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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Dads changing nappies

165 replies

GastonsWife · 28/04/2017 13:56

I have a newborn DD. My friend has a 5 month DD. At my baby shower friend told me that her DH doesn't change their babies nappies because she's a girl. Now DD is here and my DH changes just as many nappies as I do and I think I would find it a definite strain to be breast feeding and doing all the nappies. I never thought of dad's changing girls nappies as an issue. Should I have?

OP posts:

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 28/04/2017 18:29

Practicing nappy changing on a doll is not that unusual, is it? It wasn't in my day, certainly.

skerrywind · 28/04/2017 18:30

We were asked to practice changing nappies on a doll at my ante natal classes.

PhyllisNights · 28/04/2017 18:33

Thank you! I know some of my schoolmates did it in some sort of childcare course at school.

outabout · 28/04/2017 18:48

It's not rocket science.
You get it right (very simple these days) or you get poo all over or nappy rash (no rest for you).
It's not a 'man or woman' thing, it is a job that needs doing.
Simples!

IndianaMoleWoman · 28/04/2017 18:50

DH and DD flew to Newquay to visit his parents. At Newquay airport the only baby change facilities are in the ladies' toilets. Their flight back was delayed and he had to be escorted into the ladies' three times by staff members to change DD's nappy. He got some very weird looks. Our society has a very weird attitude to nappy changing and men.

londonrach · 28/04/2017 18:53

Dh was worried re dd and what to do but v happy to do it when shown how to do it. In fact at a recent ikea visit informed mil that dd was his daughter and he could change her and took her off. I came out the till to see dh returning from the baby changing.

savagehk · 28/04/2017 18:53

Indiana that's a valid point. DH has changed DS in the mens before on the floor which has been gross.

corythatwas · 28/04/2017 20:35

We never went anywhere with dc without a foldable waterproof sheet that meant they could be changed anywhere without coming into contact with anything gross. Both dh and I have changed nappies in some very odd places, including forest floors, coach toilets, own pram on a train platform, rowing boats etc etc.

Minty82 · 28/04/2017 20:40

For goodness sake. I remember my dad complaining in the 1980s about the absence of changing facilities in men's loos and being forced to change us on window sills etc. Unbelieveable that we've made so little progress.

MrsChopper · 28/04/2017 20:52

DP once had to wait his turn outside the baby changing room of a supermarket with DS and people were giving him funny looks. He said it made him feel very uncomfortable. So I think he can kind of understand what your friend's DH thinking might be.

That being said if we had a daughter in the future I know DP would just get on with it.

AuldAlliance · 28/04/2017 20:52

GastonsWife - no need to apologise at all.
Baby brain, and IME parenting brain in general, is a killer.
I'm glad you weren't offended.
It's just that when I saw the title, I was half expecting a video or live feed of the event :)

emmyrose2000 · 28/04/2017 23:57

Aside from being incredibly lazy, the "father" obviously has some psychiatric issues if this is his (lack of) rationale. Anyone who confuses something as simple and boring as changing a baby's nappy as being even the remotest bit sexual shouldn't be near any child.

ImADadButThatsOKIsntIt · 29/04/2017 00:26

Wtf? Sounds a bit too convenient if you ask me.

CatThiefKeith · 29/04/2017 01:05

As a different perspective my dad is almost 70 and comes from an era where men didn't really get involved in nappy changing (tradition roles in my family)

I am one of two daughters, and when Dd (now almost 6) was 9mo I dropped my mum at work, usually a 10 min journey and left dd with df. There was a major accident and we were stuck in traffic for 3 hours.

Df managed to change dd's nappy, because despite being a total novice, even he knew it was wrong to leave a baby in a shitty nappy for hours.

It's hardly rocket science.

I'd be questioning why he felt in comfortable tbh.

Charlie97 · 29/04/2017 01:08

I have known a few men, not many but a few, be reluctant to change a girls nappy. It comes from a fear of not knowing how far to clean if that makes sense.
I have however known a lot of men be ok with the nappy changing and wiping but call the mother for the application of cream.
My own dh is one of them, he would get on with it if He had to but if I was there I was on cream duty.

Why?? Totally odd!

gluteustothemaximus · 29/04/2017 01:11

ScarlettFreestone · 29/04/2017 01:24

I know a woman who tragically died when her two daughters were still in nappies.

What would have happened if their Dad hadn't been able to change their nappies, to feed them, to bathe them, to dress them and care for them competently because they were girls?

The only thing my DH couldn't do was breastfeed our twins. He did everything else, including regularly dealing with them in his own to let me out for a run.

My DH has no respect for men that aren't competent to care for their own children.

Neither does my father, who is in his seventies and changed our nappies forty years ago.

YouFlippinWhat · 29/04/2017 01:33

OP I think your friend's OH has some serious issues if he doesn't feel comfortable seeing his baby daughter naked.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 29/04/2017 01:38

Unless your friend had concerns for her DD"s safety with her father, in which case why the fuck stay with him, then she's being daft. Of course he can change her nappy!
My sister has 3 DDs - her partner changed all of their nappies. Bloody stupid attitude to think he "shouldn't".

HeartsTrumpDiamonds · 29/04/2017 01:55

I don't think my DDad changed a single nappy when DBro and I were babies, but by the time the DD's came along he was up to his elbows in baby poo along with the best of them. Definitely a more hands-on grandpa than he was as a dad.

One of the last conversations we had was about how much he cherished that time with his granddaughters and how much he regretted missing out on it with his own children.

Toadinthehole · 29/04/2017 03:03

I changed my daughters' nappies. They stank. Glad they're out of nappies now.

I can't say it was much of a bonding experience.

I didn't want anything more to do with their private parts than was absolutely necessary. I suspect I'm typical of fathers in this respect. However, I could hardly have have left them wet, uncomfortable, and developing nappy rash, so I changed them.

Topseyt · 29/04/2017 03:15

I have three DDs.

I did change most of their nappies as DH worked long hours, but when he was here he did change some. Why the fuck not? A bit of shit never harmed him either.

Millerr · 29/04/2017 07:17

I used to work with a woman whose DP refused to change their daughters nappy as she was girl and it would be 'wrong' I pointed out it was also his daughter and she was a baby but got no where.

I used to think it was because he was a lazy git but they had a boy a few years later and he actually did change a couple of his nappies, whereas he didn't change ANY of his daughters.

It's so strange...

skerrywind · 29/04/2017 07:47

My OH rarely changed nappies, son or daughter. Maybe once or twice.

GoodEyebrowDay · 29/04/2017 07:51

Either he's a lazy twat or he's sexualising the changing of a shitty arse. Either way he's a cunt

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