To have told NDN that dh won’t be helping her anymore?

[Babycarrierdilemma]

NDN has a young baby. We live on the second floor and she has been knocking or messaging every day wanting dh to help her up and down the stairs with the pram.

She has asked twice for a lift to an appointment next week as said she couldn’t manage the train alone. I told her that he can’t take her and she should sort out a taxi to which she said she cant manage car seat / pram and baby alone.

I had 2 carriers from when dc were little so I took them round and gave them to her said I didn’t have instructions but I was happy to show her or could send her the link to YouTube for each one. I said to her that we can’t help her anymore as it’s really getting too much. It literally is as I’m fed up of the daily requests and it’s almost like learned helplessness?

She messaged dh that evening upset and he’s told me I’ve been really unkind ??? It’s caused an argument and I’ve had to say it’s now a deal breaker if he continues to let her disrupt our lives this way?

She's asking for help with everyday things that all other new mums manage perfectly fine. Can't manage the same stairs OP herself did with no issues? Can't take the train? Can't take the taxi because she can't manage her car seat? Surely that's unusual.

She'll have to learn at some point that she can put the baby down in its cot & go down to get her shopping, alone.
If not, When does this just "getting the neighbour to do it" ever stop ?
For Drs aptmts, she has to get a taxi with a baby seat, If she can't afford it, she will have to call on family, or one of her own friends, or use public transport with your sling.
I would be telling her this, your husband is not her young, free & available valet, nor her Dad. also that messaging H & criticising his wife after all the help she has had is manipulative, totally out of order & she has shot herself in the foot. I would then say you both will be blocking her number. Then do so.

I hope your DH replied to her message and told her how inappropriate she was being. That's absolutely outrageous OP.

It’s just excuses at this point. You can’t manage your own DC’s car seat into a taxi? Right, if that IS true what else aren’t you managing behind closed doors? Not being able to put a car seat into a taxi suggests you need quite serious additional support as I said before. SS is the answer, not someone else’s husband.

At some stage this woman is going to have to learn to plug a seat belt into the car seat and it should be sooner rather than later. OP’s DH isn’t doing her any favours for leaping in to save her every time something might be a wee bit difficult.

It’s beyond a joke at this stage. She’s had help, time to stand on her own feet as a parent and manage simple basic tasks like leaving the house.

I'm sure if the second floor of their apartment building was as busy as a train station, the neighbour would ask someone heading that way to help. As it isn't, and she has two flights of stairs to negotiate with a pram or a pushchair, she's asking for help. The OP has said no one has visited her while she's been home. I can't believe how little empathy there is with the poor woman.

Yes, she's needy, yes those needs are probably cumulatively annoying, but it isn't the OP having to do the lugging up and down stairs, and one day they might need help from their neighbour.

A village has to be exclusively heterosexual women then? Are we in the 50s?! OPs husband is being compassionate as far as I can see. Maybe she does not have any one else to help? Good on him, IMO. Some completely ridiculous possessive thinking in this thread.

Her messaging your dh complaining about you is bang out of order and a 🚩. She’s looking for him to agree with her, side with her and create a common problem for them to unite over. You will be the problem.

Your dh is being daft. She needs to learn to cope.

Point is, it's fine to offer help and for people to take it when it's occasional; but messaging or knocking for people at least daily is obviously different.
They might need a neighbour's help one day, sure. I doubt they'd latch on to her like she's latched on to them though. Or if she refused tell her they'd been crying all day because they were so sad about it and she'd been unkind. Or try to create a them-and-us situation.

Did you RTFT? OP said she was more than happy for DH to help her at the beginning when she was recovering from her C section. She’s had loads of help now and OP has kept quiet for months. Now it’s become every day, crossing personal lines and this woman seems unable to even leave her house without the help of OP’s DH. She can’t even put a car seat in a taxi. She is relying on the DH for everything.
When OP did say something this woman thought it appropriate to cry to he DH and bitch to him about OP, his own wife!

You think this is all perfectly appropriate? You would be happy with your DH being the neighbour’s white knight - helping her daily, being in her house daily, all while you work away from home. You watching them form a close intimate relationship where he offers personal emotional support to her in her times of need and where bitching about how awful you’ve been is fine. Yes? Or am I just terribly old fashioned?

