Just wondered what your opinions were on this. How to manage DP's expectations.

[MinesADecaff]

DP and I are expecting our first baby. He has a DD who's 5 and who lives with us about 60% of the time.

Three days a week it's his responsibility to arrange childcare for her after school. At the moment a childminder picks her up and then DP collects her on his way back from work. I work FT too.

But now he's started talking about how, when I'm on maternity leave, I can start picking up DSD from school. But I really don't want to. Especially not in the first few months when I'm still getting to grips with being a new mum and feeling knackered.

I don't have any family or friends where we live - everyone is at least an hour away. So I'd be on my own with new babe plus DSD until DP got home.

I'm not completely averse to the idea once I've got a routine established with the new baby and I've found my feet a bit. But I've got a feeling that DP is going to be expecting me to be doing the school run the first Monday after he goes back from paternity leave.

AIBU to say that for the first six months or so I just want to be able to bond with my baby and find my feet as a mum without having to provide childcare for his DD too?

"It is ignorance because a lot of step parents go in to their lives with their partners without a crystal ball. They might not have even considered having children at the time when they first got together, let alone having to share their time with their baby with another child."

That may be the case at the start of the relationship.
But once you begin to plan a family with a man who is already a parent you make the choice; you will be sharing your 'baby time' with another child. If this is unacceptable to you, then yes, you should only contemplate a child with a childless man.

No pearly we shouldn't be a mother figure. Most of us are told explicitly by our dp that we are not to parent their child with exw. We are not mums or mother figures to these kids, we are extra adults who are involved in limited parts of their lives. The.kids themselves don't want us to try and act like or replace their actual parent.

I am guessing u r not a step mum?

I always get the chills on these threads. Crap like this is what keeps women in awful marriages, the thought of their child ending up with a stepmother like the ones on here.

I grew up with half siblings ( though they are my full siblings to me) never had any of this rubbish, we were indeed treated exactly the same.

It would be impossible - not to mention peculiar - to treat a 5 yr old and s new born baby 'exactly the same'.

A 5 year old needs a reliable, safe and interesting place to be after school where she will get a chance to wind down and a decent meal. Nowhere does op indicate that the cm isn't providing this.

I am a mum and a stepmum. My DD1 is going to stay in nursery FT once DC2 is born. We saved the money up and DH is taking and collecting her. We want to keep the routine for DD1 and if I have a nightmare baby like DD1 was, then DD1 will not have to witness my mini-breakdowns where I would just cry because she refused milk on/off for weeks on end. DD1 will spend time with mummy when hopefully some kind of order is in place and she is not caused any distress.

DSS is not my son, and I am not his parent. The only way that would happpen is if I adopted him or I got PR. Until I have the right to parent him as my own and make decisions for him like a parent I will always be his stepmum. I care for him a lot but I can't say I love him as my own.

I also think if as a parent you go on to have children with someone else, you shouldn't expect your partner to take on your parental responsibilities. Whether male or female. DH has changed his job/hours in order to spend more time with all his children.

OP why not suggest your DH goes on leave and looks after all his children so he can save a few quid at the childminder? Surely his DD would much rather he was picking her up and not you?

The law has changed, fathers can share your maternity leave. DH has spent 6 months with DD1 as did I. He told DSS if the law wouldve let him he wouldve done the same for him.

Some men need to step-up more, seems like having a second wife means less parental responsibility for them. If bio mum is not able, then second wife can plug the gap and I can carry on with minimal disruption to my world. They've got it all worked out in their heads and don't even have the decency to talk to you about it and have the opportunity to make mutual decisions.

I am just glad that I am not a step child, you always appear to be a 'cuckoo in the nest' as people argue over who does what and whether they have to do it, whereas their younger sibling is the 'proper' child of the family and is treated normally. It must be very difficult being a visitor when you are living there for 60% of your time, but still an 'outsider'.
It must be very hard to live with the fact that, ideally, the step mother would prefer a life without you and be able to be a 'first time' mother without the irritations of school runs, Brownies, play dates , whatever.

Exotic, I'm sure no adult in their right mind deliberatley makes a child feel unwelcome, step or otherwise.
In my experience resentment builds up when the new partner is being used by the dsc parent to offload responsibility in any shape or form, but without getting the moral authority to parent said dc.
My dsc had a nanny and they loved her. Why? Because both parents depended on her and welcomed her and made her feel respected and appreciated.
When I told my dh once he was treating me like a childminder, he said that his kids had loved their nanny and I should be happy to get the same response. Wtf? Needless to say, I was not receiving the same warm fuzzy feelings.... Because I was being vilified by their mum (not ow, btw).

Please don't make the sm responsible for the bad parenting skills of the parents.

"Please don't make the sm responsible for the bad parenting skills of the parents."

Absolutely not. No.

But everybody needs to take responsibility for a 6 year old, and the building of a relationship between that 6 year old and her new sibling. And if the child's biological parents aren't prepared to do that, then sombody has to. It's no use saying that it shouldn't be the step mothr's job (although I do think it should be at least partly). If it doesn't happen then apart from anything else, there's hell to pay down the line. It's not a situation where you can say "It's not my job so I'm not doing it"

All the talk about treating your stepdaughter "equally" is really fuck

Sorry, talk of treating her "equally" is really fucking weird.

