Hello my husband (30m) and I (29f) have 2 daughters. They do not have a big age gap only 22 months. My oldest (2) and him have great bond as do I with her. I noticed after my youngest was born the first few months was the normal cuddling an loving from all 3 of us towards our newborn but as she started to get older and have her own personality I noticed a shift. He acts more distant from her and annoyed. I want to first state that I never feel she is in danger or he will harm her! BUT I do notice a clear difference in how he treats my girls. He consistently loves an cuddles my oldest he is an amazing father to both but acts more serious and standoffish towards our second child who is now almost 1. He was more hands on with our first an still is but doesn’t want to be bothered as much with our second. If we’re out an about he prefers to help watch our oldest (she’s easier since she’s 2 almost 3) then watch our baby (who is walking/ crawling an more needy). Would love some advice from other parents that had this experience or what could be the potential issue causing it. My husband states he loves both his girls equally but it personally makes me sad to see him not want to bond with our second as much as he did a does our first.
Is it normal for my husband to not bond with our second child?
r/Advice
Comments
Maybe deep in his heart he only wanted 1 kid. And may not even know it consciously
You don’t mention anything about your two daughters. Every kid will be different. There have been times in my kids’ lives where I was closer to one than another, but that was really more about them than about me. The starkest example would be our second daughter. Our first was as easy as a kid could be to raise. We were very young parents and honestly couldn’t understand why people made parenting sound so difficult. Then our second came, and she was the exact opposite. Cried all the time, put everything in her mouth, and only ever wanted to be comforted by her mom. This was very difficult for me since I had an amazing relationship with our first one. I kept at it, and years down the road we got closer, but never really to the same level as our first or third kids.
No. It’s not normal. It’s also not abnormal to be closer with certain humans than others. There definitely should still be a “bond”.
ETA: I am far more likely to want to be responsible for a person who can tell me why they’re crying, if they’re hungry and can potentially go to the bathroom on their own. That’s not “bonding”. Everyone has ages of kids that are easier for them to deal with.
No
Why not discuss it with him ?
Video him with the kids. Maybe he’ll see what he’s doing.
I’ve seen this .it is soooo sad for the kid who wants attention from them . They’ll grow up feeling they were denied -and resent sibling – and mom is caught in middle . Get him counseling?? Idk
I’m going to tell you that if you don’t intervene and change this, it’s going to screw your youngest daughter up for life. Kids pick up on these things. And what you’re describing is not OK for a father to do
No two children have the same parents.
He has different experiences. You have different experiences. Maybe he remembers how you were with daughter1. Therefore he wants you to be able to do
Everything with her right now.
I know I’ve treated my two children differently (buy/girl). My son is more sports/video games. My daughter is kore dance and art.
Ours had a struggle with our first. The second was a less intense kid, from the beginning. Some baby stage books helped, but really it was an issue. Hang in there.
I encourage you to speak out loud about this with him and to keep up your mama intuition and radar for her well-being in the future. My mother has a strong preference for my younger brother and it’s been a life long struggle for me as a result. A kid knows these things deep inside and it effects mental health to be loved less
Definitely have a talk with him. That’s just weird. Even with my son who is a momma’s boy and my daughter is a daddy’s girl I still love him the same way. I may be closer to my daughter but still treat them the same way
Maybe he is taking the easy route and taking care of the oldest. Tell him you want yo spend time with oldest. Had him over the small child.
Maybe he doesn’t like babies and how needy they are. If it continues when the 1 year old turns 2, you may need to consider that he needs therapy. Definitely don’t have another kid.
No, it’s not normal. I saw a comment here that suggested you video them together to show the difference. I would do that, and also, don’t ask him in an accusatory tone even unintentionally. Show him and say something like, I’ve noticed some differences in the way you show affection or attention to the girls. Do you feel you’re having a harder time bonding with youngest? Is there anything I can do to help? Maybe take oldest to the park while you have some bonding time with youngest?
Or something along those lines. But definitely don’t let this go, for both their sake.
Some people are just more comfortable with a little older child! Babies kind of spook them! When your first daughter was an infant did he bond with her as much as he does now?
My brother-in-law did this with his children. One was the wonderful angel and the other one was an absolute annoyance.
Both kids are not doing well as young men. The little angel, who was the all good child and who could do no wrong, who was pushed into medical school, the right clubs, the right people, the right places, ended up with a psychotic breakdown and mental health issues which are ongoing. He was just never really allowed to be himself.
The other kiddo is a workaholic. Separated himself emotionally from both parents and work is his entire life.
It’s hard to know what goes on underneath because he doesn’t communicate feelings.
Two really beautiful kiddos that were stuffed up by parents.
