she arrives. The very last thing you want when you start back is to have a head full of childcare stuff - if you can manage to have done that 3 weeks before it is brilliant.

re bfing, I found that when dc2 was about 6 months old, he needed comfort and reassurance more than food. Of course, bfing was giving comfort and reassurance and sometimes it is easier to do that that standing at the side of the cot for 20mins.
It has been hard but not really because dc2 was expecting me and a boob but because DP had to want to get up first (which starts with hearing the child's crying ).

But even that is actually a red herring. He can be a hands on dad, take responsibility for his dc even if your bfing and doing all the night feeds. At this age, there are so many other things to think about (say looking after him during the weekend whilst you have a well deserved afternoon off, preparing some baby food in advance, settling him to bed for his naps, knowing when he needs a nap, changing him, thinking of baby appropriate days out for the family... The list is endless)
For example, the fact he wasn't careful with door just shows he doesn't have to suffer the consequences of waking your dc up. You will deal with it. I can't see why you had to get up as your dc was obviously not hungry yet so cold have been settled down by his dad who woke him up in the first place!

wfh :(:(
You have a lot more problems than just an uncooperative husband there.

You can retrain your caveman, or alternatively it is possible to have more than one childcarer, for example an additional p/t or temp nanny, if you have to have holidays covered and so on. Expensive, but possible.

We will have to have a think about mightwakings. I'd like to continue to bf where I can but I'm also concerned it will continue to make me default carer and it has made me temptd to stop Awful to think like that.

PooPoo from experience DD would get more and more upset. Hence if we want to tackle night wakings it needs to be in a consistent manner. Currently it is a bit of a vicious circle in that baby expects me so won't settle for DH but how will that improve if he doesn't do more?

Wfh your posts are a salutary warning not to let this slide

There's a lot to be said for freezing some milk and finding a reason to be away overnight, if you want to hit the point home hard.

I stopped bfing at 6.5 months because I went back to work at 7.5 months.

I had thought about continuing but realistically I couldn't express at work and my supply wasn't good enough to keep going just with morning/evening feeds.

I think weaning your baby now is going to help you gently introduce the fact that once you go back to work, you have equal responsibility for your baby.

I'd draw up a rota if I were you and present it to him, saying that i.e. you thought that Tuesdays would be good for him to hand over to the nanny in the morning because you have a board meeting that day. Similarly, on thursdays, you know he usually does X and you can probably get out on the dot of 5pm so that's going to be your day of getting home at a reasonable hour.

It feels a real shame if I have to give up bf solely to force DH into doing more.

The bf and settling at night thing - I've put what we did below - and we stuck with me doing the feeds and wakes when I went back to work.

DH is much more of an night owl than me, so I fed DS1, and then we had some Us time. Then I went to bed, and any wakes before about 12, DH dealt with, as we were fairly sure by that point he wasn't waking for milk having recently stuffed his face! I used to hear quite a lot of these, but got to stay in bed.

After DH came to bed, I did the rest of the night wakes - and he really just didn't hear. When DS2 came along, I shared with DS2, and DH dealt with all DS1 wakes, he had the baby monitor on full in his room, and I often heard DS1 before DH got to him!

I digress. I did the night wakes, and bf. DH then did the mornings - baby came for a feed, and then went with Daddy for nappy, clothes and breakfast, while I dozed again.

Come weekends, I caught up on the sleep - we each got a lie in one morning (tho I get all bank holidays), and I also go for an afternoon nap (still do quite often!), while DH is in sole charge.

It wasn't brilliant, but it worked for us. I also didn't feel both of us being awake in the middle of the night was worth it - I couldn't sleep through the night wakings if they were anything more than a 5 min grumble - so the thought of DH dealing with it while I lay in bed seemed stupid!

Thats turned epic - basically, find a way that works for your family. But yes, DH needs to pull his weight. I follow the "this is whats happening" route most of the times, after a request of a copy of his diary for the holiday weeks required!