considering having another baby, 1 of my concerns is dh lack of patience

[thegardener]

Dh gets really wound up by ds at times i just wonder how dh will cope with a baby aswell. He has offered to help out with housework & cooking whilst i'm pregnant & upto when the baby is a few months old, which is great and i really appreciate his kind offer of support. Also how will i cope with having ds(who would possibly be 2.6 ish) and a baby and a irritable dh.

Am i being silly over this? How do you cope?

It always worries me when someone says something like their dh "offered to help with housework and cooking". Surely having children together means that BOTH parents are going to have to pull their weight for the next 18 odd years!

Having babies, as you know, takes two people and both people should ideally be in agreement about having children. Does your dh want more children?

yes he does want another baby but has said it's my choice at the end of the day.

I'm a sahm, i do mostly all household stuff & look after ds, dh comes back from work around 6 & see ds for about 3o mins till he goes to bed, in the am he sees him for about the same. At weekends we do things together.
dh cooks occasionally & will do ironing/cleaning if i ask - won't just do it.
When we have another baby dh has said he'll help but he said you won't want much help for very long but until we're in that boat, i think we'll have to wait & see.
I feel that because i'm a sahm he thinks that i should do everthing, should i be?

It should be a joint decision - I would be worried at him saying 'it's your choice at the end of the day' - almost as though you'll be the one who has to do everything so it's up to you if you can cope.

Helping with housework and cooking should go without saying really. When he's there he should help. Why are his working hours 8 until 6 (or whatever) but yours are 24 hours a day?? How is that fair??

I'd also want to see him prove himself with your ds first - getting wound up by a baby/toddler? Why? How will he cope with two little ones causing havoc like all children do...?

If you have doubts don't do anything until he does enough to make your doubts go away.

He has offered to help out with housework & cooking whilst i'm pregnant & upto when the baby is a few months old, which is great and i really appreciate his kind offer of support.

You sound as if you're talking about a neighbour or a distant relative, not your dh! Don't you yourself find the wording of your post a tiny bit disturbing?? Take yourself off on holiday for a long weekend, leave him with your ds AND the housework AND the cooking for a while and then start to contemplate the new baby issue. And some assertiveness training too.

I am a sahm and I consider the time that I am at home with my ds to be the time where I look after him and do as much housework as poss - i.e. laundry, ironing, hoovering, home accounts, making meals, looking after sick ds, taking ds to a couple of classes (ok they are partly for my sanity).

But when dh gets home, the evening chores - putting ds to bed, cooking, doing dishes, is split 50/50 - the same on weekends. I never get to "go home" from my job and I rarely get to "get out of the house" as my job is based in the house. I am lucky because dh understands that I need a break too, and he understands that the home and the children are his (and therefore his responsibility) too.

Thanks for your comments, it has put things into perspective, a lot to think about. I certainly will be doing things a little bit different from now on and will wait for the right time for both of us before having another.

My birthday is soon we're going round to his parents on the sat as they're celebrating a relatives big birhday & a counsin is travelling a long way to be there too and trying to fit in seeing my parents for a few hrs on sun my birthday. Dh asked what i'd like to do i originally decided on a takeaway, dh asked if i would like to go out with my friends at all but we have decided to go out ourselves instead. Now i feel it's pressure as we will be asking my parents to babysit (they already have a few weeks ago)which isn't a problem with them or us, but pil. pil are busy as it happens, but would rather have my parents babysitting as it's easier - they live round the corner, pil live 50 mins away and i find pil very difficult at times so if we are going out i would prefer not to have to to see them. They do offer to babysit i.e anniversaries etc.so would feel i have to take them up on their offers even though it would spoil the evening out. I do realise that some people would love to have babysitters and would perhaps see this as i'm being ungrateful but they can be so difficult and overbearing it isn't really a break if they babysit.

What should i do, go out with friends and leave dh to babysit and have a romantic meal in on my birthday eve, i think thta's really what i'd like to do.