Childcare issues

[EmmaH83]

I have 2 DD’s (11 and 10) and my boyfriend has 1 DD (4). The issue is that when I have to take 1 DD anywhere my boyfriend can’t cope with 2 children. He is stress with his own DD anyway and struggles but I want to take my dad out for an evening in March and he says he will have to care for them but it feels like this will end in tears.
On the flip side when he works I have all 3 children if I’m around and yes they bicker but they all have manners and are fine.
I don’t quite know how to give him confidence- any hints and tips?

Ugh. Are you kidding me? You care for all three children happily and his response to doing the same is ‘if I have to’.

Has he ever been left in charge of all 3 before? And can he articulate what about it he finds stressful? Because unless you have badly behaved children, the elder two are more than capable to behaving and self sustaining themselves and also of entertaining the 4 year old. I can understand if it was 3 under 5 but this is far from that situation.

In your shoes I would isolate what exactly he finds stressful and see if you can help with that (I.e would it help to have prepared a dinner he can just heat up/ stick in the overnight).
I would also start leaving him with the 3 DC from time to time. Start for an hour here and there and pop out to do a shop or something.
Arrange something fun, he could do movie/ popcorn night. I mean it’s not rocket science.

And if he can’t articulate anything concrete or work with you then I would categorically stop looking after all three DC when he works and tell him to arrange childcare to help you. Blended families are teamwork and I happily muck in with my Dp’s DC because he does the same for me and we work together. Privately I think he also enjoys the 121 time with them as they get to do stuff without my ‘interference’ so to speak.

Begrudgingly offering to look after my DC wouldn’t be ok with me.