To be honest if you are going to continue to not read and just make stuff up, I'd rather you didn't bother posting. Plenty of posters have understood the situation and given me advice!
Here are your own words. I have not misread them.
DH is getting increasingly cross with her, for what I consider to be normal behaviour for her age.
- So this isn't the first time there has been some sort of standoff, or a situation of DH's own making that has resulted in him getting cross.
...she was wailing, and he gave a massive tirade about how she had done X,Y and Z and made a mess 'even when he asked her not to' and apparently they had been locked in a 45 minute stand off where he said they weren't leaving the room til she tidied away the mess she had made and she was refusing/crying.
- 'Massive tirade' - this happens when someone has got to the point of the dam bursting, and unless your DH is incredibly hotheaded, capable of zero to 60 in a few minutes, the standoff would have lasted at least 20 minutes, most likely more.
I told DH to go take a moment and regain his calm, he accused me of undermining him, I said I would get her to tidy but he needed to calm down, so he went and we tidied.
- He was noticeably not calm, in your own words.
And you exchanged words in front of your child - he was not calm enough to put his money where his mouth was on the question of a united front. He was angry enough to twist the idea of a united front into a necessity for you to back him up no matter how stupid he had been.
I tried to talk to him later, but he kept saying she needs to learn she can't make a mess, etc, and I think she is just to young to really get the consequences of her actions. He says she is old enough to understand 'no'.
- Still up on his high horse and not willing to listen.
- Still emotionally distanced from the distressing situation he had caused and offering up intellectualised justifications, not willing to admit he had taken it too far. Still inclined to believe in the sledgehammer approach, which is what insisting on obedience to a verbal command is.
I don't want to undermine him, but when I came in and he launched into 'she did this, she did that' it was more like listening to a sibling telling tales on how it is all the other child's fault than a 40 year old talking about a 1 year old.
- And that is the hallmark of a narcissist, right there. You saw it with your own eyes but you don't want to believe it.
...was good with her as a baby, but he is struggling with this new toddler 'saying no/doing exactly what you told her not to' thing. I do also find it maddening.
- Narcissists do well with non-verbal babies. Not so much with toddlers or anyone else capable of saying No. The blank slate has thoughts, uses words, doesn't just count or parrot back parental input.
I think he told her they weren't leaving til she put the things back, but wasn't prepared for the fact that he can't actually 'make her' and that she could in fact stay in there while he slowly got angrier, and then felt he couldn't back down.
- 'Slowly got angrier'. 'Couldn't back down' .
It's a huge problem that he couldn't 'hear' himself, see that his approach wasn't working, or feel enough empathy for the baby to change the tone.
I stepped in because I could see he was losing it (I've been at the end of my tether, I know what it's like). And I knew he needed to step away and take a breath.
- He was 'losing it' or at the 'end of his tether'.
I am sympathetic that she was crying, but I'm not a massive hypocrite and I know I've also made her cry multiple times today (stopping her throwing herself off the sofa, giving her the wrong cheese, etc).
I'm not saying what he did was right, I 'm clearly concerned, but I don't think he's being abusive.
- For some reason you are not able or maybe willing to see the difference between keeping a child in a bathroom for 45 minutes until X was done before Y could happen and taking her away from a couch (maybe under one minute of interaction) or giving the wrong cheese (maybe one minute of interaction).
There is a huge difference.
One example is abuse.
One example is parenting.
(And again wrt the jumping off the couch, if she wants to jump off the back, teach her to jump off the front instead, make it a game. From the pov of safety, put the couch against a wall if it isn't already).
The thing is she does understand what that is and does do it (when she's in the mood), putting all her toys away with me when I ask is one of her favourite games.
And when she was about 18 months and DH told me he was teaching her to count I laughed, but then a month later she could properly count up to ten toys - so my ideas of what a one year old can understand or not are not always perfect.
- 'When she's in the mood' should tell you all you need to know about her level of 'understanding' and it is worrying that you seem confused by H's statements.
