Am I asking too much? ...new parents

[Becca95]

I didn't know where to post this or what to ask and I was going to wait for the health visitor to come on Tuesday. I think I am being unreasonable or maybe I'm postnatal I don't know.

I have a 5 week old baby. She's amazing. She has colic. I can cope with the crying, I don't care if she meowed or sang Christmas carols but it's her little face going bright red and the tears. She's in pain and I can't help her, all I can do is cuddle her.

I had a difficult pregnancy. There was blood loss at the beginning. Then she had fluid around her heart. Then she was measuring too large. All of these things turnt out fine...the fluid disappeared and she was born a healthy weight (their measurements were way off) after an ELCS.

Her dad. My partner. I've been with him for 8 years. I mean anyone can cuddle a baby right?

He won't take turns in the night. When he does he's mad that I've asked him to. He will wake me up on his turn (he's a teacher he has 8 weeks off work at the minute) to ask me to put the Muslin on his shoulder correctly incase she spits up he doesn't want it on him.

She's actually and okay sleeper. She will wake up at 3 ish then about 6ish. I get up with her at 6 and stay up with her and he wakes from his pit around 12. I'll ask him to do her bottle. He says he can't he's having breakfast. That's fine I do it.

Today for example. I woke with her at 6. She was unsettled this morning. Very windy and the poor thing is doing really uncomfortable poo's. He got up half 12. I'd not eaten yet. I made her bottle (breastfeeding didn't work for us...long difficult story feeling incredibly guilty) and asked if he would feed her. No he needs his breakfast. He has his breakfast. Spends ages washing up. We're now at 2....I ask can you watch her. No he wants to do his teeth ....okay no worries. 3pm comes along....would you mind watching her I've not had a coffee or anything to eat....no it's Sunday I want to go to Tesco before it closes.....okay no worries. Gets home ....could you watch her I want to get some food and maybe my coffee .... no I want to do a poo...takes his paper and disappears for his poo. He comes out and I just lost it with him. But before this May I add, I asked him to watch her whilst I made a bottle. I came back through he's watching cricket and instead of holding her he's put her on the bed and she rolled onto her front ! And he just said "oops" and then holds her. So I've said right I'm going to Costa .... alone. But I didn't I was outside the house with my coffee in my corkicle flask....I was outside for 55 agonising minutes. When I come in my babies inconsolable, so I've cuddled her and I said to him she can pick up on this toxic environment . And he said to me "she would do when her mum f**ks off for 3 hours" ....so I show him my ring doorbell footage. I was just under 56 minutes in total....suddenly "it's not about the time" and that if I'm going to complain about it I should've have become a mother. I wasn't ready to be a mother and all this poison he's come out with.

I've told him to leave. I said to him when I stop needing you it's one thing, but when she stops needing you your nothing but a squatter.

His response is if you want someone who goes out and cheats or slaps you about then go and get it, it could be worse.

Is he just laid back or is he a prick.

@MaybeIWillFuckOffThen

It is obvious that you have quite a disagreeable personality, which could work to your benefit sometimes, but that’s no reason to insult others simply because you disagree with their views.

Unsurprisingly you have completely misunderstood my post. What I have suggested is a psychological manipulation technique called Positive Reinforcement derived from Skinner’s operant conditioning model. Essentially it is to reinforce positive behaviour with a stimulus that results the subject repeating such behaviour. A stimulus could be anything that influences the person, such as a verbal praise in this case.

This is a widely practice technique is all industries, especially marketing and now increasingly popular in animal training (hence my puppy reference in my initial post).

I could go on but I suspect you aren’t interested given your initial display of anger.

You have successfully exhausted my patience and willingness to help this OP any further. And the answer to your username is a definitive yes. Thank you.

Alright I'll ignore all the trolling and just simply ask - do you think that psychological manipulation should be necessary/is desirable/is inevitable in relationships between adults?

