To think I should leave DH??

[everybodylovesgin]

DH & I have been together for 14 years.

We had our first baby this year born in March.

DD is now 6 months old.

My relationship with DH seems to be declining fast and I just don't know if we can ever get things back on track.

All we ever seen to do now is argue.
We don't seem to be a team, on the same side or supportive of each other.
Instead I feel like we're against each other and we're competing.

I feel angry towards him, I feel resentful and I don't really know why.

He helps around the house, he cooks dinner, he does the laundry, he gets up early on a weekend with DD so I can catch up on sleep, but I just feel like it's all done so he can throw it back at me, or that he's doing it to keep me quiet rather than he genuinely wants to help.

I feel like I'm struggling being at home with DD and he's at work all day and not feeling the same pressures of parenthood that I am.

I don't ever feel like I get time to myself, and my DH has complained that he doesn't either, but he's at work all day, he gets to have adult conversation, eat his lunch uninterrupted, go to the toilet when he wants.
I feel like that's much more time to himself than what I get!!

My stress levels feel higher than ever and I just feel like DH doesn't actually make much of a difference by being in my life.

He leaves for work at 7am and he arrives home at 5.30pm.

He will come home and he will cook us dinner, we will eat.

After dinner one of us will bath DD and get her ready for bed whilst the other is doing the dishes.

DD is going through a phase of not wanting to be with DH when she is tired and will not settle with him, only me.

8pm I take DD up to bed and that's me for the night.
I stay up with her 1. Because I don't feel comfortable putting her to bed without me.

1. Because it can take a while for her to fully drop off and she doesn't sleep for very long without waking up and needs to be settled so it makes sense for me to stay with her.

Some nights DH will come up with me and just lay next to me, others he will stay down.

I just feel so pissed at him because I don't feel like he does enough with DD.

It's so hard that she won't settle with him, even on a weekend for day time naps she barely settles with him, and it's always on me after lots of bouncing and hard work to get her to nap.

I feel really exhausted with it all, I miss having any time alone with my husband but all we seem to do now is argue / compare who's most tired or who's done the most around the house.

I feel like I always have to justify what I've done all day, admittedly he never asked or complains, but I just hate the thought of him thinking I'm lazy or unmotivated.

I do love DH, other than him cleaning the house, cooking and getting up early with DD on a weekend, I don't really know what else I get from him and how I benefit from him being in my life.

I don't want DD to have a split family but I just don't think I'm happy with him anymore.

Please don't leave him. He does a lot more than most men and everyone feels like this with their first baby.

Sorry, I didn't realise that he was saying those type of things alongside it, I won't lie I'd be furious if my partner did that all night while I'd had baby stuck to me all day. He might think you're the bad guy but can you not just say well I'm doing dinner tonight and you're to look after baby? If he kicks up a stink then it really tells you something about him, he can have his minute or even an hour but past that he is to look after the baby for two hours while you sit down, or you can share the duties as a family and you can both have equal input to entertaining baby. I know it might seem like you have to be the bad guy but making your husband realise that you don't have your feet up all day, and him putting on a load of washing, although helpful, isn't as important to you as him being an active parent in the evenings. I don't know if this will help either but when my baby used to really struggle sleeping we would put a half hour timer on and after that we would swap and the other person would take over. During that time could you not go out for a walk so he can't shout for you and come back and then swap but emphasise how much he needs to try to get her to sleep. Maybe put it to him that what if you end up in hospital (pray you don't) for some reason? He can't exactly put the baby up beside you for the night, he'd have to learn to get her to sleep. And for this 'she wants you' thing, yes she might prefer you but I suspect that might be because your partner is doing a half arsed job of getting her to sleep - is he really intensely focusing on her or is he just leaving her to it to cry and get frustrated and then you take over?

Can you get in a night nanny / maternity nurse for a few nights a week so you can get some proper sleep? It's expensive I know, but far cheaper than divorce.

It does sound like you’re struggling but from what you’ve said your DH does sound involved. It is very easy to become the default parent - we fell into that trap with our second as my husband was often with our eldest. It meant that only I could settle the baby and it became a bit of a cycle where I did the baby because it was easiest but she wanted me and would only settle for me. My advice would be to crack it before it becomes ingrained. Lockdown helped fix that for us.

