To think OH is being crap or is this standard?

[appletarts]

Todays scenarios....

1. Toddler pees through knickers, trousers and wellies when out. OH stands by the car with her for 5 minutes in freezing conditions waiting for me to come back to sort it out. He has car keys in his hand and there's plenty of spare clothes in the car (I haven't specifically told him that but one second of looking he's find them in boot).
   

1. Baby winging and whining, I call up why baby crying? He says it's this and that. 30min later I come up and baby has temperature. He didn't notice flushed cheeks, warm back.
   

Every day is like this in some way and I'm getting pissed off. He doesn't take initiative, are other dads like this? Is it really all mums work? On the plus side he is gentle, calm, sweet, plays with them beautifully and is a good emotional support to me just resolutely shit at doing this hands on stuff which makes me feel I'm on my own with the responsibility parts of it all. Is this normal dad behaviour?

[BlahBlahBlahhh]

Do you not realise that dads take their sons aside when little and explain that if they do a rubbish job of something when asked by mum/partner/wife, said mum/partner/wife will gradually stop asking and do it themselves. They think its a secret between themselves but I've got it Sussed

[Allthingspretty]

Maybe hes just a but nervous of getting something wtong?

[ClippedPhoenix]

Im with you on this one allthings, he hasn't done anything terribly wrong.

[ClippedPhoenix]

Now, if he had called OP and told her to get right back to the car now due to child wetting, then I'd have an issue but he didnt.

[fairylightsinthesnow]

it's on here a lot that in the domestic sphere men are helpless but hold down high powered, complicated jobs. Eg, my friend's DH is an engineer. When their DC 1 was tiny and she puked up on him, he was yelling for my friend to come and help him clean up because he couldn't sort out the baby and the floor at the same time. What did he think she does when home alone all day?? As for the OP, both a bit rubbish but not untypical. DH often dresses DS in what he thinks is cute, or funky but doesn't think so much about warmth or what coat will go over it or if he is wearing wellies and therefore needs thicker socks etc. He is not great at dressing DD because he doesn't understand that tights are underwear and leggings are not, and that a longer top looks better with leggings for instance. I do organise stuff like cards and presents for birthday parties, even if he is taking DS because he will forget, not know what to get and then I'll have to do a rush job at the last minute. He will often forget something in the chnaging bag but then he also regularly loses / forgets phone, keys, wallet etc, so that's just him generally He's a truly lovely dad who adores his kids and would always think of something if caught short but it does drive me just a little bit wild occasionally. Best one was when we went swimming and he put DS in the pull up that was for AFTER swimming, not the swimming nappy.

[Spice17]

This thread makes me feel cross on all of our behalves (is that a word?!)

DH loves our DD and is good with her but just has no sense at all, is inapable of packing a changing bag i.e. knowing what she needs without asking me and no matter how many times I tell him he forgets to give her medicine before feeding her (and then gets annoyed when I ' nag' him - can't win)

I honestly have to bite my tongue all the time and I'm really not very good at it he thinks I'm a bossy bitch I'm sure

[ClippedPhoenix]

Well all this cross stuff needs to stop really doesn't it. He's an idiot? how would you like it?

Explain properly and let the reigns go for a while, a few mistakes then bingo the other person whether male or female will get it.

The child won't die due to a few hiccups you know.

Let a person learn by their mistakes.

[purplechocolate]

1. He phoned - you said you would be back soon and you had wipes anyway - he didn't know there were spare clothes in the car.....In those circumstances, my DH would have done the same and I wouldn't be angry. If he'd stood there knowing there were spare clothes and not done anything, I'd have had words.
   

1. Dh is pretty good at spotting temps but even if he missed one, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

[itsakindarabbit]

Ha.my dh hassled me on the phone for 10 mins telling me to hurry up and finish in waitrose as dd was screaming she needed a wee and the baby was asleep in the car.

He actually let her wet herself and was angry with me over it when all he had to do was park and let her do a wee in a secluded corner of the carpark. Couldnt work it out or deal with it on hos own at all.

[nickelbabe]

I asked dh about toddler pissing herself and once he'd worked out I was giving a hypothetical situation, we did say without prompting that he would have taken off the wet stuff and put her in the car.
he was also confused thag your oh hadn't thought to do that when he had the keys

[ClippedPhoenix]

that is a totally different situation itsakinarabbit, your DH was an arse. The OP's isn't.