Your husband’s behavior is separating the children. It may well be that the child that gets ignored is triggering him somehow. He probably sees himself in that child.. or at least the parts he doesn’t like about himself in that child.
Your other child. He probably sees himself too, but the bits that he loves.
Your partner needs some counseling before you irreparably harm your children.
It’s also potentially a method of control that’s used in narcissism. You treat one child as the golden child and the other child is the black sheep. The Golden child is controlled because it fears being treated like the black sheep child.
It’s such a horrible and divisive way of raising children.
My parents did it to me and my sister. She was the Golden child. I was the black sheep. Occasionally we swapped places briefly.
I don’t recommend it. As the black sheep child, you do become rebellious and you’re very aware all the way through that you are not receiving the same love as the other.
Black sheep people are usually amazingly stoic, they separate early, they get on with their own lives, they kick ass, and they will never treat their own children that way.
It also requires extensive therapy to recover from.. if at all possible.
But it leaves you with lifelong scars.
I hope he gets help.
It’s great you’re flagging this – but you’re not in the same position as you were with baby 1.
At this point, attention is diverted to two needy little lives. Exhaustion is even more prevalent.
As you said, toddler is less work (right now) than baby. This feels more like tiredness consequences than lack of love.
That said, it is still a consequence, so gently make it clear that you need a balanced approach and take turns with each of them.
Nip it in the butt now before oldest and youngest figure it out
I’m a father of two and the same thing happened with me. I don’t think your husband is doing it on purpose but he went through the first child and he wants the second one to be a little more independent and for men the bonding curve is different than for women. I promise you he loves your second born and would do anything for her…. when push comes to shove he would lay his life down for her but he’s just trying some different approaches that’s all… I wouldn’t push him to be more engaged but instead have the conversation of once they’re out of the baby stage they’re going to notice the difference in emotional care. If you have that conversation with him he’ll definitely step up to the plate in that matter.
Hope this helps. A lot of these comments are faulting him, I would be wary of listening to these people you don’t know if they have kids or not. It matters quite a bit.
I don’t think this is normal. It is normal to appreciate your kids who make your life easy and to feel frustration toward the kids who do not. But as a parent, knowing how you feel and what you convey to the child may be two different things. The parent has to work at the bonding if they don’t automatically feel it for the mental and emotional health of each and every child in the family.
I have four kids – three are adopted, so the “bonding” isn’t what one would call “normal.” For most parents of bio kids, certain feelings are almost instantaneous the minute they are put baby into your arms. If the child birth is traumatic (e.g., child has complications and put in the NICU) OR the mother has postpartum depression, that bonding process can get disrupted, which is bad for the baby. It is why new moms are given the PPD list at many appointments in that first year, because PPD can strike a few months after the birth. It is not only bad for the mother, but it also disrupts bonding with the child, which can negatively affect the development of child even when the child is fed and clothed. With adoption, the adoptive parents have to make a choice to work extra hard to ensure that bonding takes place, and it usually does over months rather than instantaneously.
If your husband isn’t showing that bonding, he needs to acknowledge the problem, and potentially get therapy to help fix it.
This is part of having two kids. It’s completely different having one kid where you can cuddle and learn everything vs the second kid where you are expecting it to be like the first but it isn’t.
Very happily married and very involved father of 4 here…I went through this with my 3rd. It’s normal for a father to take some time to bond with a new child when you already have one or more. I don’t know your exact situation, but for me, when we had our third I started spending a LOT more time with our first two than my wife was. The newborn was dependant on my wife to breastfeed, which meant they naturally bonded and I “picked up the slack” with the older kids, which means our existing bond grew stronger. My wife had her hands full with the baby and I had mine full with the toddlers…her life was boobs and diapers and mine was potty training and fighting over vegetables. It all evened out when the youngest turned 2-ish, but there was a period of time where I didn’t have the same bond with the baby as I did with the other kids, despite loving them equally. It was easier with the 4th because we knew what to expect and the older 2 were able to help more, but this is very normal. Give it some time before you take advice from a bunch of people stuck in miserable relationships.
Does little prefer you? In the beginning kids sometimes favor mom and then switch. Maybe he’s just taking time with the older while this plays out.
I struggle bonding with my first male grand child. I’m on the spectrum and I’m OCD and he does stuff that drives me batshit. 1st rule of the house is no whining. He’s always the first to break it. My wife tells me I’m to hard on him and I say rule 1 is the same for all. I’m working on it but I admit it’s real. I don’t love him any less I just get irritated by his whining. I had 2 girls and the first 2 grandkids were girls. He’s the first boy and it’s totally different. Just my perspective.
Any chance he has ‘post partum’ depression? Way more common than you think especially with 2nd child