I personally found it much easier once both of mine were around 9m and eating well. It just felt easier to go out knowing they could eat most things and be ok.

He will sit holding her but as soon as she starts to cry and gets restless he kind of gives up and I have to take over
That's because he doesn't have your experience and therefore confidence.

If he was the one at home and you working, the roles would be reversed. This will come with time but much easier for all if you let him get on with it by doing something for yourself rather than being around supervising.

@Mimosa1

Can you get in a night nanny / maternity nurse for a few nights a week so you can get some proper sleep? It's expensive I know, but far cheaper than divorce.

@Mimosa1

I wouldn't see that as really being necessary.

She does sleep and I am getting some sleep. It's broken but it's sleep.

DH and I were together for, I dunno, 15 years before we had DS. There was no more "normal". Outside our house is one of these pictorial "children crossing" signs and underneath it says "changed priorities ahead". Every time I walked past that sign I thought "yup!"

Your DH is doing very well. Actually if I was you I would stop settling DD - when it is her bedtime hand over to him and leave him to it while you stay on the sofa or relax in the bath.) It wont happen instantly but she will learn and so will he. As pp said stop "rescuing" them, in the long run that actually undermines their opportunity to sort themselves out and get bonded - and it makes life harder for you.

He will sit holding her but as soon as she starts to cry and gets restless he kind of gives up and I have to take over.

"This is your time with her". Don't advise, don't help, leave the room and go have a bath instead if you have to. Let him figure it out.

when I've got back (I've only been 20 minutes) DD is sobbing hysterically!!

It's not the end of the world if she has a wee shoutie (even if it feels like it is). You had to figure it out, so does he. It takes a lot more than 20 minutes.

He's spent 2 weekends sorting the house out for his new job so I don't see the problem there?

Also looking after a 6 month old isn't as hard as many peoples jobs so maybe he does want to just sit down down for 5 minutes when he's got in and made the dinner and done the washing up and all the other little jobs he seems to do?

He probably doesn't want to do bath time because she's so attached to you / if she's going to cry at bedtime and only settle for you the same is likely true for bath times?

I've just felt like I shouldn't be doing those things and it makes me a crappy mum for feeling like I want to!

But OP, this just simply isn't true. And the fact that you believe it is true means there's something wrong with your thinking (maybe PND).

Wanting some time to yourself is normal. Being with your baby every minute of every day for 6 months is arguably not even ideal, never mind necessary. It is not healthy to go on resenting your dh for a situation of your own making.

Having a baby was always going to affect your life more than your dh's as you gave birth,you feed the baby and you (presumably) took maternity leave. There is literally nothing your dh can do about that.

He sounds like he's doing all he can, and he's encouraging you to have some time to yourself. You need to take him up on it. You need to get some help imo and hopefully you will look back at this and realise that none of this guilt made any sense.

Can relate to some of what you are going through, as I think a lot of us can, it doesn't last forever and situations naturally evolve, you won't breast feed forever, you may return to work in the coming months, you may be able to have family give you both a break.
Sometimes you have to force yourself to put a little effort into being a couple again , also try and change your mindset, doing something for you away from your daughter shouldn't make you feel guilty, you are re - charging your batteries and looking after your mental health.

She naps on me and will only wake up if he takes her

You've got great advice already.

I do think you need to think hard about some of the routines you have in place.

For example, this, above, is nuts. Honestly. You sit every day allowing your 6mo baby to nap on you! So you can't get a break or some jobs done in thar precious time. This really has to stop - of course your baby will nap elsewhere!

Same with bedtime - it's not really sleep training, but you need to adjust your schedule so you don't have to stay with her at 8 pm & that's it for the night. That's totally ignoring your own needs & needs as a couple.

You don't have to leave her wailing. But putting her when sleepy into her cot, and leaving, is the right thing to do - and you will have to come back & resettle quite a bit at the beginning but then it will all become routine.

When dd would only stop screaming for me, when I hadn’t had a decent nights sleep in months, I hated DH. He was great about taking care of the house, but I still resented that he got to sleep or could leave the house without a major production. It is totally normal to feel this way.

Barring abuse, don’t make any decisions in the first year. Remember to be kind to one another when you can. This time will pass and co-parenting gets much easier as babies become toddlers.

