AIBU to be angry at my husband?

[AnnaSparks]

I want to start this by saying my husband is a good man. He’s loving, hard working and does a lot to make me and my daughter happy.

BUT he has zero common sense and is so critically unorganised that it’s becoming a huge problem.

He was fine looking after DD when she was tiny, but now that she’s 10 months old he seems to forget everything. It’s making it hard for me to trust him with her on his own. Today for example, I went to lunch with friends (having put DD down for a nap). I told DH to give her a bottle when she woke up. I text him her schedule and sent him a message saying give her a bottle when she wakes up. I came home to find that she hasn’t had milk all day. Luckily she’s a big girl so it’s not a huge deal, but it’s a symptom of a wider problem.

How do I get him to meet her needs? It’s so frustrating because he loves her, plays with her, baths her etc. but he’s completely incapable of remembering to feed her or put her down for a nap. He doesn’t seem to see it as important and TBH I’m about to snap with him.

I was a bit like you @AnnaSparks when my Ds was little. Me and Dp actually split for a while though and so he had to take care of Ds alone and find his own way of doing things. I realised he was perfectly capable of caring for him just maybe a bit differently to me. We’re back together now and have a second dc, he’s so much more confident this time round and I’ve left Dd alone with him much sooner. He might do things a bit differently to me, but their needs are always met and he has a really good bond with both of them now.

By 10 months none of my 3 were bothering much with milk during the day - their choice not mine. They were also getting very unreliable at bothering with naps.

If you are struggling to cope with your DP adding some flexibility to your schedule you are really going to struggle once the baby starts to do it. In the case of my DD1 she hit the "terrible 2s" ahead of schedule at about 13 months.

The sooner you start treating your DP and your baby as partners in crime rather than cogs in a well run machine the happier you will be in the long run.

When our DC were babies I worked every weekend.

With the first DC I can remember DH asking me to write down the routine I had figured out worked best.

It wasn't followed slavishly, as far as I know, but it gave him guidelines, and he did not resent it.

By the time we'd got to the fourth baby, DH didn't need a routine written down.

Maybe, as you say your DH is a good man and a good father, you need to leave him and the baby alone together for much longer periods of time. I think he'll figure out what works best for your baby if you do.

Stop defending him. A good father isn’t about the fluffy stuff, it’s about doing the boring stuff. If he was a good father he would feed his child. How can he have a ten month old child and not know her schedule. It’s pathetic quite frankly.

@Cam77

It is a generalisation- but I would also say that “in general” it holds true for more men that I know than not (and I’ve had a strange, itinerant life, so I’ve met men from all kinds of backgrounds, in all kinds of domestic circumstances, and in some form or another...) Id say that the majority exhibit behaviour like this. Not all.

And re: altruism- there is no such thing as a purely altruistic act. But I think that in parenting, perhaps for mothers more often, we come closer to it than anywhere else.

Example- I’m not hungry at lunch time. Child is hungry. I can’t be bothered cooking; I’m unwell and I feel tired. I could give him a sandwich and crudités and he won’t complain. Or I could make him his favourite pasta- more hassle, and he’s not old enough to know about effusive thanks for small acts of love- so there is literally no pint whatsoever to doing it- except I know it will make his lunch more pleasurable for him.

Where do I benefit? And do you think that as many fathers think that way as mothers?

Bit of a temporary fix but could you set alarms on his phone for when he’s meant to do things? Then maybe when he sees that DD is happier sticking to the schedule he’ll be more on board?

My DH used to not really pay attention to the schedule when we first had DD then she’d end up over tired, the weekend wouldn’t be as much fun and now he’s on board with it

But DD was happy? OP said DD was happy and when she started crying her DH started to sort her out. He didn't leave her unhappy he just didn't do things in the same order as OP would have. That is a world of difference to not doing anything or being a bad Dad. He wasn't ignoring her or not feeding her and he doesn't need alarms to remind him. He had taken her out they have come home he was changing her then he would have presumably fed her but OP arrived then. There is no right or wrong way.