Maybe some men need to grow up and act like adults and not need to be trained like a puppy!

Essentially it is to reinforce positive behaviour with a stimulus that results the subject repeating such behaviour. A stimulus could be anything that influences the person, such as a verbal praise in this case.

If listening to his poor baby screaming blue murder when the OP has popped out doesn't spur him to action, it's hard to imagine that a 'well done darling, you're such a great father for holding our baby for 2 minutes. I don't know what I'd do without you' will do the trick.

Have occasionally seen hints of the lesser spotted 'His response is if you want someone who goes out and cheats or slaps you about then go and get it, it could be worse.' but have never seen one in the wild. Even if it were a new mother's role to train a Frozen-esque 'fixer-upper', I suspect this one is un-fixable.

Good luck OP.

@roastedsaltedpeanut

lol what you on?

since when is it a woman’s job to employ psychological behavioural strategies to train a man into becoming a decent human being?

nah

@roastedsaltedpeanut

Women who disagree with you aren't 'angry', they've shared sound and sensible reasons as to why it's shocking to encourage OP to 'train' her partner through praise when he isn't just a bit overwhelmed / having a crisis of confidence, but is actively choosing to absolve himself of all responsibility, unwilling to do the absolute bare minimum and has told OP she's lucky that he isn't someone who cheats or slaps her about.

His response is if you want someone who goes out and cheats or slaps you about then go and get it, it could be worse.

If your daughter told you her partner said this to her, would your advice really be "darling stop being cross with him or telling him you feel let down, instead you need to praise him greatly for things holding or burping his baby."

That would really be your advice to a loved one? Because that's the advice you've given OP.

@roastedsaltedpeanut

And who had to use psychological manipulation techniques on OP to get her to feed her own baby? Why do so many women seem to know that the baby's needs come first, whereas so many men need to be "trained" like dogs? They have the same intelligence levels and cognitive capacity as women... so if a man if watching his wife run ragged, starving hungry, not sleeping and still can't even be bothered to pick up the baby while she eats some toast, it's a problem with him not giving a shit about either of them. Training him like a dog won't help. Maybe for minor little niggly things like not putting his dirty pants in the laundry basket, but not this level of aresholery.

The OP has enough on her plate without adding 'teach father how to parent ' to her chores list 🙄

Unsurprisingly you have completely misunderstood my post. What I have suggested is a psychological manipulation technique called Positive Reinforcement derived from Skinner’s operant conditioning model. Essentially it is to reinforce positive behaviour with a stimulus that results the subject repeating such behaviour. A stimulus could be anything that influences the person, such as a verbal praise in this case.

This is a widely practice technique is all industries, especially marketing and now increasingly popular in animal training (hence my puppy reference in my initial post).

The OPs husband is a 40 year old man who works with children- he's not a rat or a puppy.

@roastedsaltedpeanut I don’t see where anyone insulted you or your mothering skills unless you include pandering to a useless DH with the same reinforcement I used to train an animal as ‘mothering’ - how pathetic to have to train a grown man who presumably holds down a job and had enough intelligence to get to adulthood without being trained in the basics. Although maybe your DH was particularly useless and a waste of space! Did he need toilet training too when you got him as my dog also needed this help and I found positive reinforcement really helped? What a good boy he must be now!

God op, have only read your posts but he sounds absolutely useless. Completely self centred, couldn't give a toss about anyone but himself.

I think people are justly resentful of the notion that men are hapless innocents to be trained and praised in the art of being an adult and pulling their weight.
Don’t fucking think so.

I am bored today so I will bite…

To all posters who @ me:
Agree to disagree. I am open to a conversation on how to interact with spouses and how best to advice women in distress.

I agree with the principle idea of having a forum to share collective experience and knowledge. But I am against silly bullying tactics such as insinuation that I am a terrible mother of shit men or that I am “on” something due to disagreement. LOL indeed! Such sniggering comments are absolutely useless contribution to the discussion; the only purpose they serve is to inflate poster’s own ego and a false sense of superiority.