You don't have to leave her wailing. But putting her when sleepy into her cot, and leaving, is the right thing to do - and you will have to come back & resettle quite a bit at the beginning but then it will all become routine.

I always think you need to be quite cautious about saying what is the 'right' thing to do. Unless you've experienced a Velcro baby, you simply can't understand how 'putting back down when sleep' just doesn't work. If I put DS down before if was totally out for the count, he would scream until he was sick. There is nothing wrong with baby sleeping on you, but maybe buy a sling so you can still have some independent

@ScarMatty

You don't have to leave her wailing. But putting her when sleepy into her cot, and leaving, is the right thing to do - and you will have to come back & resettle quite a bit at the beginning but then it will all become routine.

I always think you need to be quite cautious about saying what is the 'right' thing to do. Unless you've experienced a Velcro baby, you simply can't understand how 'putting back down when sleep' just doesn't work. If I put DS down before if was totally out for the count, he would scream until he was sick. There is nothing wrong with baby sleeping on you, but maybe buy a sling so you can still have some independent

That's a fair point. I do think it's not a great idea to encourage the baby sleeping nowhere else but on you, for the reasons OP is now describing.

Yes some babies need thar comfort & reassurance much more. And a sling is great, I used one with all mine.

I still think investing time in finding some alternatives that allow you some time to yourself is important. It might be daytime naps, it might be bedtime (when her DH can step in, and he definitely can) but persistently giving all of your 'self' over to the baby isn't good.

@ScarMatty absolutely this. People who have had an easy baby just don't know what it's like. Drowsy but awake??? Hah. My daughter had two modes, extremely lightly asleep or awake and suspicious! I spent many a nap time under her giving myself RSI from holding my phone at a funny angle, just because it was the ONLY way I was going to get any down time in the day. The alternative was a baby who just would. Not. Nap, and got increasingly emotional as she got more and more exhausted as I tried futilely to "settle her in her cot". It felt like torture for her and me, the putting down almost asleep, getting out the door juuuuust as the screaming started, waiting a couple of minutes to see if she "self-soothed", standing by her cot shushing and patting while she screamed herself hoarse wanting picking up, giving in, picking her up, cuddling or feeding her aaaaalmost back to sleep, back in the cot, out the door and screeeeeeam....

People think mums like us enjoy martyring ourselves. I always wish I could give those people my baby as she was then for just a few hours, so they could see what she was like!! I had so many patronising people say to me as she screamed and fussed in my arms "just let ME try", then hand her back bewildered when their baby magic didn't work. And then the advice would always change to "it won't do her any harm to cry" - try holding that thought as your baby screams until she's hyperventilating, as your heart breaks and your boobs ache and leak.

Sometimes you just don't have the energy to fight your baby in order to tick the "sensible parenting" boxes other people lay out. And that's ok. And sometimes choosing the route of being responsive is bloody hard and we have a good moan. And that's ok too (or it should be).

All of this is completely normal OP, there are thousands of threads like this on mumsnet. I am now giving you permission to have a break from the baby and not feel guilty. There you go! Take it!

My baby would also refuse to feed unless lying down for about 3 months. That was fun. No-one would believe me on that one either. "Of course she'll feed sitting up if she's hungry enough, just persist!" I'm, no she bloody wouldn't. And whatever I had planned to do that day was out the window because you can't do anything out and sbout with a baby who is starving hungry and hysterically upset. I once had to resort to trying to feed her half lying down on a sofa in a cafe because I'd been out since 9am and she hadn't fed, at all, in 6 hours and my boobs were exploding.

Nowadays I'd spare myself so much of that because I no longer believe the baby book bollocks about there being some magical way to make babies compliant. Some babies are easy, some are not, and for the ones that are not there is no easy way, just different hard ways.

@VeniceQueen2004

I totally agree. I tried once to do the 'leave him to settle'; he cried so much he was sick all down the side of his cot, from a mere 3 minutes of tears. Never again.

I'm now highly responsive, and utterly shattered. But I try and see it as a short phase that I'll look back on and be grateful for the extra cuddles

It's really, really hard in the first year. DS1 was a clingy, ebf, non sleeper, contact napper. I had very little family support, I didn't leave the house without him for more than maybe an hour for a year. By the end of that year I was properly wrung out!

