My DH seems to hate my baby girl.

upthewolves · 2015-10-21 16:28:16

I am so upset to be writing this. I had my beautiful DD 9 weeks ago. My DH and I live in Australia and all our family is in the UK so we have no family support. Its been hard. I had a bad case of baby blues for the first few weeks but came through it and I'm now knackered but completely in love with her. For the first few weeks DH seemed smitten. He was so hands on and full of adoration for her, enjoying cuddles and willingly changing nappies and comforting her when she cried. A couple of weeks after he went back to work everything started to change. He has become more and more distant. He's stopped helping out with stuff in the house and I'm now doing everything again plus baby care. He does cook, but that's it. I have to wash up, clean the house, do the laundry, put it away, walk the dog and the baby only sleeps for 4 hours a night. If I bring any of this up, he tells me to ask him for help. Sometimes i just want someone else to notice what needs doing so I'm not stage managing the whole house whilst my brain is fried from sleep deprivation. The last couple of weeks DD has become a lot more high maintenance, sleeping less in the day, needing a lot of entertaining and being very grizzly in the evenings. All normal baby stuff for her age. DH has just completely checked out. He will practically do things like change a happy but doesn't otherwise engage with her at all, just passes her straight on to me when she needs settling because 'he doesn't have boobs'. I've tried to ignore it hoping things will improve. This week my mum arrived from the UK and it made me realise something is really wrong. Mum has helped me with everything before I've even needed to ask and immediately steps in to soothe DD with cuddles, enjoys smiling at her and playing games, all the things my DH isn't doing. I've noticed when he comes in from work he doesn't kiss me, or DD. Today she was sleeping on me and I nudged him to show him (just because she looked really cute) and he said 'what about her?'. He hadn't seen her all day. He says it is really hard to be stressed at work all day then come home and be stressed at home faced with a crying baby. I get that it's hard doing both things but feel pretty pissed off that this gives him an excuse to be miserable because my job is 24hrs a day non stop and I'm shattered. Tonight I fed her and she was lovely and sleepy and I passed her to him just so he could have a cuddle. She murmured a bit when I passed her over so he held her job in the air and made silly noises at her until she was then fully awake and crying so I had to have her back. Tonight I tried talking to him, coming from an angle that I was concerned about him and wondered if he might have a touch of depression ( genuine concern). He got really cross and asked me what I wanted him to do. I get flustered when we argue as he is very difficult to argue with. I said it feels like he is a bit distant and has lost the affection he had for DD. He said she gets nothing from her which is understandable when she just eats sleeps and cries. He said (this is the worst part) 'it's just a creature'. I'm absolutely devastated, for myself and for DD. He thinks this is all normal for dads, he doesn't need help and I'm being massively unreasonable. He also pointed out that there is bound to be a gulf between us because there is always a baby between us and we haven't had a real relationship for almost 10 weeks. We haven't had sex yet, tbh I'm knackered, I have no desire, and I had a tear which makes me nervous about it. Sorry this is so long. There is much more I could say. Has anyone experienced anything like this before? Right now I feel like my marriage is over and I just want to go back home to the UK.

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Relationships

This thread has been deleted

Hi all,

We're removing this thread at the OP's request - it's pretty old, and they don't want to be reminded of this difficult time.