The screaming

[Anonymous]

I am a SAHM to three, two older toddlers and a preschooler. I am able to handle my days okay with no help. But the evenings are awful. My husband is scheduled to get home at 5:00 but in reality he gets home around 5:30-6:00.

Toddlers nap from 3:00-5:00 but lately it's been 3:00-5:30 because of husbands arrival time

I prep most meals on the weekends and finish cooking right after nap time.

When husband gets home. I am in the kitchen. We get kids up and he watches them while I finish cooking. But the screaming... he cannot handle them so they fight and scream and my nerves are totally fried.

He also cannot get dinner together so I don't know what to do. I feel like I need to be the one preparing meals and keeping the schedule on time. What can I do?

Yesterday we agreed going forward he would prepare dinner while I managed the kids. I cooked dinner in the afternoon, he heated it up at dinnertime and everything ran smoothly.

Tonight, I handled the kids as we agreed yesterday. I didn't want to be accused of nagging so I let him do dinner at his own pace. But 30 minutes before bedtime he had still not made any moves toward feeding the kids, so I just did it. They screamed of course while my attention was away from them. He sat on the couch on his phone and occasionally yelled at them to stop screaming. I could cry.. What can I do to stop the screaming. My nerves are completely frazzled.

Is it normal that they fight and scream all the time if I am not completely engaged with them?

[Anonymous]

Hm. My kids go to bed at 6:30 and 7:30, I cannot imagine a nap that late in the day. How did you evolve into that schedule?

[Anonymous]

Nap should be earlier. 2 hours max. Give smack or dinner when they wake up. Early bedtime routine. You enjoy dinner together after

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hm. My kids go to bed at 6:30 and 7:30, I cannot imagine a nap that late in the day. How did you evolve into that schedule?

Nap was originally 2:30-4:30. When they dropped the morning nap, the nanny pushed back the afternoon nap to 3:00pm. She is no longer with us but somehow the later nap time stuck. I preferred the earlier nap time so I can maybe start there and make it earlier.

[Anonymous]

I would make the nap earlier and shorter and give them a protein snack as soon as they wake up to hold the blood sugar levels even until dinner.

[Anonymous]

Huh, kind of counterintuitive that the nanny moved nap later when they dropped to one, as opposed to earlier. My kids were a mess by 1pm once they only took one nap a day. If for some reason they went down for nap later, they'd wake up at 5 very out of sorts and be cranky the rest of the evening.

You could also try doing their dinner earlier. One of my kids would wake up from nap starving, but then wouldn't eat dinner. I started prepping their dinner during nap and would feed them dinner around 4:30, then play outside. Put them to bed at 7 and then eat with DH after.

[Anonymous]

Naps earlier around 12:30ish - 2:30ish.

Snack around 2:45/3:00

Dinner shortly after husband gets home & then start bedtime routine.

Something like the Calmer Earplugs help as well.

[Anonymous]

Can you get the kids involved? A preschooler should be able to fill water glasses. I don't know what you mean by "toddler" but they're probably old enough to put out napkins etc

[Anonymous]

Nap is way too late and too long. And I’m sorry, your husband either needs to a) get home on time, b) figure out how to handle (or better, help solve) the screaming and/or c) finish making the meal.

[Anonymous]

I agree that the late nap time is a problem.

[Anonymous]

My husband is similar and I WFH in tech. I still have to prep everything for anything to actually happen. I had a late meeting at 8pm last night with the west coast team. I let him know days in advance he would have to get our 6 year old to bed (815pm bedtime). I put baby down at 730. Finished meeting at 9pm and he and 6 year old were up on the ipad. Insanity.

Just here for solidarity

[Anonymous]

Your husband simply needs to come home and immediately go into dad-mode. He can't sit on his phone. His decompression time is on the way home from work. Even if that's just a walk down the staircase in the house. Can he take two of the kids for a walk around the block when he gets home? Then you can have one kid "helping" in the kitchen while you prep dinner.

[Anonymous]

You have two problems: a nap time problem and a husband problem. As posters have mentioned, move nap time earlier (something like 1-3 or 2-4).

Getting your husband to do his share of the parenting is a whole other issue. Doesn't he know when dinnertime is? I know it was his first time on dinner duty, but to not even start dinner until half an hour before bedtime is perplexing. I feel like my husband and I are always in full go, go, go mode from the moment we're done with work until our two kids (ages 2 and 4) are in bed. It takes us both to get them fed and in bed by 8pm. If you've been doing it alone, this is why you feel so overwhelmed. No one sits on the couch and looks at their phone in the evening unless its for 5 mins after dinner while the kids are playing. And even then... we should really be cleaning up or playing with the kids. Until your husband shares the responsibility and mindset, you're going to be frustrated.

[Anonymous]

They nap too late as others have said AND you're waking them from this late nap?

Fix their sleep and that should help with the screaming.

And you have a husband problem (again as others have said). He "watches them"? He needs to engage them and be "on" Not be on the phone, not be in the bathroom for 3 days, or any other hiding techniques.

Start meal planning with him on Sunday, keep it super simple for both of you

And then leave the house when he walks in from work a couple times.

[Anonymous]

Nap: too late and too long. Do 2:00-3:30 and no later or longer. Move bedtime earlier.

Dinner: do you want him to cook? If yes then come up with a schedule. If not then he gets into parenting mode while you cook (I like being solo for a bit when DH gets home so I will happily cook if he is keeping kids out of kitchen).

Kids/husband: tell your 4th child to get his act together and parent when he comes home. You could be nice and Soften this by making 6:00-6:30 or whenever you cook dinner to be screen time and DH can chill with them while they are watching.