I’m on your side here. I would never begrudge any one of any help but daily is abit much. There are millions of single parents absolutely managing and smashing life alone. I would get annoyed if it was daily as well.

i do feel for her but there must be ways to cope, you have to adapt. I am alone with both of my kids, its slightly different though because their dad works away, so its only sort of 3 weeks out of 4 I’m alone… and he’s fab when he is home the 1 week. But it’s been like that since before they were born and we used to live 400 miles away from any friends or family so I just had to adapt and manage…

It all smacks of lacking confidence, maybe even anxiety - which I can empathise with, I had HUGE anxiety after giving birth. What if you drop the baby down the stairs? If you don't routinely put a car seat into a car because you don't have a car, it's faffy and daunting - once you get the hang of it, piece of piss, but those first few times, while a meter is running and someone is watching you? I get it.

The idea that because one woman can cope with a newborn, every woman can cope with a newborn is ridiculous. Hormones play a huge part, as does support network. Maybe OP could deal with taking the pram downstairs because she had a partner upstairs making dinner and a mum coming round regularly to help with the cleaning and washing.

I've always been willing to help neighbours and have exchanged phone numbers/email addresses/Facebook messenger. We've taken in parcels, put bins in and out when someone is away, watered plants, given lifts if a car is out of action. But nobody has ever taken the p*ss. Offering to help a neighbour occasionally if they need it is one thing. Becoming the neighbour's daily helper is quite something else and needs to be nipped in the bud.

I'm pleased to see that your DH has agreed to stop, but I think he needs to explain to this young lady that the daily requests have become too much and that she needs to find methods to solve her 'problems' with dealing with her baby. It would be neighbourly to say that you would help her if there was an absolute emergency but not with day to day tasks.

A new mum crying all day because she can't cope.

What might that be because of...?

baby is 16 weeks old, not even a newborn. Still not being able to manage to get out of the house and use transport with a 4-month old is taking the piss.

That's not fact, at all.

She is desperate for help, he is happy to give it.

Because she's trying to manipulate him into being her donkey and hasn't actually been crying.

If you're on your own, lacking confidence and haven't done it, how do you build the confidence to do it?

Post-natal depression can start at any point during the first year following birth. The OP hasn't once speculated about her neighbour's wellbeing. It's all about her.

people have suggested where the woman can go for help - OP also hasn't mentioned her or her DH are trained (hypothetical) postnatal depression experts.

Not yet maybe but I wouldn’t be surprised if she isn’t lining your dh up so she won’t be a single parent for very much longer

Maybe drop hints about her not coping well on her own and how maybe SS or her health visitor could maybe help her with dc and you will call them for her

what if you help her out when you are around instead of dh. Wonder how many times she will ask if she is getting you and not dh

Tell dh you will do it. Then see his reaction

Can't believe anyone would stick up for her, it's nice to be helpful but many of us have been in difficult situations with little ones and wouldn't dream of repeatedly asking a stranger who has his own family! Those sticking up for her, pretty obvious what kind of a neighbour you would be! 😂

Also the absolute cheek to try to drive a wedge between you by texting him one to one, she has zero shame and your husband is getting something from this even if just emotionally and it is VERY unfair of him to turn the tables and make out like you are being unreasonable.

How would he have acted if back when you were in a similar position you had gone running off to the hunky neighbour then started getting pissy with his wife if she'd complained?? I'm guessing he'd have told you that you were being unreasonable and you should have just managed and not cause issues between other couples. ..

If the neighbour has post natal depression she needs medication, therapy and support from social services. The next door neighbour’s husband carrying her pushchair up and down the stairs for her will make zero difference to what is a serious mental health condition. I can tell you this from firsthand knowledge.

so stop using a diagnosis you’ve come up with on the basis of no evidence to bully the OP when even if your speculation was correct it’s completely irrelevant to the issue the OP is complaining about.

You have done the right thing priority is your marriage and now nipped in the bud a danger to that marriage. You don’t want to be second guessing what her next move on your husband would be (men can be s bit slow sometimes ) so your right to say you don’t like it, would other’s preferred if you just shut up & got upset in silence - no communication is import in a marriage you made yourself clear and he has adjusted his behaviour accordingly. She is s major red flag going behind your back and texting him effectively saying what an awful wife he has - na get rid she is trouble waiting to happen. Good idea to get a ring door bell too then there is no ambiguity. Good luck

Yeah, this whole village thing is just the DH it seems, no other neighbours are helping are they?

Why is she incapable of bringing her own shopping up?

YANBU, I would be particularly irritated by her texting your DH to complain about you! It's as if she feels like she's got a close enough, or important enough relationship with him that she's sure he will side with her against his own wife (which to be fair, he did). I'd be really cross at the fact that DH had allowed things to get to the stage where she felt this was appropriate.