Don't let him gaslight you about what she is and is not capable of doing or understanding.
...he said he was worried that making it a game would encourage her to make a big mess the next time, so they could play at tidying it again.
And why would this be a problem?
What is wrong with games?
What is wrong with mess, when it actually boils down?
Does he have a taste for snapping his fingers and being obeyed?
What is attractive about that to him?
What are his fears here?
Much more likely based on previous experience he didn't realise what she was going to do til to late, then raced towards her going 'nooo!' as she did it anyway.
You live in a house that is being renovated - the renovation and his job and eating and sleeping are all he has time for in fact - but when he is looking after her his attention is not reliably on her every step of the way, and to make up for his inattention it seems he relies on verbal commands. Maybe lots of 'No!' ??
To gain his attention, it is possible that your DD does exactly the thing she knows will get all the attention.
If the house is being renovated then the pair of you need to be far more vigilant than you apparently are because with renovation comes danger to the child, not merely the possibility of mess (which bothers both of you more than it should).
You feel DHs method of handling things needs nipping in the bud because you have personal experience where it's escalated to worse. Obviously I don't have a crystal ball, so I can't know what would happen in the future, but as I say, I feel his tactics are age inappropriate, rather than straight up 'wrong', so I don't think it escalating is an issue.
I do think he needs to learn to deal with it better (as does he), as at the moment he's letting the situations 'get to him'. (It's hard not to at times, I know).
'He's letting situations get to him'
- This is not the first time a situation has got away from him then.
It's a problem when something like this happens more than about twice.
It makes me wonder about a few underlying issues.
The first is that he genuinely believes parenting a toddler is a matter of making her bend to his will - not the right approach at all.
The second is related to that - that this is his preference to making parenting playful, to getting down on the floor and completely engaging on her level, that he has some precious gravitas to be lost by doing that, that he prefers to be 'He who must be obeyed' rather than 'He who gets things done and is not afraid of looking silly'.
The third is narcissism - the tendency to butt heads with toddlers and in fact anyone who challenges him in any way at all.
----> Overall, the tendency to keep on doing the same thing that didn't work before, yet expecting a different result, is a sign of not being able or willing to learn. Neither are good personality traits to bring to the task of taking care of a toddler or an older child.
- And also overall, there is the question of fear-based parenting - framing parenting as a problem involving an uncontrollable force and an immovable object will always result in an unhealthy dynamic.
Fear of an uncontrollable force will always lead to problems when dealing with toddlers (and teens and everything in between) and it comes from a narcissistic tendency.
Paying lackadaisical attention and then running up aghast with a Noooo! at the last minute, or too late, is never going to get you anywhere with children of any age. It is piss poor, lazy parenting. It is also a recipe for accidents that could be serious in a home that is being renovated.
And no, you don't have a crystal ball, so don't be so quick with your snippy remarks about posters' 'personal history' implying that nothing like that could possibly happen to you or your child or that people who are saying things you don't want to hear are not capable of reading what you wrote, and have got it all wrong.
You don't think escalation will be an issue - you don't want to think escalation will be an issue - but there are posters here who have seen how it all got started and recognise your situation. They know how it all ended.
Hint: badly.
You keep on saying you have no experience of babies and that H doesn't either. You don't need experience. You need to engage the heart. Your H needs to ditch his fears, accept your instincts and stop looking for authority outside of you. Your baby is not a project like a home renovation. She isn't an uncontrollable menace. Your H needs to come to grips with his fears, with his need to be obeyed.
You are clearly worried that he might easily fall under the spell of A Certain Expert Author or some wacky 'spare the rod' Duggar type on Youtube unless you can find sane, sensible authorities to back up your instincts, so maybe deep down you sense a lack of empathy, a lack of instinct in him that you can rely on. The process of integrating a baby into a house and into a relationship involves the heart as well as the head.
Where is his heart?