[nickelbabe]

he did say

[itsakindarabbit]

Oh i just needed an excuse to get that anecdote out, though. It happened at least 18 months sgo but still boils my piss whenever i think about it.

[greentea72]

Mines just as useless! In shoe shop trying to sort out shoes for dd1 this weekend, he interrupts me whilst I am talking to shop assistant to tell me dd2 toddler is pulling shoes of the shelf and I need to stop her- didn't cross his mind to stop her himself even though he was just stood there.

[notmyproblem]

Amazing how these useless men at home seem to hold down (well)paid jobs, manage to get themselves through life without falling off a cliff or leaving the house naked or starving to death.

Too many of you are enabling them to be children. Stop it.

[ClippedPhoenix]

People have different abilities so I really don't understand why everyone calls someone thick? It's just a matter of what you do surely, if someone looks after a child then they will know what to do when, the other won't unless taught to?

As for enabling people to be children, people who don't look after children regularly just purely don't know how to do it, same way as you wouldn't know how to do your partners job would you?

[goldenlula]

My dh isn't great at using his initiative but

1. he would have stripped the soggy child off and put them in the car and run the engine to warm them up (he may have had a look for spares in the car)
   
2. I think he may well have noticed the temp as he tends to worry about their temps more than me!

[CatsRule]

My dh is a great Dad however he has only changed a poo nappy once...ds is 1 nezt weekend!

He admits that he avoids it and I recently asked him what he will do if I wasn't there, out or at work etc...he said he'd do it then! So far it's me, my mum or nursery who change him.

Aparently he doesn't find poo nappies pleasant....I just love them!

It's just one of those things that need done...it does annoy me that he will avoid them though. He will also hang about until I choose clothes for ds to put on...how difficult is it to pick an outfit! I think it must be a man thing as he is otherwise great with ds.

[MidnightMasquerader]

Jesus... One shitty nappy in one year.... People biting thier tongues rather than telling their partners that they're incompetent arses...

[LuisGarcia]

I think it must be a man thing

Nope.

[DoJo]

It's not a man thing, it's a crap parenting thing enacted by someone who didn't give a second thought to his daughter's comfort over his own desire not to get piss on his hands. If my husband did this I would be furious, not because I had to deal with it, but because he had left a child getting colder in wet clothes for no reason except his own apathy.

[Illgetmegoat]

DH and I have been parents for exactly the same amount of time - he is as much of a parent as I am.

We do things differently but we arrive at the same place - I really don't care if he wants to take 2 spares or 1 spare of xyz, or packs the bag pockets differently or whatever it is he does. It works just as well.

I have seen friends get huffy, angry or even quite insulting to their partners because something isn't done to their exact liking and then spend ages moaning about how they have to do everything. If I was treated like that I'd tell them to take a running jump too and take a huge step right back.

However your first example is just crap.

[BertieBotts]

It's not hilarious, it's ridiculous.

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

Christ, you lot, don't you get furious that your partners see you as domestic vehicles, who just love changing shitty nappies and wee-soaked toddlers while they swan around doing their own thing? Oh, but they're so wonderful the way they play with their children. They even bathe them sometimes! You know, the lovely fun stuff. While you lug the nappy bag along, probably getting jokingly chided for always taking ages to leave the house, you remember all the little details and plan ahead while he looks down on such trivialities.

Don't you just feel sick about it? How can you laugh?

[Want2bSupermum]

When I came home from the hospital with DD my DH made the fatal error of handing me DD when she needed changing. This started a conversation (well it was more of a lecture) about him taking an equal role in parenting. He told me he was nervous of doing something wrong. I had to take a step back and let him figure things out. I am not going to lie, it does annoy me that I have to prompt DH to do things with DD. He is far too quick to plug DD into elmo and play with his bloody iphone.

My DH is aware of the spare clothes, diapers, wipes, elmo teddy and food for DD that is kept in the boot of both cars. I would therefore be furious if the OP's situation happened. However, it probably wouldn't happen with my DH because I have made sure that he knows where things are and it helps that DD (19 months) starts to strip if she is dirty.

With regards to the temperature, we have one of those temporal themometers. DH loves a gadget and the first thing he checks with DD when she is looking marginal is her temperature. It annoyed me that I had to spend $40 on a bloody thermometer but he was confident using it on DD when she was small. In the grand scheme of things it was worth the extra expense.