DH or me? Not making space for baby

This. Hoarding is very pernicious and it isn't easy to manage. He's already taken over most of your house and will fight to retain his items. Against you and the baby.

He needs to admit he has an issue and seek help for it.

If your Dh doesn't use the items surely it's time for him to declutter and throw some items away?

He is a hoarder. This is a serious issue.
he needs to ask his GP for a referral for help and you need to have the mother and father not all rows to allow you shared child to have his own space.

i think too many people are underestimating this

Do you have a shed, garage, loft or cupboard? If so fold his stuff put it in bin bags and store it there.

I agree.

OP, you say yourself that this is social media-led, rather than a necessity.

Say nothing further. In fact be totally amenable and agree with him. Buy the new furniture- stuff you really like, cram it all in so it looks shit, but still say nothing, then sit back and wait.
It will be massively inconvenient for your DH to keep going backwards and forwards , and when your LO is asleep he’s not going to get in anyway.
Sometimes battles are won not by shouting, but by letting things unfold in their own time.
Never say I told you so- it’s not worth it, but when he moves his stuff out, sit back in the smug knowledge you were right all along. 😁

My little boy is 2 now and he uses his bedroom. He has some of his toys in there and his clothes, bed and books etc. It's his space, and he knows it is his own space.

He’s got a spare room for his stuff already. Allocate that as his and move all his crap stuff in there. If it won’t fit in, then he needs to get rid of some of it. It’s completely selfish of him not to let his child have their own room.

How is he otherwise with the baby?

Hoarding is tough. My sister has 150 pairs of socks, 58 vest tops and 95 knickers. Just for starters.

I wasted a Saturday last year helping her "organize" her hellhole of a bedroom. She would not part with a single item no matter how shit, old and ratty. So basically zero progress after six hours on my feet sorting and folding.

Will your husband attend counseling? If he expects the spare room AND the nursery to be his storage, he's got a major problem.

What will happen once your child is old enough to open the drawers and has great fun going through them and playing with the contents?

You need to know that everything in a toddler's room is child safe.

He's being an idiot. I bet half of it is crap.

We used to use an entire spare room. Two in fact. When kids come along you prioritise what you need and make space. It's a normal part of life.

God knows what we filled those rooms with now.

Technically DH is right: LO won't give a toss about its nursery.

But that's not how it works. A special room with special things inside mean tjat someone new is coming. DH's refusal to budge shows that,
a) he doesn't understand this, or
b) it's all about him.

Just do it. Too msny wpmen wait for their other half to agree wgen they have every right to organise their own homes.

Or doesn't ypur opinion count?

I agree, I imagine you've tried other approaches over time, if he can't accept he's got an issue with hoarding then you can't just continue to live around it for fear of causing him upset.

It sounds like it's his way or the highway in your house OP! How often do you find yourself backing down because he won't compromise? On the face of it, it doesn't seem like a big thing, him refusing to move his stuff but don't you feel that you need to put your foot down and insist at some point?

Ask him how he's going to feel when baby is crawling and his things gets damaged... it'll be his own fault

When a friend of mine divorced, she realised for the first time that one person had been taking up 3/4 of the space in their house, and the other three people had squeezed into the remaining 1/4.

Tell him not to be that dad.

Tough

He sounds like prize twat to me.

Hoarding is a mental illness, often routed in anxiety etc. Usually not selfishness. He needs a solid talking to and help. Any attempt to sort it out yourself risks a very extreme reaction from him.

I'm sorry your husband is a selfish idiot, and you've got a nightmare ahead of you with his hoarding.

And husband, I would say.
Doesn't seem keen on becoming a father.

He’s a hoarder and therefore it’s going to be very difficult to win him around but I don’t see why he can’t store his stuff elsewhere in the house, it’s not like you’re saying get rid of it? Why can’t he store it elsewhere?

If he won’t shift could you compromise
and find a way to keep most of his stuff in that room whilst still achieving the look of the nursery that you want by maximising storage usage.

So for example can you buy a larger set of drawers and get rid of the current smaller one, then he has half and the baby has half.

Also can he clear some space in the wardrobe, babies don’t really need much hanging space at all. Fill any space in wardrobe (spare shelf,
on top, on floor etc) with organisation boxes, you can fit loads of stuff in them.

You could get a cot with get a cot with under cot drawers you can use to store bedding and toys etc.

Use lots of storage boxes/baskets/shelves around the room for storing more baby stuff.

It could still look lovely.

Doesn’t fix his selfishness though.

He needs to pick which bedroom to give up.

I mean, it'll be a long time before your DS is playing in his room. At this stage it's literally somewhere for a cot, cuddles and clothes.

I do get it, I really wanted a perfect nursery for DS. I grafted to get it ready before he came but then we moved when he was 8 months so it was only actually used for 2 months anyways! When we moved house, we had stuff in every room for ages. Took several months to get his room ready so he was close to 2 before he actually had his proper bedroom.

I don't think your DH needs to shift stuff straight away, but I would worry more that he doesn't want to, seemingly ever(?). He should want to give his child a nice bedroom.

Same here. Mine would be told to shift it or it’s off to Oxfam in my car. But he wouldn’t- because he never would have thought that he could store clothes in our DC’s room.

So he has the loft space, the other spare room, "baby's" room, presumably half of your bedroom - all full of his stuff?! He's a hoarder for sure.
How does he afford to add to all this "stuff" with a new baby?
You need to sit down and talk about where this is heading.