To decamp to my parents after birth of second child for a few months without DH?

[redhillrovers]

I'm about 4 weeks away from my due date, and I have a 2 year old DD.

The first time around DH was barely involved with DD's care. In fairness, he does clean, cook and help with everything else, but has literally never done a bedtime, naptime, or bathtime or made a dinner for our toddler.

When she was born I exclusively breastfed and it was all down to me to care for her, when I was at my lowest after so much lack of time for self care I asked him to help me more and he said he'd prefer the help to be non-prescriptive.

He helps a bit more now she's older but I am so worried because of how much I still do for our daughter, that my job will effectively double and the time I have to look after myself will be non existent.

I brought up the thought of my taking our newbown and DD to my parents for a few months (parents are supportive, retired) and DH said he feels like I'm "leaving him and taking the children", but honestly I think it'd only be for a few months while I establish breastfeeding, and have plenty of help with DD who obviously still is very all about mummy and clingy.

I told him I'm worried about how I'll cope and he said he would do more but I'm worried it's just a throw away line and he hasn't actually thought about or committed to much. He hasn't even confirmed if he's going to take two weeks off when the baby is born.

AIBU to go where I know the support is?

He goes to the gym 3-4 times a week and you were dependent on a nanny to have a shower as he couldn't look after his child for 15 minutes.

I'd really want to know what this waster brings to your life.

@Pyewhacket

I think you are right if we are talking about a week but the OP is talking about a few months which is quite different.

I agree. Depends how much you value your marriage.

Yes. I think I'd be very unhappy if my partner moved out for months with our baby and toddler. Hard to come back from.

I know where you're coming from @redhillrovers. My DP is much the same. I always remember him calling me a "wet blanket" because I didn't want to go to Bluewater (shopping mall) when DC2 was a few days old and DC1 was almost 2.

I regret not talking to DP more about it. In your shoes, I would have a very serious talk with DH.

We all have different experiences of husbands and their help with child care and we are all in different circumstances (c sections / PND / lack of family support etc). However, it seems to me that the husband is doing quite a bit to help with cooking and cleaning. Lots of us have never had that - again, for different reasons. My husband was focussed on furthering his career -which really had its downsides for me - but that meant we didn't have money worries and I could be a SAHM. He had zero interest in babies so that stage was completely up to me. Sometimes I really struggled with this as we never lived near family, however, I had lots of friends in exactly the same position as me with career driven husbands and we all just got on with it. It wasn't ideal and tbh I think my husband missed out on the joys as well as the drudgery of parenthood. Sometimes life is unfair and /or a bit of a battle and we all deal with things differently and I certainly don't recommend the way we appproached things, but I honestly don't think there is a roses round the cottage door way of parenthood. But I'm rather impressed with a man who cooks and cleans :-)
(Waiting to be dropped on from a great height....)

I swear to god I'm coming back as a man in my next life. Seriously the shit some women are willing to put up with and go out of their way to accommodate entitled behaviour.

Just make sure you get your tubes tied after this one. What a shit show.

A man who cooks and cleans and does nothing else is fairly easily replaced by a cleaner and a few takeaways. Unlike a parent who actually parents. So no, it's not really very impressive.

@TheWeeDonkey l know right? The bar set so low for you and near zero expectations. Meanwhile, the expectations of women are literally set sky high

@RichTeaRichTea

If it’s just parenting then why can’t he look after his own child? If it’s just part and parcel then why is he excused but not her?

When you have a baby, you can, if you want to, organise your time, to catch up on sleep etc or at least rest. Breastfed often more so given you sit down every 2 hours to nurse them (yes an experienced breastfeeder here who watched more TV and listened to more audio/podcasts/radio breastfeeding than ever before! )

Arguably, he's working. She's got to do the baby "stuff", he comes home and does the home stuff. How lucky she is!

You hired a nanny for the one child, no wonder he didn't feel obligated when paying out for someone else to provide the care! Very different situation.

Even still, there's an absolute limit to what a father can really do in the early weeks with the baby! To me, him doing the house stuff sounds ideal!

I find this so sad, DH was lucky in that work gave him a month off and it was over Christmas so also had some bank holidays and a bit of annual leave so off for nearly six weeks when DS was born. Of course he stepped up with cooking when I was still healing etc (he's not a great cook tbh) he always pulls his weight with chores and did even more during this time, but what he really wanted was to spend time with his tiny baby, the baths, the nappies, bedtime, even the pacing up and down rubbing his back trying to get rid of wind! I have pictures that link to very nice memories of DH with DS in a soft sling while hoovering (he was a velcro baby and the white noise from the Hoover seemed to soothe him, and keep the floor clean). It's all bonding and it's so fleeting. I also bf and wasn't great at expressing so I did do most of the feeds and night waking especially when DH was back at work. It's sad that your husband doesn't want this with his children.

I find some of these posts bonkers.

Reverse the situation

Man takes year off to look after children.
Woman does a full day at work, comes home and cooks dinner for the family, pops to gym for an hour and then comes home to continue the house work. Woman barely sees man as man is almost exclusively in the baby’s room feeding them all evening.
A few weeks later man complains to woman that she has not been doing the children’s bath time and bed time as well as the job/cooking/cleaning.
Woman who has barely had time to sit down is dumbfounded.

What would people be saying then?

