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Original poster

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

534 replies

MinesADecaff · 07/06/2013 10:53

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?

OP posts:
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needaholidaynow · 10/06/2013 14:40

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LittleBearPad · 10/06/2013 14:41

Being frightened about becoming a mother is completely normal and there are lots of people you can talk to here about it. Can you talk to your friends in real life about it too. They may not have step children but could empathise with the pregnancy and new baby emotions.

It sounds like you have a fairly intensive job as well and that can be difficult to take time out from to get yourself ready for motherhood.

With regard to tomorrow it's ok to say no as you have plans and with regard to maternity leave posters have given you lots of good and positive reasons to say no. Continuity, important to keep the childminder place open, don't know how you'll be post-birth, whether the baby will be a good sleeper, reflux etc (Don't add these to your worries - you'll be ok). All these reasons show care and consideration for your SD.

I don't think you are going to be able to affect the behaviour of the bio mum but you shouldn't have to pick up the slack.

AThingInYourLife · 10/06/2013 14:53

I think it is really sinister and worrying that this man is trying to fill up all your time with caring for his daughter.

Why on earth should a knackered, pregnant woman spend a precious day off work doing childcare for a 5 year old, when that 5 year old has childcare in place already?

My husband wouldn't ask me to do that for our daughter.

And I wouldn't ask him.

It's just weird and controlling the way he wants to commandeer your time.

You are your own person.

He is not your boss.

You don't answer to him.

His expectations are not just unrealistic, they are unfair.

I'm so sorry you are feeling so upset :(

But I don't think you should continue to allow yourself to be hectored and browbeaten in the way that you have been.

If he leaves you because you won't just do as you're told and mind his kid whenever he demands, you're better off out of it.

Oh and I don't want to spend every available minute with my own children. That is a ludicrous thing to ask of you.

LittleBearPad · 10/06/2013 14:58

I don't think he's being sinister, I think he's being a thoughtless muppet with very little empathy for the situation in which the OP finds herself.

Pushing the OP to spend more time with his daughter is not going to allow their relationship to grow naturally, especially when the OP is pregnant, hormonal, tired and very busy at work.

Petal02 · 10/06/2013 15:15

Yes, a thoughtless muppet rather than anything sinister. Still very frustrating though.

AThingInYourLife · 10/06/2013 15:15

Do thoughtless people really come up with ideas that involve taking children out of childcare?

There seems to be quite a lot of thought going into all these demands for Round to give up her time.

I can't think of a single nuclear family where either parent would ask this of the other.

It is an extremely domineering request, and Round, your response makes me think you are accustomed to such treatment. :(

babyhmummy01 · 10/06/2013 15:18

I agree with littlebear its not sinister its just not appreciating how the OP feels. He probably thinks that he is doing right by 'encouraging' contact between them, but he needs sitting down and explaining that this is not working for the OP

Decaff I suspect the emotion of this thread and your hormones are not helping your anxiety over talking to your partner. You really do need to sit down and explain that whilst you don't want his daughter to feel pushed out you do need to have time to adjust to being a first time mum and for the first few weeks at least you would prefer that either he finishes work at 3 to collect her and bring her home from school and spend extra time with both his kids or she needs to stay at child minder and the 'normal' routine remain. He needs to speak to the CM and find out if the place would be ring fenced for when you go back to work as this would need to be a consideration, decent childcare where I live is about as readily available as rocking horse sh1t.

You have EVERY right to want and expect what you are asking for and I suspect once he has a chance to hear you out and think about it he will see that, I have had exactly the same conversation with my dp recently about his kids and he is 200% supportive of the fact that I am a first time mum and not a third timer just because he already has 2 of his own.

LittleBearPad · 10/06/2013 15:18

Extremely frustrating, yes

carabossse · 10/06/2013 16:08

Decaf, I suggested posting on the relationships board because it seems your issues are about you are your partner, not the fact that you're a step-mum.

From reading this thread it seems you could use some advice and support on communication, dealing with his expectations and maybe a bit of assertiveness.

Fwiw if your partner sometimes collects his daughter as a surprise, that could be unsettling. Maybe she's the type who responds better to knowing in advance what the days plans are.

Original poster
MinesADecaff · 10/06/2013 16:59

Thank you for being kind. Hormones got the better of me there for a sec.

It helps to know that I'm not being an unreasonable selfish cow and you think I am entitled to plan my free time as I wish.