I think the reality is that when you are on mat leave and looking after baby pretty much constantly you get really bloody good at it. You can read them like a book after a while, know pretty much what they want straight away. The parent who is working doesn't get the exposure and so it's harder for them and to be honest easier if you just do it. It's disheartening not knowing how to settle a baby who seems to really prefer the other parent. It's easy to find excuses to not try when you know if you hand them over they'll instantly be soothed.

I remember trying to have a lie in one morning and hearing DS crying downstairs. Eventually went down and could instantly tell DS was tired and needed a sleep but DH was trying to play with him and couldn't understand why he was so upset. He just hadn't picked up on the signals.

I wonder if your DH is feelings bit shit about you basically being "better" at settling your DD and do has given up trying a bit? I'm not saying that's ok, he needs to work at it, but I can see how it happens.

DS1 wouldn't settle for DH for naps for a really long time. We found buggy or sling worked so you could maybe encourage that? Could your DH take DD for a walk at nap time?

Hopefully you can work towards an evening in the next month or so. I have never sleep trained and co sleep but both of mine have been happy to spend the first part of the night in their cots with a bit of perseverance. I have always fed to sleep and then just transferred you cot. In with me from first wake up. Having the evening just to eat together and watch tv really helps.

Honestly, it gets easier. Once they start to walk and climb and can communicate more easily it's a whole different ball game. After 12 months it got a lot better, after 2 years it was like night and day. We have a second DS and whilst he is equally hard work I was much more prepared this time and wrote off the first year mentally!

Talk to your DH, tell him you're really struggling, try some stuff out. Some of it will work, some of it won't. You've broken the back of it now, honest!

@ivfbeenbusy

He's spent 2 weekends sorting the house out for his new job so I don't see the problem there?

Also looking after a 6 month old isn't as hard as many peoples jobs so maybe he does want to just sit down down for 5 minutes when he's got in and made the dinner and done the washing up and all the other little jobs he seems to do?

He probably doesn't want to do bath time because she's so attached to you / if she's going to cry at bedtime and only settle for you the same is likely true for bath times?

Depends on the baby, depends on the job. My DH and I both agreed that going to work was a holiday compared to being at home with the baby.

I also remember feeling really irrationally annoyed with DH because he COULD have a night away if he wanted and everything would have been and there was no way on earth I could have considered it. It would have been carnage.

DH didn't actually have a night away, I was just angry that the possibility was there for him when it wasn't for me! I felt incredibly trapped sometimes. I think that's normal too though!

I think I can claim the expression ' a baby is a hand grenade in a relationship ' (under another user name). ... it is just that . We had only 7 years together before our hand grenade went off cannot imagine what it will be like after twice as long !!!

@ScarMatty yeah, my baby does not remotely view 'drowsy but awake' as a precursor to sleep. And I've so often seen other posters explaining the concept of drowsiness, at length, as though somehow the rest of us hadn't grasped it. And then asserting that there definitely is some secret, exact moment of drowsiness that we've just failed to identify if our babies seem not to be on board with that. So, I'd just like to say to the world at large: you aren't doing it wrong, if that doesn't work for your baby.

I do love DH, other than him cleaning the house, cooking and getting up early with DD on a weekend, I don't really know what else I get from him and how I benefit from him being in my life.

Are you having a laugh?? This has got to be a joke!! What an entitled little Madame you're... he sounds like he is doing a very good job at looking after you both! He works full time and pulls his weight whilst he is at home and he would settle DD if you would give him bloody chance. She will get used to him settling her again. I suspect if anything you have fallen out of love with him and not because of anything he has done IMO.

Wow! I suspect you have PND and if so accept this before you push away a good man! Read your OP back and I suspect you will feel kinda silly about what you're saying.

All the sympathy in the world, OP. I’ve now been with my bloke 33 years but I swear the very worst was the first year of our first child.

I had to remind myself I must love him because we’d been together 12 years.

We only got through it by declaring a State Of Emergency. All bets were off, all “normal” behaviours suspended, we were in an extreme situation and the goal was to live through it with as little damage as possible.

Don’t give up on your relationship, but do talk frankly with him about how it’s affecting you both.