To think my DH’s approach to crying baby was completely wrong?

Please talk to your GP or health visitor about this. You cannot ignore it @safetyfirst1 . This man is not safe to have your baby in his care.

Incredibly cruel and neglectful

Your baby is 8 weeks old and he intentionally left him alone, in the dark, distressed - that cry is unbearable and he should have recognised it - but it sounds like he was intentionally ignoring it, to show you how it’s done.

He sounds horrible, cold and uncaring to me. I’d have got up as soon as I heard that cry.

Yanbu 8 week old babies shouldn't be left alone to cry it out their to young the only time I would find this acceptable is when their is only one adult in the house and they need to step away to calm themselves down.

This poor little mite is only 8 weeks old. He is completely helpless. Your excuse of an H is bullying a tiny baby. What else does he do when you are not looking? You MUST protect your baby.
He'd been sick, he was clearly terrified and a grown man did this to him.
How fo you know he won't shake him or leave him to choke on his own vomit again.
Stop being diplomatic, tell him to get the fuck out.

OK I’ve read enough. This is not about where the bottles were or types of cries and who can hear the difference. This man was incredibly cruel and neglectful and I would go so far as to say put your tiny infant son’s life at risk. And for what? Some kind of oneupmanship?

If he had blamed it on sleep deprivation and apologised profusely and promised it would never happen again then maybe, just maybe he might be forgiven sometime this century. But arguing the toss? Refusing to accept blame? Where do you possibly go from here?

Clearly he cannot be left in charge of your son at all. Neither is it reasonable for you to have to raise your son single handed because his father is a monster lacking in human empathy. To me, the wrath of hell would descend on this man until he accepted just what he had done and if he would not then I would be divorcing him. Treating his wife poorly is one thing but a defenceless newborn? Hell no.

"Crying is the only way babies communicate" is such a dangerous myth.

Babies have dozens of cues that are universal. There are great YouTube videos showing different cries and cues such as tongue thrusting, leg kicking etc.

Don’t let someone talk to you like this OP, just don’t, and don’t play into allowing him to show you what is ‘right’. Don’t stand for it because if you do it will only get worse.

I’m not saying LTB (yet) but I would be having a stern conversation, you are not nagging him, he doesn’t just get to do whatever he wants with an 8 week old baby and he doesn’t get to play passive aggressive games about ‘who left which bottle where’

I must say you have quite the self control because I would not let anyone talk to me like that, ever.

Just leave him op, you'll save yourself and your poor baby a lot of extra abuse in the long run.

Your “D”H sounds like a grade A bellend and I wouldn’t be explaining anything kindly but packing his bags. He’s a danger to your baby through his negligence and obviously can’t be trusted. And he probably knows this, which is why he’s so defensive.
The bottles/dishwasher thing is irrelevant, you never leave a baby this young unattended even if they’re happy, let alone if they’re crying, they can choke so easily if they vomit.

I don’t really understand the whole situation - so he’s waiting for the dishwasher to finish, why does that mean the baby has to be in another room? He could’ve still checked on him, picked him up?
At this age DD was always in a Moses basket in the same room we were in, whatever we were doing.
Also, at 8 weeks PP my DH took care of me, was always on hand to help with baby but respected my views and let me take the lead.
Your body is still recovering and your hormones are all over the place, your “D”H should be treating you with kindness and looking after you, not telling you you’ve “loaded the dishwasher like an idiot”.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is just the tip of the iceberg, he sounds abusive.

I would seriously be thinking the relationship.

Try getting the bottles washed before bed (even just hand wash one and put the rest in the dishwasher before going to sleep). Also use ready to feed or fridge method if it makes night time feeds easier.

But no, 100% your husband is a douchebag. You do not leave a newborn alone to cry (unless you are at snapping point and it’s for their safety). Baby was probably terrified, the poor little thing.

Miscalculations happen. We’ve all been there, thinking we had more time to make a bottle than we did, but that’s when you are desperately making a bottle one handed whilst trying to rock/soothe the baby with the other. You don’t leave them alone in the dark to cry for who knows how long.

Babies DO cry, but they should not cry alone (unless there are very, very good reasons).

ETA: Just seen this was deliberate and not just a miscalculation. He’s an abusive tw*t. He’d be out on his arse if he was mine.

@oustedbymymate he told OP he refused to give the baby a bottle to spite the OP ('because I couldn’t be bothered to wash them manually, neither could he') and there were plenty of ready to feed bottles available, he just chose to leave the newborn in distress and alone.
That's not amazing.

@Lourdes12 DFOD the least helpful comment

Ok. So maybe going to get flamed....

Whilst what happened definitely isn't great I think DH is getting an awful lot of stick without maybe thinking of the other side.

You've both been through a huge life changing thing having a baby. Yes it's massive for you but will also affect him. I genuinely think DH just wasn't thinking straight (who does sleep deprived!) i feel like his trade of thought was

1. no clean bottle so need a clean bottle
2. I need to sterilise it first
3. baby is crying and will wake you up so hoping in other room won't wake you
4. in dark room baby might go back to sleep whilst I clean and sterilise bottle.

