DP’s ex making my child’s birth about her children.

[mikka404]

I had a pretty traumatic labour with DD (12days old) and was hoping for at least a week without the step kids (SD4, SS3) staying over nights so that I had time to heal and process becoming a new mum, as well as soak in some quality bonding time just DP, DD and I before becoming a bigger family. We have them twice a week for dinner until their bedtime and every weekend either friday-saturday or saturday-sunday.

DD was born on saturday 2nd, and off the bat DP’s ex tried kicking off saying we were in the wrong for telling my grandparents and his brother before telling the kids that she had been born.

We then had them over after school on the Monday to meet her—this was met with a comment about how DP didn’t want to actually see his kids, he just wanted them over so he could post photos of them with the baby.

Keep in mind this is still not even a week after DDs birth, we had SD and SS stay with us Thursday-Sunday. They were both ill with the flu which meant I was on edge the entire time with all the coughing and sneezing around my then 5 day old baby. Not only this, my SD and SS are not the best behaved—it’s mostly problems with listening and so when told to stop getting in the babies face or waving their hands around/kicking their feet/playing rough around her I am repeating myself continuously. 3 times SD hit DD in the face from messing around which lead me to snap at her, walk off with DD, and breakdown into tears….

As usual, we had them over for dinner on the wednesday, only to then have to have them over night again because their mother was “stuck in traffic” (both DP and i checked and there was no traffic).

I feel exhausted and as if I have had no time to really rest. I’m grateful for DP, his two weeks off he has done almost all housework and cooked the majority of meals. But just that first week of having them the 4 days has knocked me. Entertaining two toddlers and navigating new motherhood is taking it toll.

Rant over… I think what I’m trying to ask is AIBU for feeling this way? Is this something I should have expected and should just suck up?

@FestiveFruitloop where as others think the first children should be cast aside!

And this is it in a nutshell. The OP can drip feed all she wants, nothing can take away from that basic fact.

@Panaa one incident that is relevant to this post. id be here for weeks if i listed every time she had been awkward in terms of pickup/drop offs/pushing more days onto us. not to mention the millions of times she has used the sc against their father by saying he can’t see them.. there is more to this than i wrote because the rest isn’t really relevant.

Disagree. OP's only asking for compromise.

Why does your husband's ex off-load the children every week-end and two nights a week? Most arrangements are every other week-end and arrangements about holidays. Sounds to me as if she is taking you and DP for a ride. You needed a week after having your first baby (though SD and SS probably should have been told by your DP that their new sister had arrived, but that's on him, not you) just to recover. If they were children in the household all the time then it can be difficult - my three year old DS told us to put his new sister in the dustbin - but when you have the total care and total discipline methods and boundaries all set within your family unit it is much, much easier than with boisterous children who probably do not see any particular reason to do as you tell them. Talk to DP. Say you need a rest and that maybe a new arrangement can be made with SD and SS. Ex seems to be getting a free-ride with every week-end sans DC.

Eh, we're referring to the main point of the OPs post which is that she doesn't think they should have had the stepkids to stay and that the ex is unreasonable and difficult for expecting the dad to take them.

YABU. You can't just farm your kids off to other people when you have a baby unfortunately, much as many parents of two or more children may like to. Your DP is their parent who has responsibility for them for a certain number of days/nights a week, and that doesn't change when he's had another child. They're still young, and older siblings often find it difficult when a new baby arrives, our eldest asked us to take her baby brother back to the hospital! I don't think a temporary break in contact with their father would help with that at all, they could well feel that the new baby is pushing them out. It's best to make everything as normal as possible for them, which does mean you need to accept you're not going to get that time alone as a family of three, because you are not a family of three.

This man needs to tie a knot in it.

That's what I think.

You must've got pregnant really quickly op, and that's rarely a good idea - you didn't have time to figure out what sort of a parent he was to the children he already had, or figure out where you fitted in his plans and how he organised his life.

You don't have his older children 50/50 from what you describe. Perhaps his ex should take a job that means her hours mean she can't have the kids more than 20% of the time, and your partner should have them 80%?

I feel for you, you've a new baby and it's your first, but it isn't his first, it's the third baby to him.

In the mumsnet phrase, you have a DP problem.

I had an emergency caesarean section with my youngest, we still had SD as normal that weekend. In fact it was her birthday party and I put on my compression stockings and pasted a smile on my face. She (and my eldest) also found about the baby before anyone else. Parents and aunts/uncles etc got told after.

I’m no longer with her dad, but I’m glad I never pushed her out or shipped her off after birth. She would’ve been devastated.

Look they’re 4 and 3 years old. Be kind to them, they’re going to be feeling out of sorts with all the changes. Don’t make it worse by othering and pushing them out.

Eh?

But you said you had them for tea twice a week and one half of the weekend.

Then you said you have them 50/50.