I say this as somebody who watched a DH come home from work, provide a meal, and do housework and laundry all evening. Then begin to do batch cooking for the me/the baby until midnight. Before trying to get some sleep for work the next day.

I was happy enough to do the baths and take care of the baby, if we’d had split maternity leave obviously husband would have done more.

Why don’t you consider this to DH then he can take on all the child care and then you can take on work, house and cooking!

I understand why you want to do this and I don't think it's "wrong", but I also think it may make the already large problem even more unmanageable long-term. I don't know all the ins and outs - I'm assuming he either didn't want a child or had no idea what having a child entailed - but he's had 2+ years to get used to it. I'd not be doing anything that reinforces the idea he seems to have that parenting is your "job" and he's helping.

Of course, when you divide up household tasks roughly equally (when you're both working full time) one of you may end up with more things related to the child(ren) - washing clothes, cooking dinner, daycare/school run, etc. But apart from the shared work of the household, you are both parents and should each be spending roughly the same amount of time with and effort on the child(ren). Also, if the two of you separate/divorce at some point, or something happens to you he'd end up with a lot more child-related work to do. May as well get used to doing his share now.

On the working front, last time we hired a nanny and that was the only way I got to even have a shower in the morning, was to wait for her to show up so I could hand the baby over and go and get ready. I can see this if it's a case of timing - you need to shower between 8 and 8.30 but he has to leave for work by 7.30 - but can't you agree that he takes the baby from, say, 7.00 to 7.20? If he's refusing to take her at all, you must know that's outrageous.

When he says he doesn't want childcare to be "prescriptive", does he mean he doesn't want to be assigned specific tasks? If that's the case, then he needs to sit down with you and divide up the tasks in a way you both feel is equitable so no one is "prescribing". Sure, some things can be spontaneous but a lot can't be.

I'd tell him your plan is to go straight to your parents' with the baby for x weeks and leave the older child home with him.

@Robinni - have you missed that the OP not only works but out earns her DH? She isn't on mat leave right now and has been back at work for 18 months approximately and her DH has still never done a bedtime or a bath or even cooked a meal for his 2 year old

@Classicblunder the baby’s due in 4 weeks, she’s due to be off on maternity for a year… has huge support from family who would be willing to give 24/7 support even though she is an adult.

Yes she should set DH straight on some of his short comings, but it does sound like he does the majority of the house work and cooking… so if she wants him to do bed times and bath times etc. equally, then maybe they have to pay a cleaner or get family to help with meals to free up time?

They may not have intended to have the division of work to him: household her: kids, perhaps it happened as they got a nanny so DH won’t have been pushed to step up and be involved normally as a father. I don’t know.

But dragging someone through the mud before sitting them down and giving them a chance to change isn’t entirely helpful. Especially when there are so many options available to OP and her DH none of which sound disastrous.

When you say you cook 3/4 nights a week hoover and tidy I can’t see how he is actually doing more housework than you to be honest, surely there’s only the dishwasher and bins left?

@AHungryCaterpillar

Why did you have another if he is so useless then? You knew what he was like by the sounds of it. You can’t be surprised

Why should she not have the children she wants because her husband is useless? She clearly had a biological urge.

Not everyone wants to start up again and have DC with different dads.

@Hadenoughofthisbullshit
Mopping floors, cleaning windows, cleaning bathrooms and kitchens, dusting, changing beds, endless washing and ironing, endless picking up after toddler, probably does the shopping too….

A quick whizz around with the hoover isn’t much really.

Perhaps some people on this thread do more housework than others…

I’m not really clean enough true . Too much time on mn not enough cleaning.

@Hadenoughofthisbullshit lols there are better things to be doing in life than clean.

Is he the parent or the house au pair?

You are the breast feeder but he can do everything else ....

But yes get the help you need
And make sure this time he is handed the baby and toddler from the start

My parents would be supportive and probably thrilled to have their grandchildren in the house all the time

Massive difference between seeing your grandchildren more often or "all the time" and having your life 100% encroached on 24/7. I suggest you have a serious chat before you get your hopes up on moving in.

With regards to your dh, You will wake up one day and realise what a waste of space he is and hopefully leave him. For your own sake, I hope that's not 10/20 years down the line when you've wasted all your best years on him. Believe me, it'll happen.

@britneyisfree

Why should she not have the children she wants because her husband is useless? She clearly had a biological urge.

Because it's not just about what OP wants? It's about the fact she's knowingly bringing a baby into the world who is going to have a shit father? They both are, OP and him, they're both equally culpable. You do actually have to think about whether the environment you can provide for your children is appropriate before having them.

The most important thing you'll ever do for your children is choose the right father/mother for them. A shit one can cause a lifetime of damage, however much the other tries to make up for it.

I am expecting a drip feed revealing that the DH dropped his brother or sister when a baby and has never got over the shock. Nothing else explains him refusing to hold his own baby while OP showers.

@RoseLimeade
Fair point. Unsupportive partner doesn't always equal bad parent. Additionally some people just aren't good with babies, doesn't mean they won't grow into it.

But yes, you're right.

He's an adult - cooks shops cleans. Let's give him a round of applause.

He's not a father as he's completely absolved himself of any caring or parenting responsibilities. He's not much of a partner either in that he doesn't care about being supportive to you OP.