Help me navigate this childcare situation with my husband

[Anonymous]

I sometimes stay up way too late watching Netflix myself. Last night, for example, I was up until 2am. Was it a struggle to get up at 6, get in the shower, make lunches, and get out the door as usual? Yes, absolutely. Did I decide, nah, I'll just stay in bed until I'm rested and let someone else handle my responsibilities? No, because I'm an adult.

[Anonymous]

Um yeah. One parent doesn't get to be irresponsible with their time and then sleep in at the expense of the other parents job!!
Make up a schedule and stick to it.
Who gets up at 7:30 around here? Everyone I k ow gets up at 6 to do drop off and get to work. If he doesn't get home until late when does he see the kids? Then for sure he needs to get up early on the weekend. Sunday he gets up at 7 and takes the kids out for a couple hours so you can take a break. You can do the same on Saturday.

[Anonymous]

Could the money for both daycare be put towards getting a nanny-type person in for the whole day? Drop off solved, except when the nanny doesn't show up. Does any one discuss this before having children? My husband and I didn't want to bother with all this so we had no children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's hard to feel sympathetic about his need to sleep in after binge watching Netflix.

This.
You need a more concrete and sustainable agreement so you don't have to be late to work. That's unfair of him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes stay up way too late watching Netflix myself. Last night, for example, I was up until 2am. Was it a struggle to get up at 6, get in the shower, make lunches, and get out the door as usual? Yes, absolutely. Did I decide, nah, I'll just stay in bed until I'm rested and let someone else handle my responsibilities? No, because I'm an adult.

Ding ding ding!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could the money for both daycare be put towards getting a nanny-type person in for the whole day? Drop off solved, except when the nanny doesn't show up. Does any one discuss this before having children? My husband and I didn't want to bother with all this so we had no children.

WTF dude. You decided not to have children because of daycare drop off logistic woes? Also you are a judgmental B

[Anonymous]

Oh and OP your DH is being freaking ridiculous. You need to frame this as a problem that is eroding the foundation of your marriage. He needs to man up.

[Anonymous]

Leave when you need to for work. Don't be available to take the drop offs just because he slept in or doesn't feel like it.

Get up, get ready, go. If a kid is up, they go back to bed with Dad. He'll have to figure out that elusive thing called adulthood.

[Anonymous]

to all of the geniuses counseling divorce, what is this woman supposed to do when ExH has the kids during his 50% of the time and is too tired to take them to daycare, forgets to help with their homework, feeds them McDonalds all weekend, skips their sports practice because its too much of a pain for him, etc etc etc. To the OP, I would say that if you can afford it and deal with another teenager besides your husband, maybe just get an au pair so you have somebody in the house and can just walk out the door when you need to in the morning. I've done this for 11 years now and while not optimal, my husband is the father of my kids and he is not going to do drop offs or pick ups or any other child related necessity during the week. The au pair has kept me sane, at least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:to all of the geniuses counseling divorce, what is this woman supposed to do when ExH has the kids during his 50% of the time and is too tired to take them to daycare, forgets to help with their homework, feeds them McDonalds all weekend, skips their sports practice because its too much of a pain for him, etc etc etc. To the OP, I would say that if you can afford it and deal with another teenager besides your husband, maybe just get an au pair so you have somebody in the house and can just walk out the door when you need to in the morning. I've done this for 11 years now and while not optimal, my husband is the father of my kids and he is not going to do drop offs or pick ups or any other child related necessity during the week. The au pair has kept me sane, at least.

Yep, this is sort of what I've come up with. It does stick in my craw that our money has to go to extra childcare, instead of say ... decent furniture, a better emergency savings account, deferred home maintainence ... but I figure my sanity and the stability of our relationship is worth it. And divorce would be more expensive.

For times when we don't have childcare, I pretty much just have to declare that I am leaving the house so DH has to step up. Yes, sometimes this means ridiculousness like skipping meals, crappy meals, and really late bedtimes. But again, the alternative does not work.

DH is slowly getting more responsible as DC gets older, which is nice.

Huge reason we stopped at 1 ...

