How to offer wife help with kids

[Anonymous]

The drop off / pick up time of the middle kid is the key here. Have her hire a regular babysitter / nanny NOT a mother’s helper. Have that person come while the baby is getting ready for nap / napping / waking up. That way, she can take the middle to camp and the older where ever but the baby gets good naps in and the nanny can do all the bottle washing, chopping baby food into small pieces. On days when older has no activity, nanny plays with older.

Get her house cleaning for Tuesday am. You meet them, vet them, and explain what you want done. Monday night you pick up and de clutter everything. Tuesday am she goes to do whatever and is back by lunch. She thinks it is too much but once she does not have to scrub the toilet or change the sheets she will love it.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Wanted to give an update. We are going to stop soccer coordinator job (found another family to take it) and we are going to do the drop off daycare option at my workplace once a week. I am also going to wash all bottles and change everyones sheets once a week. These are jobs I don't mind doing at all but probably would not have thought about doing unless my wife said "this is your job now" so I am glad we had a little conference on the roles. I doubt my wife has ADHD/ADD to be honest, I just think its a really busy time and my kids strongly prefer "moms way/mom do it" right now. I am trying to navigate efficiently to make things equal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I used the word therapy (and his therapist does go to his school) but the 4 times a week commitment is ESY. So during those 3.5 hours wife tries to get baby down for "good nap" but between pick ups and drop offs and especially if oldest has something in the middle of that time frame its really not much time. The 10 hour a week job correlated to her career before kids. She was (and is) a BSN and she is the "nurses line" answering service for a local practice 6 hours a week twice a week. She really likes it and less work is not the answer. She is very scared of getting even further away from her own career. Not sure what MLM is? Even if this is MLM she likes it and I don't want to suggest cutting it.

This is why a mother’s helper would be useful. Mother’s helper can stay with baby during nap time while your wife takes your son to his appointments.Also I’m always in the house when the cleaners are here cuz I work from home. I just go to a different room. They only take two hours so it’s no big deal

[Anonymous]

Why can't you care for the kids nights and weekends so she can get out and get a break? Come home, cook dinner, get kids ready for bed, play, bed..weekends get up with them and let her sleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The drop off / pick up time of the middle kid is the key here. Have her hire a regular babysitter / nanny NOT a mother’s helper. Have that person come while the baby is getting ready for nap / napping / waking up. That way, she can take the middle to camp and the older where ever but the baby gets good naps in and the nanny can do all the bottle washing, chopping baby food into small pieces. On days when older has no activity, nanny plays with older.

Get her house cleaning for Tuesday am. You meet them, vet them, and explain what you want done. Monday night you pick up and de clutter everything. Tuesday am she goes to do whatever and is back by lunch. She thinks it is too much but once she does not have to scrub the toilet or change the sheets she will love it.

+1
There are lots of good ideas, but I think these two are the biggest. You need to develop a regular babysitter/nanny process for the longer term who can help with school pickup (or meeting the bus) and watching/entertaining oldest or youngest at different times even during the school year. I have a friend who has a set of three high school girls who watch her 2 elementary school SN kids for 2 hours daily, and they coordinate among themselves to ensure full coverage of time.

Regarding the cleaning - you don't have to go all in on a full cleaning service. You may be able to find someone who will clean less often. We have a local person who comes every two weeks to just vacuum, mop the floor, and clean all the bathrooms and kitchen. We don't have to leave and aren't perfectly decluttered. She'll move things and straighten as needed to clean, but otherwise just works around all the daily mess. We don't want (or need) a perfect looking house. We just wanted those 4 hours of time for other things.

The other suggestion I have is regarding food and meal planning. If you haven't already, take the time to create a two-week plan (or whatever works for you) figure out the groceries needed and then schedule grocery delivery. Planning and managing meals just takes a lot of mental power. Pre-planning and having the majority of basics delivery will reduce that load.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wanted to give an update. We are going to stop soccer coordinator job (found another family to take it) and we are going to do the drop off daycare option at my workplace once a week. I am also going to wash all bottles and change everyones sheets once a week. These are jobs I don't mind doing at all but probably would not have thought about doing unless my wife said "this is your job now" so I am glad we had a little conference on the roles. I doubt my wife has ADHD/ADD to be honest, I just think its a really busy time and my kids strongly prefer "moms way/mom do it" right now. I am trying to navigate efficiently to make things equal.

This sounds great, OP. I bet it's even just helpful for her mental health that you're making such an effort. I think getting rid of the soccer coordinator role was also key -- that's one of those annoying jobs that she was probably using her only 5 hours of downtime to do leaving her w/ none at all and, when you're just trying to survive, 0 v 5 hours/week of downtime is huge.

[Anonymous]

Can’t you just run the bottles through the dishwasher....big deal.