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AIBU?

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Original poster

AIBU to tell friend to report her OH's behaviour with their 4wk old baby?

254 replies

WilsonPoppy · 07/09/2015 23:04

I've name changed for this. I don't have kids yet so I need help to judge this one.

My friend just had a baby 4 weeks ago and was struggling with recovery from caesarian at first but now she is settled and really happy although she has tendencies to be quite stressed and a bit low.

BUT she told me in conversation today that her OH can be quite rough with the baby and last night they were both sitting on the sofa with baby laying down in the bouncer in front of him. My friend couldn't pick baby up from that awkward angle because of her caesarian scar so she asked OH to pick her up and pass her over. She said he picked her up by the scruff of her neck (her baby grow) with one hand and handed her over to her like that across the sofa.

She said she went mad with him and he said he was busy with his other hand (doing something to his foot). I told her that he needs to know he can't handle a baby like that and she totally agreed it was ridiculous and said the baby should be a priority over his ankle.

She told me he is quite rough with the baby and shakes her around a bit too much sometimes when he is changing her/winding her. She then said that he walks around with her in one hand and she doesn't like it. She's told him to use two hands but she saw him with her tucked under his arm like a rugby ball and he went to the toilet and did the toilet with her like that a couple of times and she went mad with him.

After I took all this in I said 'You need to talk to him about this very seriously, he can't do that, it's really disrespectful, it's child abuse' and she said 'he won't do it again, i've told him'. She thinks he is just a bit naive about babies and it's early days and he has zero common sense. He is a big drinker but she tells me he has been behaving himself lately. When he drinks he gets so drunk he doesn't even know who she is or where he lives.

The day they came home from hospital he was swinging her very high up (above his head) quite fast and I thought 'that's too high, too fast' for a 4 day old baby'. I didn't say anything then and maybe i should have. Her neck was supported and she was tiny in his big hands.

I can't ignore it and I'm going to tell her to speak to her health visitor / GP / doctor about it.

AIBU to tell her she has got to tell her health visitor what her OH is doing?

OP posts:
multivac · 08/09/2015 19:02

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

FattyNinjaOwl · 08/09/2015 19:02

Maddy because sometimes it saves your sanity as you are just too tired to listen to them scream the house down, or because its the middle of the night and you have older children that you don't want waking by a screaming baby. Sometimes it's just easier to take baby to the loo with you.

Dizzywizz · 08/09/2015 19:23

I agree this sounds really worrying, hopefully your friend will report this ASAP.

Fwiw, I have taken my children into the toilet many times, I think perhaps I'm missing exactly what is wrong with doing that?

LoveChickens · 08/09/2015 19:30

What an awful situation. You made the right decision OP.

AnyFucker · 08/09/2015 19:31

OP has not drip fed.

All that information was in her opening post. She has just fleshed out the details, but none of those details are a surprise to me. That they are a surprise to you, multivac, is a measure of your willingness to give this man the benefit of the doubt against what should have been your better judgement.

Sunsoo · 08/09/2015 19:32

I really hope this thread is fake Sad

AnyFucker · 08/09/2015 19:33

Dizzy, no one has said it is inherently wrong to take a baby into the loo. It was described as his father holding the baby under his arm while he has a piss with the other.

Unsafe and inappropriate...like the rest of the descriptions of his behaviour around this vulnerable neonate.

AnyFucker · 08/09/2015 19:34

Sun, I thought it might be fake at the beginning. But now it hardly matters, tbh.

multivac · 08/09/2015 19:40

AF. No, all the information was added in by posters throughout the thread. He wasn't an 'alcoholic' originally, for example. I am not giving anyone the benefit of the doubt; I am pointing out that we don't know the facts. I hope it's a fake thread, too - but either way, my stance has been 'share concerns with a professional' throughout. Just minus the hysteria and groundless assertions.