Both can't be true.

That's not what people are referring to.

It's 1 night at the weekend and 2 evenings per week.

Even if it was the arrangement you posted then she wouldn't be taking them for a ride, that would be more 50/50 😂

It's the DP here who is getting the free ride thinking he's doing 50/50 when he does about 20%

They’re not ‘bottom of the heap’, I had two toddlers already when my baby was born and the reality is that it’s pretty chaotic and noisy at home with your newborn and not much peaceful bonding time. But that’s the reality when you choose to have a baby that will have 2 pre-school age siblings, which is a choice myself and the OP both made 🤷‍♀️

Your DP's ex is manipulative by the sounds of it. Is contact arranged by the court? If not, and she threatens to withdraw visits, that needs to be settled. If it is all arranged as part of custody then her threats are in breach of the agreement and you could all end up in court again over it. So sorry you have this to deal with when you are recovering from having a baby.

Yes. both parents had/are having another baby and these 2 kids are aged 4 and 2. The dad must have been gone as soon as the youngest was born and 2 years later there is a new woman for him, a new man for their mum and 2 new siblings. I feel very sorry for them.

She's 'pushing more days on to us"? AKA asking the children's parent to do half.

And he doesn't - at the moment he does somewhere around 20% at the very most.

Why shouldn't he have to do half?

Note, not the op, her partner? Why shouldn't he have to be parenting his older children half of the time?

Congratulations on your new baby and sorry to hear you had a difficult time. As a few other PPs have mentioned, I think you need to readjust your mindset, you are a mum to three children (for 50% of the week) and therefore your first weeks with your new baby will be more like that for parents who already have toddlers. I had a 4 and a 2 Yr old when I had my 3rd baby. It was exhausting and not the snuggle on the sofa/nesting/quiet time experience that I had with my firstborn. We had to get on with things and she was out and about on preschool runs, playgroups, parties etc from the get go.
Your partner should be able to do the majority of parenting the toddlers/older children when he is off. Once he goes back to work if you are feeling overwhelmed is there a family member who could come to help out on the days all the children are there? This is what lots of families rely on when they have a newborn with older children. Personally I hadn't this support, and it is definitely very hard. But there is no way I would have expected my older children to need less attention just because they had a new sibling. If anything they needed more. Sorry its so tough on you. If you don't have family around could you get paid help for days your partner isn't around?

@Grammarnut - um, because they're his kids?!? Did you miss that bit, and think they were random children? That's all I can think of to make any kind of sense of your first sentence.

EOW is an arrangement made by shit fathers. The ex isn't "offloading" them by sending them to their dad's for one night every weekend. There are two nights in every weekend, why shouldn't he have them for one of them? He's one of their two parents after all.

@Goinggreymammy where are you getting 50% from? And why should the op be doing the parenting of the stepchildren? Why should she have to get a family member to help her when all the kids are there? Why isn't the expectation that her partner step up and parents his kids?

Good grief OP, you get a resentful bitch against you BUT… she is not the problem, the problem is your husband.

If you had already agreed to have that weekend off for you to recover, he should have stood his ground. I would have sent my husband and everyone who came with a virus next to my new baby to a hotel.

she did it to ruin your first days with your baby, refuse to return the favour, do not exchange any contact nights if she has something to do, she will eventually understand that cooperation works both ways.

And before any one starts talking about her right to be upset, a woman who cannot take any pity on another woman who has just birthed a kid, is a bitch whatever way you put it, more so because it is very likely that that new mother is the one who has been feeding and entertaining the children when they spend time with their dad.

It's literally impossible to believe your version of events when you're saying 2 evenings per week and an overnight at the weekends is 50/50.

If you believe that then I can see why you think she's being 'difficult' but that's because you are completely misrepresenting how much care your DP actually does for these children and you're making out it's 50/50 care when it is not even close.

The things you did list about her in your OP that you thought made her seem bad don't make her seem bad at all, It's normal to want the kids to be told about their new sibling first, If she commented to your dp that he didn't want to see the kids and that he only wanted a pic of them with the baby then those are her feelings and they could be perfectly valid.

It's a bit of a drip feed to say that she threatens that he can't see them, and tbh it doesn't fit in with the rest of your narrative where you already have them 50/50 and yet she still wants to constantly pawn them off for more time just to suit herself.

Perhaps the ex didn't want 50/50 custody. A lot of women don't.

My DH's ex wanted custody and we had 2 nights a week.

If arrangements are in place everyone should stick to them

So she constantly threatens to withdraw visits but the other side of it is that the dad has them 50% of the time and loads extra because the ex constantly wants to pawn them off.

No it's not adding up.

The more I read the more I feel sorry for the two little children who are "dumped" (what a lovely term for two toddlers) on either parent. It seems a constant scrap about who can win at having them less. At least they don't know yet being that young.