It was a learning curve when Ella was born, but I must say parenting is definately 50/50 now. He used to wait for me to ask him to do this or that, which drive me nuts. I wanted him to just ~do~ whatever needed to be done without me having to ask him to do it. It took a good six months for him to understand this concept. Now he'll do anything. This includes changing diapers to giving all three kids a bath. It's nice. He is such an awesome father. I couldn't ask for anything more.
My favorite thing he does is he will take the kids with him when he has to run an errand. I know plenty of fathers who will take care of the kids when the mommy needs to go somewhere, but there are much less dads who will take the kids with them when he needs to go somewhere. Getting out alone to run errands without the kids is nice, but it is even better when I get a break from the kids alone in the house. There is something about a quiet house, sans children, that I love. Does your husband do this?
That reminds me of a pet peeve of mine. I hate it when a father refers to watching the kids as "babysitting". You're not babysitting dude. You are taking care of your own children! Babysitting happens when you are watching someone else's child(ren)!
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My DH doesn't do much to help. It is definitely more 90/10. I get really annoyed about it at times. However, Alli is special needs and requires an extraordinatry amout of specialized care that I am the expert on. He really could be an expert too, but he makes up for it in other ways like cooking dinner and cleaning. Really it's hard for any parent to take her anywhere alone, so I don't really expect him to do that much (even though he does occasionally).
When we have baby #2 (when I eventually get pregnant again) he will HAVE to help more. There will be no way that he would be able to get out of it. I hope, anyway. Sigh!
The hubs is the primary caregiver during the week- but I think with that it's still pretty even. I take car of the bedtime ritual- bath & putting her to bed. I also get her first thing before I go to work for a change and a cuddle. Pretty much everything in between is him. He also cleans & cooks & fixes stuff.
On the weekends I pretty much do everything with her (unless its a family outing) so he can have a day or two to himself to get his own stuff done. That hopefully will change a bit in a couple months if we get her into a daycare a few days a week!
My DH doesn't help much. Although the older the kids get the more he does help. I don't think he's too comfortable around babies. He doesn't think he knows what they need.
But I will say that he works a lot! He leaves before we get up and most nights he's lucky if he gets home before they go to bed. He's good at helping with bedtime and will give baths on occasion when I ask.
DH helps a lot. I wouldn't say it's 50/50, but he does do a lot. He will not do diapers, which irritates me to no end, but I deal with it. He will be headed out the door and ask the older kids to come along sometimes (depending on where he needs to go) and if he is home he will take the kids while I do something for myself. I put pjs on them and brush their teeth then he gets them water and reads their bedtime stories. He also puts our 18-month-old to bed because she prefers him.
Each time I've had a new baby he is really great to take care of the older kid/s. The newborn care is pretty much up to me with breastfeeding and everything so he's great to take over the other things. He doesn't do the grunt work, I bathe the kids, I change diapers, I dress the kids, etc. but he helps fix their plates at dinner so I don't have to be the lone person eating cold food after all the kids have been taken care of.
His biggest thing is that he entertains them, he reads stories and wrestles and just gets down on their level which, while it is playing, is a HUGE help to me.
My hubby is crazy amazing with the twins. Seriously he does the vast majority of the work. :-)
He helps out a lot, especially since he is with them when I'm at work 37.5 hours a week! He gets a lot of flack for it -- people ask me, "so does he work nights? Weekends?" and they're quite surprised when I tell them that he's a SAHD. Nothing wrong with that and we do just fine on my income. I wouldn't want to never see my hubby because we work opposite shifts, and daycare is so expensive that it wouldn't be worth it for him to work during the day as well.
The things I do get frustrated with: Andrew is potty trained during the day (just not on the overnights quite yet) and he doesn't watch for the "gotta pee" cues so he'll act surprised if Andrew suddenly starts pissing somewhere he shouldn't. I'm like, "HE HAS TO GO EVERY HOUR AND YOU HAVE TO TAKE HIM TO THE TOILET REGARDLESS" and my hubby thinks Andrew should just tell him every time. Most of the time, yes, he will, but if he's entranced by his favorite movie or having fun outside, he isn't going to stop what he's doing.
DH has never given Andrew a full bath, he has only put him in the tub -- he has never washed his hair!
He does do tons of diaper changes, and cloth at that! So no complaints there.
Oh, and he'll take Andrew with to go grocery shopping or to Menard's just for fun, and it gives me a break because that boy is VERY high energy. I needed help when on maternity leave because he was all over me and the baby and sometimes I wanted to scream! But DH came to my rescue. Plus, Andrew is so much more well behaved around him (sucks for me)!
DH and I do everything 50/50 and I know I'm extremely lucky. He wakes up with A in the mornings since I'm at work at 6am and then I pick her up so he does breakfast, I do dinner and bath at night and we do everything else together.
My DH does quite a bit. I wouldn't say it's 50/50, but he does help, and there's nothing he won't do (diapers, etc).
I am with you Nancy on the whole "babysitting" concept. Luckily my DH has never used that term when referencing his own children, but I know men who have. it irritates me no end.
I think that DH being a SAHD has really helped us a lot. He knows just how hard it is to take care of two little girls all day every day. The evening routine is pretty well split between us, and really with two little ones it takes both of us to get dinner done and complete the bath/bed routine. We can both do it alone though...on Wednesday nights I go to my knitting group and Thursday nights he goes out to dinner with his dad so we both get a mid-week break. If a kid is up at night either one of us can handle it. When we are out with friends I usually watch Hayden while he takes Jillian although we switch sometimes because Jillian is really tiring to keep up with.
I was just talking with my friend who had #2 last week, and she told me how little her DH helped out. It is pretty much her 24/7 and that sounds awful.
its about 80/20 in our house. My DH works about 2 hours from our house and does 10 hour days. so he is up before us and comes home after. right now we are in a bad routine of me and dylan getting home from work/school at 6, dylan eating (alone), dylan bath and bed routine and then hopefully he is in bed by 8-8:30. while dylan's routine for the night is going on, im lucky if DH is home. so he usually gets out of cooking and cleaning and a lot more. he works every saturday and 1 sunday a month, so he is barely home to help on those days either. BUT on his day off (weds) he does do the laundry for me b/c we live in an apt and i cant go to the laundry room alone with dylan. he also takes out the garbage 90% of the time and cleans up after the cats. those are his 3 main "chores". i definitely do most of the day to day stuff though. right now he is still nervous to be home alone with dylan, but on the sundays he is home with us, he does help with him more. as he gets older, he says he feels more comfortable. if we are lucky to have a #2, he WILL have to help. we are also moving closer to both of our jobs/school in oct, so hopefully that will help!
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