Smartleatherbag · 08/09/2015 19:45

If this is real, then it's very dangerous for the baby and needs reported asap, as many have said already. What a horrible, horrible way to treat a tiny baby.

multivac · 08/09/2015 19:45

(Oh, and with a rather irrelevant wander down the 'in what universe does anyone hold a newborn with one hand?' road Blush )

mikado1 · 08/09/2015 20:08

I wish I hadn't read this thread either and that this little baby is ok. If I were the mother I would not be able to sleep with this kind of handling going on, even if not intentional. I have a 6 week old today I worried about his neck/head in the laid back position-almost angled back, whether his head is being shaken while I walk briskly with a sling and whether I shook his head when the pram wheels came down quite quickly on the way out the door. .. for me this is an anxious time, making sure baby is properly cared for and safe and worrying about all the things that could go wrong so easily. I hope the mum speajs to her hv.

I imagine the winding to be rubbing vigorously on back which shakes the winder which shakes the baby side to side. My friend kind of lightly bounces her babies to rock them off to sleep and I can't even look at that!!

AnyFucker · 08/09/2015 20:13

OP said he abused alcohol to the point of not knowing who his partner was, multi, did you miss that early snippet?

Narp · 08/09/2015 20:15

I don't understand why there's this desire to just sort of disbelieve what the OP is saying.

Have those of you with children forgotten what a 4 week old is like?

AnyFucker · 08/09/2015 20:17

it's weird, isn't it, Narp ?

Narp · 08/09/2015 20:19

The other thing that gets me is posters picking out one part of his behaviour and saying it's permissible and normal, when the rest of his behaviour stinks.

Narp · 08/09/2015 20:20

AF

Yup

AnyFucker · 08/09/2015 20:26

or saying "well I held my baby with both hands tied behind my back and tandem fed my quintuplets simultaneously whilst standing on one leg" so what he is doing is perfectly ok

when there are massive red flags a-flying

TheIncomparableDejahThoris · 08/09/2015 20:27

All that information was in her opening post. She has just fleshed out the details, but none of those details are a surprise to me.

I could not agree more with every word.

Multivac, he was not explicitly referred to as an alcoholic, but the extent of his drinking was mentioned. If I say "my mother has a thorny thing by her front door, with nice-smelling pink flowers in the summer, with pointed oval leaves", it's reasonable for MN to say "Dejah Thoris's mum has a rose bush". I haven't named it, just described some characteristics, and it could be another shrub. But chances are, I'm talking about a rose bush.

mellowheart · 08/09/2015 20:29

Narp I don't get that either.People saying, "oh I've carried my baby like that, it's fine." is strange. Why can't they see that in light of all the other things it's another worrying aspect of his abuse.

AnyFucker · 08/09/2015 20:35

You know what it boils down to ?

Making excuses for men. Handmaidenly behaviour. He's just a father doing his best

Fuck that.

Notimefortossers · 08/09/2015 20:36

As opposed to being a man hater? Not all men are abusers AF

mellowheart · 08/09/2015 20:37

I remember when I had my third baby and a midwife in the hospital swooping her up and walking across the ward with her in one hand. She was a midwife, well used to handling babies but I was appalled and worried sick she might drop her. But this bastard who is unused to babies thinks it's acceptable to do this? How dare he, I'm getting so angry thinking about this.

blibblobblub · 08/09/2015 20:39

mikado my baby is 15 weeks and I still sometimes have a hand on the back of her head when she's in the sling, even though I know it's not completely necessary!

This man sounds like an absolute danger to this baby.

When my DD was two days old my sister's partner held her in one arm but I felt totally fine about it; he's a big bloke, big arms, has three kids of his own. Had her laid along his arm with her head completely supported in the crook of his elbow. That is an acceptable way to hold a baby with one arm, not like this guy!

MaddyinaPaddy · 08/09/2015 20:46

*If you pick up by the back of the babygrow, you put the weight of the baby against his/her windpipe.

It's painful. We're talking a millisecond of strangling. There's just no need, even if there aren't possible repercussions*

No (given the proviso staed earlier that the baby had head control) if the baby was lifted upwards ,wouldn't their weight be downwards, on their (nappy-padded) crotch