How do you dive household tasks?

[Catscoffeeandsleep]

I’m about to increase my hours from 15 to 25 per week, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed trying to juggle everything. My partner works a standard full-time job and also teaches Jiu-Jitsu four days a week, plus trains or does weights on the other days.

At the moment, I handle about 95% of the housework, meals, all the animals care, getting our child ready for nursery, and all the day-to-day tasks while working part-time. With my hours increasing, I’m wondering how others manage when both partners have busy schedules.

How do you and your partner divide household tasks and childcare? Any tips for staying on top of it all?

I work about 7 hours less a week than my husband but we would divide things up. We both get kids ready in the morning and he does 2 of the drop offs. Both do the shopping and cooking. Split the evenings into one doing bedtime and one doing kitchen tidy. I do all the clothes washing and the child admin, he does all the garden and a portion of the household admin (split between us with no obvious system).
I have a hobby once a week so he does both bedtime and kitchen that night, and I would try to get out to see friends or for a walk another night.
No animals!
We concentrate on keeping the kitchen presentable every day and the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, big tidy and clean once a fortnight.
Your split seems very unfair and I would feel overwhelmed I was working and doing what you do. And resentful! Hope you can have a discussion about parity, but it is concerning if he hasn't seen how unequal things are already- does he believe these should all be done by you?

Did your partner do all the ju-jitsu and training before you had a child?

Well for a start he probably needs to not be out training jiu-jitsu and then training/weight lifting every day.

We work the same hours but I have a longer commute, so am out the house 1.5hrs before him. He does all school drop offs, any other childcare is equal - we are together every weeknight and every weekend, except for anything social. I do all cooking and cleaning of bathrooms and kitchen. He does all laundry and dishes. We share all the tidying, hoovering and gardening.

You need to ask your partner what he is going to do to make the rest of his life happen! How is he going to make sure he, you and dc have clean clothes, food to eat and keep the place clean and tidy.

I'd explain that you're happy to help him and will gladly do the bins every week.

Start by picking the things you prefer to make it easier. I like cooking, my husband prefers clearing away so that’s an easy split.

We have a cleaner once a week, so no cleaning needed. We both do washing overnight during the week. Food shopping all online, cleaning stuff, pet food, anything bulky is set up on repeat order so we don’t have to think about it.

I do nursery drop offs, husband does pick up and bedtimes. He also cleans the litter trays and does the bins. I do finances (but that’s mostly an annual job, so I get off pretty lightly!!).

We don’t do any chores at weekends or the evenings (apart from cooking and loading the washing machine), so once bedtime is done, the weeknights are free. Weekends are completely free.

We both work 45hrs a week, there’s no stress, definitely don’t feel overworked with household chores, it’s a pretty easy life!!

His hobbies are irrelevant. You both get equal solo leisure time. What he chooses to do with his is up to him. Here DH does all cooking and grocery shopping,, and some laundry. The cleaner cleans and irons. I do most of the laundry, cook when he’s away for work, supervise homework, and handle the (large) garden.

DH gets the kids up, does their breakfast, makes me a coffee, empties the dishwasher, dresses the kids and takes them to nursery.
If it’s a wfh day he will hoover and or put on a wash and hang it out.
I do the food shopping and cooking dinner, DH cleans most of the dishes away. Take turns to bath kids and get them ready for bed.
DH often puts the kids clothes away, I clean the bathroom and am the one to do thinks like buy new vests for the baby, sort their seasonal clothes out etc.

So he is out every day training or weight lifting ? Wow he must be fit as a butcher dog! Does he not think you should have equal time out to pursue your hobbies ?

Going to be difficult to divide chores when he’s never actually at home to do any.

I don’t know any parents of nursery-aged children who do a hobby every single day. Not one. That needs to be cut back, to allow for more of the load to be shared.

It’s not forever. But it is for now.

I do mornings with DC 3 days a week when he is out for work by 7am. He does the other 2 days when I'm out to work. I work fewer hours and do pick-up/off to activities 2 days a week. GPs do one day and he does 2.

I do all laundry related work and most cleaning. He does everything food related including planning, shopping and cooking.

We alternate who does bedtime and we alternate weekend mornings so both get a bit of a lie-in.

In our house, one tidies up whilst the other makes dinner. Animals we sort between us. Childcare is whoever is at home that morning/night.

Both have hobbies, the wife more than me, but you just schedule it in.

"My partner works a standard full-time job and also teaches Jiu-Jitsu four days a week, plus trains or does weights on the other days".

He is not going to be around to do more chores given that he's already hardly at home. That is why you've ended up doing most of the life admin and that is also because he regards that as your job, not his.

What is his take on this, what has he suggested?

When I increased my hours at work we had a discussion about it beforehand about how much less I would be doing and who was going to do it. If my DH did not pick up the slack it was never going to work.

It sounds like he gets off very lightly with 5%. Remember that increasing hours is also increasing time out of the house, travel times etc. When are you working the extra 5 hours, on different days or longer days?

For example I worked 1 extra day but 2 of my days became 8 hour days so I had to take a lunch break which actually meant 10 hours work took me away from the home for 14 hours.

When the DC were at school, I worked 36 hpw; dh worked 70hpw.

DH brought home multiples of my earnings. I did everything at home and still had more free time than him. However we had a cleaner/ironer, gardener, window cleaner and au-pair when they were under 12.

During my first two years back at work, when they were 5 and 8, I worked part-time. Nothing is more exhausting. Because you are part-time, you think you should achieve far more than you can. Full-time, you can justify more sub-contracting and have a lunch break