How do you and your partner split child care?

He works full time and Im on mat leave. I do most of the child care for our 4 1/2 month old (including ALL night time child care). I cook lunch but supers are pretty shared. He usually baths the baby once or twice a week. How do you and your family divide taking care of the children? Do you work or not?Not complaining just curious.

Public Comments

1. He works nights and me days- so that we can keep our baby out of daycare. He goes to work at night shortly after I get home.

   On the weekends, we have family cleaning day. We have an 11 year old son who also helps to clean. This helps a lot.

   We both cook...and if I cook he does dishes. If he cooks, he still does the dishes- lolol!!!

   On the weekends, I bathe her because I take a bath with her. During the week, I bathe her each night because he is at work.

   So, it's pretty much shared. I do the laundry and we both fold it on the weekends, since with our daughter, I fold- and she unfolds just as quickly!

   For our son, it's the same, equal partnership for the most part. I'm happy and he is too. For us, we need to take care of each other because we'll be wiped out if we don't.



2. You sit down with your partner and have a civil conversation about the situation. Discuss your needs, his needs, the babies needs, and amicably decide what works best for the two of you as a team.

   I'm a single Mom and do it ALL including working full time. Parenthood is the hardest work there is but it's also the most rewarding. Don't forget to give it your all AND take time for yourself too. You and your partner will succeed by keeping the lines of communication open.



3. Sharing what is sharing, I have to contantly ask my other half to help me out. I just got back to work from maternity leave, i ask him to watch the kids when i want to do something.... my husband hasn't even bathed any of our kids in a loooooong time I do it all, but the thing is he has relyed on me to do everything because when he does try to do something he said i complain about how he handles it and don't let him do it his way, so he just lets me do things, but now i end up getting in way over my head because we have three children and we both work full time, so cleaning doesn't happen until after the kids are in bed, then start all over again the next day. So don't make the same mistake i did, ask for help as much as you can and let him do it his way, or you will end up with a husband that will rely on you to do everything and will end up making you feel like you have one extra kid :) My husband was also scared to hold and hurt our first child so that didn't help any, he was clueless on what to do, especially for a girl.


4. I am the breadwinner! I work 45-50 hours/week, and my hubby works about 15. I work 6:30am-3pm or so as a manager of a dry cleaners, and he works 4-10pm a couple nights at a pet store. He does all the day time child care of our 6 week old, and I'm in charge when he's gone, and mostly when we're both home. My husband does all the nighttime feedings cause, well, I get up at 4:45am!!! :) It's working so far, I hope he doesn't get to stressed out though!


5. When I was on mat leave, he took complete care of our older child and I took our little one. He's the cook of our house so dinners are usually on him. Bathtime is all momma (he's not comfortable giving the girls a bath yet...but he's working on it). Diapers are divided as evenly as possible. Now that I'm working part time again, he's taking a share of the responsibility of our newest (who is 2 mos old now) and I'm taking our older baby (18 mos) more often now. So I think we divide the workload fairly evenly. Granted, when he first got his job, I had the lion's share of both of them all the time. But now that he's adjusted to his new schedule it's not so bad anymore.