Mumsnet has morphed from a small warm welcoming online group to an increasingly hostile and intolerable place.

@SillySausage81
I cannot help that drip feed makes my initial advice redundant.

To answer your question, why do mothers care more about their children than fathers when we are cognitively equivalent responsible adults with similar level of morality, generally speaking. This is a well researched topic in various academic fields such as psychology, nutrition, children development and various other social sciences. These studies are extremely prevalent and have influenced policy making internationally. There is ample free research papers if you wish to learn more. But the empirical data shows mothers do indeed care more about the children than fathers do.
We do not have a definitive answer to why, but the hypothesis that I believe to be most likely true is that women sacrifices so much more (we risk our lives for each birth) and women physically cannot have as many offsprings as men could. Therefore each offspring is comparatively so much more precious to women than men.
*I feel this is the place where a disclaimer is needed to avoid unnecessary contribution.
*disclaimer: this is not a personal observation on anyone reading this. Of course not all men are the same and of course there are exceptions. This is not meant to cause offence to anyone reading.

@SillySausage81
my apologies. That quote was in the original post. I have missed it.

Terrible man. Divorce him.

I agree that your partner is a prick. However I can't understand how you can't manage to eat, drink or shower? DH worked away from when DD was 4 weeks old with reflux CMPA....so I've been there. But I'd have starved if I hadn't got on with it. You just get good at dealing with things one handed, get a sling or just put baby down in a safe space for two minutes. Nothing terrible will happen even if they cry and you'll feel so much better fed and clean.
I survived off Croissant and OJ, lots of picky bits for lunch you can just grab out the fridge and Microwave meals for first three months and then it got easier. Prep stuff in advance, bowl of baked beans, stew or chilli in fridge so ready to bung in microwave. Have with toast, microwave rice or jacket potato. Apples, Musli bars, crisps all easy snacks to grab and go. Keep a big water bottle next to sofa and bed.

@roastedsaltedpeanut You are making things up. When was aibu "a small warm welcoming online group" 😆

The OPs partner is a teacher, and assuming he is a properly trained one, will probably have come across operant conditioning during his training. He might not have done much training of course, because private schools do hire all sorts of jokers, but the odds are good that he knows all about Skinner and won't be manipulated so easily.

Basically, he's just a nasty little runt who needs to move out.

You sound like a very strong woman and dedicated mother. Your life will be infinitely improved by kicking this waste- of - space to the kerb. And take him for whatever financial support you can get out of him xx

How are you OP?

As about as welcoming and warm as a a load of villages with with pitchforks at the local witch burning would be closer to the truth lol

X 2...
Been wondering how you are OP.

Quite

@AnxietyLevelMax @Crumpleton

Thanks for checking, I'm okay I'm quite sad tonight really. It's long winded but he's still here tonight he's leaving tomorrow. I've stayed on the sofa and baby in Moses basket next to me. She's been unsettled too, more so than usual so I think she's picking up on it from me. So I feel relieved and devastated at the same time.

Do you think when he leaves that the health visitor will do home visits for him? I'd feel reassured knowing her sleeping arrangements are correct, he won't be going to his mums - I failed to mention he fell out with her and hasn't seen her in 6 years - she just forwards his post. That in mind he will probably make amends so he can go there rent free and have someone else to look after our daughter.

Hi OP, I'm sorry you're feeling a bit battered and bruised. Hope things feel more settled soon. I can't believe you're the one on the sofa in your own home.

In your situation, I would say no to overnights for now. I can't see a court ordering such a young child to stay overnight with someone who hasn't been their main carer and hopefully when overnights do start, your DD will be beyond the stage at which SIDS is a significant risk and less vulnerable and he will have developed some sort of basic competence at parenting. I'd offer little and often contact for now... an hour a few times a week where he takes her for a walk or something similar.