A bit of background, my husband and I have been married for nearly ten years, we have a six year old and a two month old. I have a really rough time in pregnancy (HG), which is why there is such a large gap between our children. Postpartum with my first was also very rough, I went through PPA and PPD. We decided not to have any more kids, but over the years we realized we did want one or two more.
Well, that is out the window. I had even more severe HG this time. I lost so much weight. I barely could function.
My husband was amazing through this. He took care of our child, he took care of me. He fought for me with the doctors. He took over the house chores, cooking, grocery shopping- he was amazing. I felt so guilty the whole pregnancy, but gosh, so supported.
Let me stress before the crux of the problem is brought up. My husband has been doing a TON to help out this time around. Last postpartum period I recall feeling isolated, lonely and unsupported. We went through our roughest patch. He would come home from work and immediately go to his parents or work on the yard. I would be alone all day until seven, and then I had to go to bed because I handled all the night feeds (breastfeeding). It was rough. This time? He has been amazing. He has been helping with our child, despite needing to work. He has picked up the groceries more than once, cooked meals, washed dishes, helped with the laundry, it’s been great… except for one thing.. the baby.
Now he loves the baby. I can tell. He watches her with complete adoration. Checks on her when she cries, comes to say hello, coos at her. He loves her.
He doesn’t help with her though.
He won’t pick her up unless I ask him. Won’t change a diaper unless I ask him. Won’t go to go to give her tummy time. Won’t bathe her unless I ask him for help with it. Won’t soothe her other than cooing/talking to her.
She has been going through a huge feeding aversion. She rejected breastfeeding, perhaps because of reflux and a tongue tie. We got her on medication and the tongue tie released, but the damage was done to my confidence and mental health. I was breastfeeding, then feeding with a bottle and then pumping (triple feeding). It was exhausting, and I found my mental health plummeting. I started to see my baby as a chore, and I dreaded feedings knowing she would pop off and scream at my breast. I begged my husband to be supportive of me quitting. I was exhausted. I couldn’t keep up with cleaning pump parts or pumping. He would clean them if I asked, but that was just adding to the mental load.
He was not on board until the day I admitted I was scared of myself. Or maybe it was just the week of sobbing 24/7. He finally agreed. We switched to formula. She struggled with the bottle and still does, but it is better than breastfeeding. There is no screaming. Still, we have issues. Her weight gain is still poor, and the pediatrician has us in Speech. Soon we will go have a swallow study done.
I am constantly stressed out about her feeds. I asked him to take just one feed a night, just one so I could have more than a 1.5-2 hour stretch of sleep. He always just stared at me when I asked. Now we are in a program that insists only one person do all the bottle feeds, so it truly is all on me.
Anyways, today I broke. I was rocking her asleep (she was resisting it and so I had been there for an hour) went to transfer her to the crib and he was in bed playing on his phone. He had been there for over thirty minutes at least. It clicked for me then that even though it was seven pm, he had not held her once. I put her in the crib, she woke up immediately and I broke. I turned to him and told him he doesn’t hold her enough. He looked confused and asked what , so I repeated it. I then picked her up and put her in her bouncer in another room. When he followed, I vented about how I shouldn’t have to manage if and when he holds her.
I definitely hurt his feelings. He was silent the entire time, and then went to his office. He did not come out even when I was feeding her and called him for help because I had grabbed the wrong bottle nipple flow. Our child had to run and get him. After the baby ate, I did tell him I hoped he knew how much I appreciated everything else he does (and for the record, I have sung his praises to everyone and him this entire postpartum period. I have not neglected being grateful) .
The air feels a bit easier. But…
Look, I am in a haze of stress. I just want my baby to want to eat. I feel mom guilt that I don’t have enough time for my first born. My work has started to text me about my return date which is right around the corner. I don’t have more than 2 consecutive hours of sleep in me and no more than 4-5 total on a good day. The house is constantly behind. I have bottles and diapers and spit up and everything to track. So maybe I am unreasonable? He does a lot for our family. A lot. I am just so overwhelmed and honestly? A little touched out. (I mean here I am fighting to rock her to sleep for the last thirty minutes. I am overheated and stuck and I will be trapped for at least 20 more before I can put her in the crib).
I know I should have approached it better- honestly, I didn’t even realize this had been bubbling up so much. I confess, it feels like it all stems back to him just staring at me silently the many times I asked him to take 1 night feed. He later told me he was uncomfortable with her choking on the bottle (this was and is one of her issues that we are trying to address). I get it. It is scary. I have to be constantly vigilant in watching her eat, ready to lower the bottle or yank it away to turn her on her side… but how is this fair? It made sense this was on my shoulders when we were breastfeeding. Less so when we were breastfeeding AND bottle feeding. Even less when I was just pumping and bottle feeding. And now it makes zero sense to me that I have to handle every feed (except for this program we are now following. Only one person is supposed to handle the feedings until you are through it.)
I don’t know. I am exhausted. I get up at five or six am and don’t get to sleep until ten or eleven . He stays up until two am and sleeps until nine or ten, then goes to work either at home or he leaves for the office. There is some resentment, I won’t lie. I just need advice, and I can’t even pinpoint where.
Comments
When you told him he needs to participate in care of the newborn and he just stared at you, I wanted to scream. Just stared at you?!? If you had just stared back at him, would he eventually had tried to justify ignoring the baby?
