Who does the work at home when you are back at work?

[clutteredup]

I'm thinking about going back to work at least part time soon but what worries me is how we will manage to get stuff done and the DC sorted in the morning.
At the moment DH and I get up about 6.30 ( although as the week progresses this gets nearer to 7)DH gets himself ready for work and leaves at 7.30 or soon after - I spend about 15 minutes getting washed/dressed , give the 3 DC breakfast, get the LO dressed and hassle the older two to get ready for school and we leave at 8 to walk to school,I sometimes grab a bite to eat myself but never seem to have the time. I get as much ready as I can the night before, pack lunches etc. I also try to at least make the beds and clear away the breakfast.
If I go to work I'll no doubt need to leave earlier to drop the DC off at a CM and I'm not sure how I'll get it all done- oh yes and look half decent for work -
how do you do it?

Organisation. And gin helps too!!

Seriously- you just have to get into a routine that's workable. If you have to get up earlier, just adjust bedtime earlier. Do everything you can the night before. I also think a routine is easier if you stick to it all the time - eg if you work only part time, probably not worth messing about with the routine and getting up later on those days because you'll just end up late on work days.

Do everything for school ready the night before and by the door

Never let a man's career come before yours so if possbile ensure you leave first and leave him to sort out children - much better for everyone never mind your career and sanity

YOu all may have to get up at 6am instead but taht will give your husband more time to do domestic chores so taht won't be such a bad thing.

( Have had 20 years of practising all this stuff)

Do everything the night before - even to the extent of laying out your clothes, and make sure your DH does his fair share too. Look at the timetables and work out what can be changed or compromised so that you are NOT doing everything yourself.

Sort out as much as you can the night before then get up early. I was up at 5.30am through most of the winter to muck out 2 horses, lethe dogs out and then get washed and dressed before getting the kids up at 7am so I could be out of the house by 7.30am. Try not to go to bed too late. I am often still doing chores at 11pm and that combined with a 5.30am start in the dark every day is no fun. I have a 3 hour round trip to work and have been known to pull over on the way home and have a 10 min kip in a layby the way home. A stash of Red bull and chocolate in the car also works wonders. My ex thinks I have an easy life

Ha! Yes, I do what Xenia suggests and leave before DH and the children (he make their breakfast and takes them to school)

If you both work then I think the key difference between the lives of some women and others is that some of us would never tolerate sexism at home or a man saying you're female so do more with the children and other women put up with that every day, more fool them. I do think it's part of the key to making full time work in a proper career work for women - is the issue of sexism at home rather than discrimination at work.

Obviously once we started earning more money we could buy thigns that helped - cleaner every mornign who does all tidying and all washing, ironing and putting clothes away etc etc but you need the fairness at home first in the relationship with the man.

Best thing is a division not a sharing of tasks - so he does X every day and you do Y. I did the girls' hair/plaits, he took my son to school. I did our tax returns. He did all washing. He did trips to the dentist and I did most domestic paperwork etc etc

I'm sorry I don't have an answer - on the days I work I come home to find the breakfast still on the table, and the childrens beds not made. (I always make mine incase the window cleaner comes)

I guess the answer is I have dropped my standards around the home.

I'm loveing the idea of leaving before DH, though - would love to see him get 3 DCs into school!

I only have the one, but ensure that there are ironed clothes to where for dd and I. Normally i do this at the weekend. DH does his own.

Normal routine:

Up at 6.30 and go straight in shower.
6.40 - 6.55 Drink coffee and pack dd's snack box (she has school dinners but has a snack for after school club)
7.00 Wake the beast and give her breakfast. DH normally supervises. I get dressed.
7.20 - dd gets dressed. DH is supposed to supervise this bit too, whilst i do make up/dry hair. After 3 years he still isn't very good at it!
7.30 I huff at the fact that dd is only half ready when really we sshould be leaving now. I find shoes and do dd's hair. She cries. Every fecking day.
7.40 and then some. We get in the car.....or catch the bus.
8.00 - 8.20 (dependiing on traffic) dd dropped at school.

I am ALWAYS late for work!

PS, part from tidying up, and sticking a load of washing in, cleaning gets done at the weekend.

Well taking your post at face value clutreredup, it sounds like your DH gets up at 6.30, takes an hour to get himself ready and then leaves at 7.30 without doing anything else, whereas you get up at the same time, take 15 mins to get ready and then do everything for the DC. If that's actually the case you need to even that up!

Neatly put FBB!!!!

I nearly missed that rather salient point.

Tasks:

DH

• gets himself ready for work and leaves at 7.30 or soon after

OP:

-gets washed/dressed , give the 3 DC breakfast, get the LO dressed and hassle the older two to get ready for school and we leave at 8 to walk to school,I sometimes grab a bite to eat myself but never seem to have the time. I get as much ready as I can the night before, pack lunches etc. I also try to at least make the beds and clear away the breakfast.

