Stay-at-Home Mom Wants 1 Day of Childcare a Week, but Husband Says She Doesn’t Need It

A new mom turned to the Reddit community for support following a painful standoff with her husband about childcare and her desperate need for time to reset. 

She explained in her post that she had reached a breaking point and wanted their 1-year-old daughter to begin daycare or receive at least a few hours of help each week so she could job-hunt and care for herself.

She said she had been caring for their daughter entirely on her own since the baby’s arrival in October 2024. She added, “I do all feedings, naps, soothing, activities, medical appointments, errands, and laundry.” She wrote that she was also handling every household task on top of full-time parenting.

The mom said her husband worked long days and left the house from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., leaving her to manage “all cleaning, home maintenance, scheduling, groceries, bills, family trip planning, and 6 hours of weekly meal prep.” She said she even took care of the family dog.

Before having the baby, she had worked full-time, but was laid off shortly before giving birth. Though she said she kept about $75,000 in a separate savings account after they mergeed their finances, it was slowly shrinking as she covered groceries and the weekly meals she prepared for her husband.

She had been job-searching since June but explained that every interview required her to drive “45 minutes to his office so he can watch our daughter only for that exact hour.” She said the arrangement made the already stressful process nearly impossible.

Since their daughter turned 1, she told her husband she needed daycare or at least four to eight hours a week of childcare support. He responded, “What are you even going to do with that time?”

She wrote that she felt burnt out, unappreciated, and confused about why such a small request had sparked such resistance, despite her offering to cover the childcare from her personal savings account.

The mom worried she would “never be able to properly interview/job search unless I have some real time of my own,” and she asked the community whether she was wrong to be upset. She reminded readers that the same Reddit forum had once supported her when her husband “was badgering me for eating a hash brown during my pregnancy.”

Commenters responded quickly, and one reminded her that her husband had “an equal responsibility, time and financial, to care for his child.” The commenter also noted that spending time with only one caregiver wasn’t ideal for a toddler and said the little girl “really needs to be socialized.”

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Another commenter encouraged her to look into Mother’s Day Out programs, recalling a positive experience from their own life. “It was good for her to be around other children,” they added of the experience, noting it also helped the family build friendships.

“Go look at daycares. He can be involved in the process or not but it’s happening. Sounds like he’d prefer you not find work, perhaps so he doesn’t have to share household duties. Too bad, so sad. Go get the job you want,” another commented. “His savings better have dwindled by an equal amount over the past year since you’ve been providing free daycare, cleaning and catering.”