I don’t think you were wrong to lash out but you need to make it more clear how serious this issue is. A lot of men let their daddy duties slide & he needs to know he’s falling short of your support needs. Having a newborn is hard. Keep communicating & hold him
accountable.
You’re doing so much. You care so much. You’re doing a good job. He needs to step up and hold the baby. Esp when you’ve done it all. My youngest was hard. Sometimes doing another house task instead of holding the baby felt easier…
The “ton” of help he does around the house is the bare minimum. Not taking care of his own child is horrible. Not letting you sleep is horrible. I don’t think he’s as great as you think he is.
You refer to him as your partner in the title, but he is not acting like a partner. This is now the second baby he is opting out of. It’s great that he’s helpful when it comes to household chores and caring for the older child, but there’s a concerning similarity in his hands-off approach to both babies.
I get that he’s uncomfortable with the feedings. You are uncomfortable too, but since you’re the Mom/Default Parent, you don’t have the luxury of opting out of what makes you uncomfortable. You’re doing what you must. He’s doing what he feels like he’s able to do. There’s a huge difference there, and it’s not fair.
If you absolutely have to do this program that requires you to do all the feedings for now, that could be okay, but he HAS to do diapers, snuggles, bath time, etc. when he’s not working WITHOUT your reminders. It’s unfair that he has to be told that, but he does. If possible, as soon as you finish feeding her, hand her to him and then get out of the house. He has to figure out how to parent a baby.
Maybe you need some outside help. A relative, a friend with baby experience. Etc.
You can say the program doesn’t work for you and being the only one to feed her is actively harming your mental health. Your health matters too.
This is like…really hard. And you use the word ‘help’ a lot. He isn’t supposed to be ‘helping’. It still makes it seem like it is your primary job. He is supposed to be ‘DOING’. Honestly at this point you need to hire help so you can get some sleep. You can’t force him to be a dad. You have to prioritize yourself and get your mind and body right.
Husband aside, can you get help around the house to help alleviate the mental noise and anxiety around the rest of the home staring at you while you deal with the baby/toddler? It honestly sounds like you’ll need domestic help when you go back to work alongside daycare? Or do you have a WFH role? I also hate to repeat comments but he really hasn’t been as helpful or as good as you’ve said he is because he was basically adulting as he should be and being a partner to you. His mother has to become involved for necessary info to come out to shine a light on a fear of his?? You’re a single married parent.
My heart aches for you….God forbid, but what if you were in an accident and couldn’t be there for a few weeks or months. Or just decided you were noping out of this life and leaving him with the kids ( not saying you are but every so often we hear about the exhausted moms going away for a weekend or just leaving for a few weeks or for ever )
He would have to man up and do everything by himself
He’s not supposed to help you he’s supposed to be a 50% parent, you guys are a team and he’s not even giving you the bare minimum.
Who do you have in your life who can help right here and right now?
You say he’s doing a ton to help out, but I think you just got used to less than the bare minimum.
After our baby was born my husband took all night duties (bottle feeding, soothing her, etc) so I could sleep and only had to wake up to pump. When she started sleeping through the night he’d put her to bed and take care of any needs that might come up. We let each other nap and when either of us felt that “someone needs to take this baby from me” feeling we’d dump her on the other person. He changed most diapers because I was doing so much nursing and pumping.
He was doing at least as much parenting as I was – if not more, frankly. I really really struggled with PPD and he was nothing but supportive even when I couldn’t get out of bed and all of the care for our newborn and the rest of our life fell on him. He was very stressed but took it on because he knew I couldn’t.
That’s a partner. I gotta say the idea that your husband was negative about you switching to formula stands out the most to me as absolutely fucking insane. I had low supply and we were triple feeding. My husband from the beginning said “if you want to bail on this and switch to formula I 100% support you.” I liked nursing so I kept with it, but I had his support for whatever I needed. All he wanted was for me to be ok, and as long as the baby was fed my mental health was his biggest concern.
Your body (and brain!) has gone and is still going through hell. His job is to do everything he possibly can to take care of the baby AND take care of YOU. It makes me so sad that you feel like this is more than you can ask for and that you still feel like you’re drowning. He needs to take the goddamn night feeds. You need sleep.
Oh mama.,I wish I could come to you and hug you and take care of your children while you take a break. It sounds like you both have post partum depression. Men can get it too, and it presents as anxiety and avoidance towards the baby. It sounds like you are both having a hard time. I think therapy would be really helpful. But in the short term you need support. If you don’t have another family member you need to hire a baby sitter/mothers helper to help you and give you breaks.
Do you have a crisis nursery where you live? Where I live you can take your baby to emergency day care if you need to while you go to an appointment or work or get mental health care.
Hugs to you.
Weaponised incompetence. He’s forcing the labour of everything onto you, even down to making you ask him to do things that he should be reasonably expected to do/know when to do.
It’s not enough to just love a baby. They cannot sustain themselves on love alone. He has to be willing to literally keep her alive, by doing life-sustaining activities, like feeding her – or other forms of essential care. Him ignoring you struggling helps no one in the household – and yet that’s what he chooses to do, because it’s comfortable for him to do so.
He doesn’t even pay attention enough to know the cues of when the baby needs to be picked up. 😐
You’re not ungrateful. You’re not selfish for needing him to step up.
He’s working and helping around the house. I know you must appreciate that, but the fact is, you need rest. Have you thought about hiring some help? A night nurse? Someone to come in for a couple of hours in the morning so you can sleep in? A housekeeper? Calling on family to give you a break?