[Anonymous]

NP here. I agree with what eveyone is saying. You leave 1/2 hour early on his three drop off days so he has to figure it out. I'm assuming if you have to do drop off the other 2 days a week you have to stay past 4 to make up the time of getting in at 9am on those days. That extra 1/2 hour can go towards excercising, making up the time for the days you have to both drop off and pickup, a longer lunch, getting ahead on your work ...whatever. The real purpose is making him feel the natural consequence of his actions. I'm a night owl too and there have been a few times I have stayed up reading or watching tv until 2 in the minting, However, my DH is out the house at 5am so I feel the full effect of my decisions. I know I can't get by with that little sleep ...I don't want to feel tired/yawning while driving the kids and commuting. I'm also need to be awake versus sluggish at work.

Your other option is an au pair or someone you hire to get the kids out in the monring and bring them to daycare.

[Anonymous]

It is completely unacceptable & irresponsible for you to be late for work because your husband can't get out of bed @7:30AM.

It even irks me more that one of the children had to stay home all day for the same reason because his father was not responsible enough to go to bed early enough in order to be able to complete his adult/parental responsibilities.

Your husband is a lazy slacker who needs to carry more weight.
He needs to understand that his (in)actions are hurting the family + he needs to step up to the plate stat.

Everyone would love to stay up late watching Game of Thrones, etc.
But if it begins to affect the family in such a negative manner, he should take the initiative & prioritize sleep over the boob tube.
If he is addicted to a certain show, he can always record it.

It is so unfair for you to have to deal w/this along w/the responsibility of keeping up the entire house by yourself.
I would be miffed too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:to all of the geniuses counseling divorce, what is this woman supposed to do when ExH has the kids during his 50% of the time and is too tired to take them to daycare, forgets to help with their homework, feeds them McDonalds all weekend, skips their sports practice because its too much of a pain for him, etc etc etc. To the OP, I would say that if you can afford it and deal with another teenager besides your husband, maybe just get an au pair so you have somebody in the house and can just walk out the door when you need to in the morning. I've done this for 11 years now and while not optimal, my husband is the father of my kids and he is not going to do drop offs or pick ups or any other child related necessity during the week. The au pair has kept me sane, at least.

DH here. I'm not counseling divorce, just commented that I knew someone who divorced over pretty much exactly this dynamic. I'm with the people who say just start acting according to the original agreed to plan and let the chips fall.

But to your question about the what to do during the 50% of custody: nothing. Drop the rope. Stop being an enabler. Let DH fail; let him fail as a father. It's not her job to be both mother and father. She could do that now without going through the divorce. Yes, the child will suffer some for lack of an engaged father, but you know, mom can martyr herself trying to compensate and the kid is still going to have a disengaged father. Life is hard and not fair. Stop being a martyr and show your kid how to respond appropriately to hard and unfair (not taking it on like a martyr).

More likely what will happen when DH wakes up at 7:15 with Jr crawling all over him or 7:30 and finds Jr plugged into the boob tube, DH will have an O Sh!t moment and will be late to work and inconvenienced...and mom will say "yeah, sucks, doesn't it". It will be a teachable moment. Jr. won't be significantly harmed by watching extra cartoons and eating too much cereal a couple of mornings while DH learns to get his act together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:to all of the geniuses counseling divorce, what is this woman supposed to do when ExH has the kids during his 50% of the time and is too tired to take them to daycare, forgets to help with their homework, feeds them McDonalds all weekend, skips their sports practice because its too much of a pain for him, etc etc etc. To the OP, I would say that if you can afford it and deal with another teenager besides your husband, maybe just get an au pair so you have somebody in the house and can just walk out the door when you need to in the morning. I've done this for 11 years now and while not optimal, my husband is the father of my kids and he is not going to do drop offs or pick ups or any other child related necessity during the week. The au pair has kept me sane, at least.

In this situation, I wouldn't be shooting for 50% time. I'd be shooting for every other weekend, given his disinterest. Then I'd be using the large amount of child support he would be paying to hire someone to do drop off.

[Anonymous]

Who the hell sleeps until 7:30????