In what way is being told it is now your job to pick a child up from school and provide childcare several hours a day about any kind of equality?

The woman having her time filled with work by other people is certainly not being treated equally.

You can't meaningfully treat a 6 year old and a newborn equally. It makes no fucking sense to demand that of anyone.

When I've had newborns the older children have had far more care from their father for a time because I was busy breastfeeding and providing the constant care that small babies need from their mothers.

And my older children didn't still have two other parents to care for them.

They had to deal with getting less attention from their own mother from a period and more from their father because the family had changed.

I left DD1 with her CM a couple of days when DD2 was born for continuity, to give her time away from the baby, and to give DD2 and me time together without a toddler setting the agenda.

I didn't use any childcare while on maternity leave with DD3 because I preferred to save the money. But no fucker told me that being off work with my baby suddenly made me responsible for all the childcare for all the children.

I am not a stepmother, but I find the demand that a woman who marries a man with children enter a fantasy world where she has to pretend that a child that has two living and involved parents is somehow magically her child too is bizarre and unreasonable.

And it's not even consistent because the "equality" demanded of the stepmother here is nothing that would, or could, ever be asked of anyone else.

The only way to make sure everything is "equal" between the older girl and Round's first baby is to go back in time and make sure the SD's mother had to do school runs on her maternity leave.

My children didn't have anything like equal access to me during my 3 maternity leaves - I took different lengths of time off, I used different childcare arrangements, I grew in confidence and experience as a mother.

This whole thing of a woman being told that as a woman/mother all childcare (and often housework) is now her job is about the opposite if equality. It is about women being treated as drudges.

For the childcare foisted on a first time mother without discussion to be for a child that has two parents to look after her appals me.

Should my daughters ever have a stepmother, I would be horrified to find out their father was treating his new partner as a skivvy in this way.

It's fucking horrible.

seeker At what cost?

If parents aren't doing their best for their DC, then how far should a SM go? How much time should she devote to her DSC, at the expense of her own DCs - and herself?

What damage is it acceptable to cause while doing 'the right thing' - to the SM's health, to the relationship between siblings (step, half and otherwise), to marriages and co-parenting relationships?

DCs do not view stepparents as a third parental figure in their life. That is well documented and evidenced.

why insist that a stepparent fulfils a role that neither they, nor the DC, welcome or accept?

OP, YANBU.

I have a DSD and two DC. There is no way I would have felt equal to the task of having sole responsibility for DSD and the new baby for any length of time when DD first arrived. It was too overwhelming just dealing with DD to start off with. So I would have said no to start off with, and then reviewed when I felt more able to do so.

And I felt exactly the same after DS arrived. DD continued with her current childcare arrangements despite my maternity leave for a host of reasons, but mainly because keeping DD's timetable consistent so she felt secure was important, she loved it and it was a much better, more stimulating day then the days at home with me to start off with (post section stuck on sofa with newborn bfing all day long), I didn't want to lose the place, I wanted time with just DS, and I was terrified of having to manage the two of them alone to start off with.

Now that DS isnt brand new, I have all three on my own every other Saturday when it's DSD's weekend with us and DH works. It's fine. But I took that on once I felt able to cope. There is no way I would do it if I felt it was too much.

When DH and I decided to maintain DC1's childcare arrangements whilst I was on maternity leave with DC2, we talked about it and came to a mutual decision based on:

• not disrupting DC1
• not losing DC1's place at day care
• giving me and DC2 similar amounts of time together as me and DC1 (and even then it was somewhat less)
• minimising how exhausting it would be for me, which is lucky as DC2 took 20 minutes to settle for a 20 minute nap, was up 4-5 times a night etc

Financially we could do it, childcare vouchers continue through maternity leave etc.

OP has already said that if she gives birth to a second DC she will consider not changing her first DC's childcare.

OP, is your DP planning to split parental leave with you?

needaholiday agree with much of what you say.

pearlywhites you said:
I am not saying that a stepmom is a mother in the same way as the childs mother. However they are a mum to that child and should love them as if they were their own

IMHO this is very wrong. I am not DSD's mother in the same way as her actual mother and am not her mum in any way and I don't love her like my own. Her mother, quite rightly, would not be happy if I set myself up as some kind of alternative mother. I am her step-mother, I am extremely fond of her, she is part of my family and my DC adore her. But I am not her parent. She has two parents. And it would be wrong for me to take that role.

NotaDisneyMum.

eggs are you saying that any second-time mum who chooses to continue with the established childcare routine for their first DC is treating the baby more favourably?

I am absolutely NOT saying that. I agree that it might well be in the DSDs interest to stay with the current arrangements. It might also be the best option in order to keep the spot or it might be the best option if it is too difficult for the OP to collect her. I have this before. It could also be that the DSD prefers to stay at the childminders.

AThingInYourLife. I find your posts a bit full on but I can see where you are coming from. You clearly can't treat DSC and DC 'equally'. I can see there is a difference.

Typo
.....I have said this before....