Fml I can’t do bedtime either. It’s just such a power struggle and I lose my shit daily. But my husband doesn’t help and it’s on me nearly every night. Bedtime is legit the worst time of night. I could read hundreds of books, it’s the rest of the night.

Something that drives me insane is that my son refuses to pee for me, so then he pees through his diaper every night and wakes up soaked and I have to change his sheets. I sit with him for 15-20 min and he won’t pee. Tonight I checked on him 5 min after diaper and he’d already peed. Fml. He’s been potty trained for 2 years so this isn’t a potty training thing

Anyways. Sympathies op. Some people just suck at bedtime.

I think so long as you (in genera) get your needs met (space, rest, alone time) and feel like division of labor is mostly fair, you need to let some stuff go. We both do bedtime every night, rotating between our two kids. they take the same amount of time to get down and we do bath time together (one watches kids and one cleans the kitchen). That way we get 1;1 time with each and we are both pulling our weight.

I have this same gripe, but it's not just with bedtimes.

<rant>
It's gotten a bit better lately, but there's definitely a vastly disproportionate share of times when she's supposed to have the kids and I get roped in vs. vice-versa. Or if she says she needs to go into work next weekend for a half-day or something, I say no problem I've got the kids. If I give her a heads up that I need to work on the weekend, it's like "so I'm supposed to have the kids BY MYSELF!?!?"

It's really weird, she's generally a very smart and competent person, she loooooves our kids, but it's like she just has this mental block about functioning (even on a short-term basis) as the sole authority figure. And often gets into struggles of the will with the kids to the point where she's just like "I can't deal with this" and storms off. That happens to me every now and then if a kid is intentionally pushing limits/buttons, but it's like 1/10th as often.

I wouldn't mind so much but I feel like I do more than half of the parenting as it is (I'm the cook in the family, she can make basic things like cereals, eggs, rice but that's about it, I plan and sign up for all their classes and camps and extracurriculars before they get filled, I come up with family trip and weekend activity ideas, and most things like laundry and housecleaning are mostly outsourced), so when I DO need to occasionally request some time to myself, I feel like I really need that to be respected and it's kind of the least she could do.

She does more often take them to their classes/lessons, but to me that's "fun stuff" and I'd gladly take more of that on if I could offload some of the rest of the parenting responsibilities. </rant>

My husband does bedtime much more frequently than me because DD is a mama's girl and that's their dedicated time together. Also he has more patience for her dilly dally-ing than I do. Not everything has to be split completely down the middle.

Honestly, it's easier if you just divide by task.

Leave the house. You say this is your work time. Maybe there's an important call you have to take or a file that MUST be sent so you're going to sit in the car and finish it up. Do this a few times and she'll figure out she can do it without you.

This is the advice that would be given to a woman and it's equally valid given to a man.

I think if OP is unhappy about having to assist all bedtimes (which is what it sounds like) then the spouses need to have a talk about it. As others have pointed out, OP could do bedtime every night and DW could do some other family work to compensate. But I know this wouldn’t work for my family — I really like to have evening personal time, and (pre covid) I would often travel overnight. DH has to be able to get it done solo, and IMO the best way for him to get better at that is to practice.

I find it funny how everyone is saying OP needs to find stuff for his wife to do because she can’t handle putting her kids to bed. She is not a child. Maybe she shouldn’t have had that many kids if she is not able to handle them. It sounds like she really can’t handle them if she’s getting frustrated all of the time. Does she have anger issues? I feel like if the roles were reversed, everyone would be telling OP to tell her husband to suck it up and do it because it’s his kids. The same goes for OPs wife.

Anonymous wrote:I guarantee OP is the wife in this situation and just reversed it to get honest advice.

Why? I’ve known several dads who did qual amounts do keep than the wife.

Anonymous wrote:Is she home with the kids all day or do you both work full time? When I was home I was 100% done by bedtime. It was excruciating to me and the kids were frankly sick of me too and it never went well. She might just be too burnt out to split this evenly. Can you do bedtime and she pick up some other evening chore that would otherwise be on your plate?

This. I am so spent by bedtime. My patience has run out. I am tired and frustrated and I just want to go to bed myself. My husband is more fresh and I wish he would step in and help more for this part of the day.