I'm not saying this is rational. It's not. Why he didn't pick baby up and comfort them
Or open dishwasher is anyone's guess. But he didn't.

I think you both need an honest conversation about how shit and hard it is right now. Lay some rules

1. he never leaves baby alone like that again - what could he have done differently
2. buy more bottles (we had about 12!!)
3. always have two fresh sterilised bottles to go. No matter how tired you are. That goes for both. We shared sleep like this and before the other went to bed me or DH we made sure the other had fresh supply of nappies wipes clothes bottles formula anything to make it easier. Drink and snacks etc.

My DH once left my 3 month old outside a public toilet block on his own whilst he went to the toilet as the pram didn't fit in the cubicle. Less than a great decision but we then talked about what he should have done in that situation and he hasn't done it again since.

It's really hard and you're both doing a an amazing job but try not to get into the blame game or who is more tired etc. accept you both feel shit and tired and scared and confused and amazed but how can you be a team. You've got this!

Yes, difficult not to respond to this. It’s great that breastfeeding was easy for you, however every mum
and baby are different and are doing what is right for them.

Of course there are times you have to leave a baby to cry - when you're making a bottle/ having a shower/ eating food / changing them but they want held / when they've been crying for hours and nothing you do helps them and you just really really need a break

But its not clear why he left the baby alone to cry. Your baby was distressed and your husband doesn't seem to care, and would rather be in a different room to the baby? Just doesn't add up or sound like it's anything similar to any other scenario where people usually leave their babies to cry. Yes picking the baby up wouldn't get food any faster but it would have made the baby a lot calmer. He is really not acting in a way that most people would in this scenario. If he won't listen to you then I'd ask if you want to approach the health visitor together for some advice to get an outside perspective on whether you're too interfering or whether he is making some decisions that aren't in the baby's best interests

Right. All this talk of bottles is absurd—there were other bottles available the dh hust chise not to look for them or use them. In addition, somewhat obviously, babies cry for lots of reasons: hungry, tired, anxious, wet, gassy—only one of these requires a bottle at all. The rest require ricking and soothing. The DH acted out angrily and spitefully towards a helpless 8 week old.

Could you speak to your health visitor about the 'differences' in parenting styles so that she can educate your husband that he is a neglectful twat who would have ignored a choking baby, because he thought he knew better! It's quite shocking to read this, OP, and I think you could do with some support, and at least get this incident on record somewhere, just incase his shitty behaviour escalates. Having a baby can sometimes be an event where men start become abusive towards their partner and sometimes the baby. I think his attitude towards you since giving birth and the awful treatment towards your child needs to be monitored. Perhaps have a think about what support you have or might need if his behaviour worsens.

That’s very sad. It’s possible baby was so distressed from crying that he vomited.

If a baby won’t stop crying it’s ok to put them down in a safe place and step out of the room for a few minutes to calm down but if there was another parent in the house I think the first port of call should be to let the other parent know that the baby won’t settle, he needed a break, and swap.

I think it sounds a bit suspicious and callous to put the baby in a separate room and ‘drown them out’ with white noise.

If the dishwasher wouldn’t have finished for another 10 mins what was he doing that prevented him from sitting in the dark room with his baby?! You can’t sleep train an 8week old, they are barely out of the fourth trimester! (Sleep training isn’t great anyway because the baby still has the same level of cortisol from distress but just learns that no one will respond to their cries)

Id be keeping a vigilant eye on if this was a one off selfish spur of the moment event or an indication of potential future neglect.

Who watches their baby sleep? That’s why they are placed on their back in an empty cot, so they can’t choke on vomit.

Lucky you

We paced the floor for hours

Breastfeeding doesn't cure everything

Yes, he was out of line for leaving the baby to cry for so long.

but… you have an 8 week old, youre both knackered and finding your feet. If I was you I would have a calm chat that you don’t want the baby left to cry, explain where the ready to feed bottles are to avoid it in future, and move on. Your relationship is going to be tested during this first year of having a baby, like never before. You need to navigate stuff like this. I very much doubt he’s a monster who wants to leave a baby in a dangerous situation in distress. I expect he’s a sleep deprived new dad who is learning how to parent, and he’s made a mistake.

Crying so long they were sick??

No reason. No excuse

Really terrible parenting.

Your baby is still very small

seems to me that maybe your DH is bored by the 'chore' of having to comfort a small baby and just decided to ignore it. At 8 weeks your poor little thing is still in the 'fourth trimester', barely out of the womb. My DH (no saint, just a normal human parent) would never, ever, have left either of our kids alone crying for a second longer than the time it took to rush to them. and 8 weeks is plenty time enough to have mastered the knack of doing everything one handed. Sure, sometimes you can't stop a baby from crying but you HOLD THEM WHILE THEY DO IT so that you are at least trying your best to figure out the problem (are they hungry? windy? tired? etc).

If he genuinely believes (and I suspect he doesn't) that this is somehow 'better' parenting, get him some literature on the damage that not comforting newborn babies can do. there are plenty of studies.

yeah.....I am kind of not convinced by the innate ability thing.