Hmmmmmm

No, can't see how YOU could do it all on top of working

You work as a team and you do it because you have to. It does fall into place. As long as you;ve no slackers on the team

FBB - you have a big point there! One I have tried hard to resolve over years. My Dh gets up, makes coffee and checks news.

His office is 5 mins (walking) from our house. He is ALWAYS still in his dressing gown when we leave. He does other domestic tasks in the morning, eg loading dishwasher/ tidying up, but despite much prompting he does not seem capable to have a dd dressed, brushed, coated etc

FFB's pont is good and tallies with my advice =- the way for women to get fairness, not sacrifice careers etc is to ensure they don't put up with sexism from men.

Leaving for work before the man is one possibility. Or hiring someone who comes to your house at 7.30am when you leave for work not liking someone writing they are late for work every day - how would an employer tolerate that,how would a career progress if that were so./.. so that person comes to the house and gets the children to school/childminder etc and you get to work with 30 mins to spare to read the paper. Plus just as important is not being the one in the couple who has to chase home each night as it's often ability to stay late (not ability to be in by 9am) which makes all the difference in many good careers. Let the man be home first or share that duty

pointydog says it all really. Good post.
But as pointed out by pointy it only works if there are no slackers. That's how we do it on our house and as neither of us are slackers it works well.

what the others say - you can't do it unless your DH pulls his weight his well. Don't even fall into the trap of trying to do it all yourself, get a cleaner, split the things that need to be done with the children with him and make it clear that you expect him to do his share of helping to get the kids up, out the door and delivered to school.

One of the conditions of me returning to work was that we got a cleaner (which dh pays for ) I absolutely insisted on that as he does sod all most of the time.

The thing I'm finding increasingly is that most men really need to be told to do things. Not nagged but they generally don't notice something needs doing whereas women are across everything, hence your dh gets his hour to get up and get ready and you get the same time to do everything else.

It's important for you to agree who's responsible for which tasks before you go back to work. ie you'll dress the dcs while he has breakfast, he gives the dcs breakfast while you're getting ready etc etc.

I'm fortunate in that I don't leave for work until 9.45am (but then I work until 10.30pm so I don't get evenings to do anything) so I just throw on any old thing to drop ds at the childminders, then come home and have an hour and half to have a shower, breakfast, get ready and do a little tidy up.

Until now, I have had APs to do breakfast, chase down school uniform and PE kits, and get the kids to school, but general low level incompetence on their part over the years has now ground me down. Also the arrival of DC4 has meant we needed to review childcare anyway, so we are biting the bullet and getting a nanny for the first time (a four month stint with a fairly rubbish nanny housekeeper a few years ago was a bit of a disaster really). However I have taught DS1 (11) to use the washing machine and dishwasher, so he can help with that a bit, and he will be laying the table for breakfast every day before leaving for school.

I have some house rules:

Use tumble drier whenever possible and fold clothes while warm to reduce ironing.

Kids have hot dinners at school, and we try to have a hot meal at work, so cooking in the evening is optional.

Lost property basket roundup every evening of general crap lying around the house means if they have lost a vital piece of equipment they need for school, it is bound to be in there.

If there's no time to make beds we leave them wide open and properly airing, as this is conducive to health anyway.

I buy things like tights and vital toiletries and so on in vast quantities, so I am never panicking at the last minute trying to find what I need.

I give my hair a good blow dry on Sunday nights so it looks good until at least Tuesday or even Wednesday sometimes.

I keep my (old banger of a) car very well serviced, clean and topped up with petrol and oil so I never have problems getting to and from work.

I get up between 7.30 and 8.15 (if I forget the alarm and oversleep).

I get dd breakfast, make my tea, make dd's lunch, jump in the shower, get dressed and ready for work. The hurry her along with getting washed and into uniform.

Her uniform, my work clothes, her book bag etc are hanging up ready the night before.

We leave for school between 8.40 and 8.45. It's only a 4 min walk or a 2 min run.

I get back home and spend up to half an hour going round the house tidying, putting a load of washing on, sorting dishwasher, post etc. Then I leave for work, eating fruit for breakfast on the way. I find it's better for me to do it then as at the end of the day I don't want to bother as I'm tired.

One of the things I asked for when returning from maternity leave was a late start so I avoided the rush hour traffic, besides which I am just not a morning person. I am generally at work by 10 at the latest and work as long as I need to at the other end of the day to make up my hours (and often more).

Back finally - sorry I've been a bit busy tidying the house all weekend as things have fallen behind, been poorly, had poorly DC and had the window man in so had to keep DD2 out of the way so she didn't fall out of a window. DH did help with the cleaning - of the sitting room .
I think you have all said what I have always suspected that DH will have to do more if I am to go back to work - he's quite happy for me to go and keeps saying things like 'when you go back to work we can have....' but i think he thinks that everything will carry on the same in terms of things getting done - I'll save this thread I think I might need it!!