Getting DP to see my point of view is a bigger issue I think and maybe one I should explore over on relationships.

I definitely feel like he's trying to force an artificially close relationship between me and DSD too quickly. The more he does it the more it makes me uncomfortable. But if I try to explain that to him he just reads it as I don't like DSD. He's so obtuse.

OP posts:
LittleBearPad · 10/06/2013 17:15

Decaf Brew for you and a friendly Biscuit.

Enjoy your day off tomorrow.

Jemma1111 · 10/06/2013 17:38

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TheDoctrineOfAllan · 10/06/2013 17:44

Jemma, where has the OP said she takes no responsibility?

Did me and my DH take no responsibility for DC1 because we left him in childcare when I was on maternity leave with DC2?

Original poster
MinesADecaff · 10/06/2013 17:46

The 50:50 arrangement used to be a bit more reliable. But since the ex got a new boyfriend (about 18 months ago) she's been chipping and chipping away at the time she spends with DSD so that now, for example, she's only having her for ten days this month. That's not unusual either. It was the same story in February and March. She didn't have her for any of the last half term week.

So it's been slow and incremental. Not something I foresaw.

OP posts:
Petal02 · 10/06/2013 17:47

Jemma, please don't be unkind to the OP, I think she's really struggling with this.

TheDoctrineOfAllan · 10/06/2013 17:48

Jemma, where has the OP said she takes no responsibility?

Did me and my DH take no responsibility for DC1 because we left him in childcare when I was on maternity leave with DC2?

motherinferior · 10/06/2013 17:51

Jemma, please stop making stuff up. What the OP is saying is that she is having a baby, her first birth baby - involving all that stuff, you know, pregnancy and labour and lochia and possibly stitches and leaky boobs and feeling a touch under the weather - and she's concerned that after two weeks she'll be expected to do school pickups a few days a week. It's a totally valid concern and one quite a lot of us have with our second children (I actually arranged pickups for DD1, so shoot me now, on her three CM days)...but that was with the knowledge of which way up to hold a new baby and how to put a nappy on and knowing that the odd shriek didn't mean an emergency dash to A&E.

Some of the posts on this thread are reminding me of that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Buffy's new sister Dawn appears and as viewers you have no idea how that happened, because everyone's memories have been magically altered. The OP hasn't had a baby before. I know her partner has been a father before. I know she has taken on caring and parenting responsibilities (although frankly I think expecting people to love their new step-children on demand is as unrealistic as expecting children to love their new siblings on demand. Or expecting step-children to love their new step-parents on demand). But the OP hasn't.

Original poster
MinesADecaff · 10/06/2013 17:51

I take plenty of responsibility thanks. I pay for half of all DSD's holidays, etc.

Her mum is happy to keep taking CSApayments even though she has her less than half the time. And still does FA with her. DSD has come on every holiday DP and I have ever been on.

She's never been away with her mum, ever. Despite her pissing off on breaks with her boyfriend regularly.

OP posts:
Jemma1111 · 10/06/2013 17:51

Ok let me rephrase that

I probably should have said 'any responsibilty when it doesn't suit'

Because , if the Op is avoiding even school pick ups , and she has said that she wants to go and read a book instead of picking her dsd up , well do I need to say more ?

Original poster
MinesADecaff · 10/06/2013 17:53

Sorry that was a bit of a tangent. Bit it's not like I'm completely detached from DSD as some posters seem to think.

I just want to enjoy my new baby without running around like a blue arsed fly the second DP goes back to work.

OP posts:
brdgrl · 10/06/2013 17:53

No, jemma, you really don't need to say anymore. In fact, please don't.

motherinferior · 10/06/2013 17:53

Christ on a bike, don't you ever want to sit in a caff with a book rather than pick up your own kids?

Owllady · 10/06/2013 17:56

No-one thinks you are detached, some of us are realistic and don't make assumptions

Apart from anything your dsd needs continuity of care through a period of transition and I think it's more responsible to let things take a natural progression rather than it being a forced one. I think it is different if your dp were at home with new baby and decided to that himself

motherinferior · 10/06/2013 17:56

Pregnant woman just about to start new work project fancies a day off shock horror.

brdgrl · 10/06/2013 17:57

If I want to go read a book, instead of providing childcare for my husband's kids, I will. Can't actually imagine him having a problem with that, frankly. He's appreciative when I voluntarily take on the care of his children, but he knows that its his own responsibility.

(and pssst, I'm not even pregnant! I just like to read.)