AIBU about expecting DH to be less stressed on weekend outings with kids?

[mothersdayq]

Trying to work out if I’m expecting too much here.

We live in a big city and have two children: baby and 4yo. I’m a SAHM (with a passive income to avoid a drip feed) and quite used to just getting on with things when we’re out (crying, tantrums, snacks, etc).

He finds our 4yo difficult to deal with due to normal 4yo things like tantruns, constantly changing their mind (“I want my banana peeled / no not peeled”), stopping every five minutes on a walk to point at a leaf or something interesting, spillages of drinks or just the endless talking. All fairly typical stuff but he finds it quite overwhelming.

Then with the baby he panics as soon as the baby cries. Yesterday for example we’d been out walking for about an hour and the baby started crying in the buggy. Instead of just calmly heading somewhere to sit, DH immediately started panicking about there being no benches and his mood immediately changed, no chatting, stressed expression. We ended up walking to a café which was always the obvious solution anyway.

He then suggested maybe we should bring bottles so we can just feed immediately anywhere the baby cries. But realistically the baby is quite big and I can’t just stand in the middle of a park feeding, I’d still need somewhere to sit like a bench or café. He also asked why we make it so difficult for ourselves by going on days out as opposed to mainly staying home or going out for short one hour bursts so we’re never too far from home.

He gets very stressed if the baby cries in public, scanning the room, worrying about people looking at us, wanting to leave immediately even if we’re somewhere casual like a Costa.

The overall effect is that within about 10 minutes of an outing I often feel like it would actually be calmer if I’d just taken the kids myself. But the flip side is that I don’t like the idea that he opts out and I’m always the one doing everything while he gets the relaxed role.

Yesterday it sort of illustrated the dynamic: we were in a café while I was feeding the baby and the 4yo had slightly spilled something. DH was getting increasingly stressed so I said “do you want to go on a little walk?” and he actually it became far less stressful.

So I’m stuck between two things: outings with him often feel more stressful than outings without him but i also don’t want him opting out completely and me doing everything alone

Am I being unreasonable expecting him to cope with this stage of parenting a bit more calmly? Or is this just a phase some people struggle with until the kids are older?

The kids thing aside, he’s loving, caring, does a lot at home. Just struggles with kids stuff.

He’s never going to get used to the normal toddler and baby behaviours if he doesn’t live it. It might be ‘easier’ for you to just do it, but he can certainly learn too.
If his anxiety is around travelling too far away or for too long then maybe take it slower with more modest trips so he builds his confidence.
YBABU if you don’t give him a chance and if you don’t simplify it a bit for him so it seems more manageable at first.

@AbzMoz
Thanks, I do see the point about him needing to live it a bit more.

My question is more how when his default response tends to be panic. Even at home he gets quite flustered by normal kid stuff. For example if the 4yo suddenly changes her mind about something small (banana cut / not cut etc) he gets quite stressed about it.

And if the baby is crying during something normal like a nappy change he’ll come into the room asking “are you alright, are you alright?” (with a suggestion of “MAKE HIM STOP! Why is he crying?”) as if something is wrong, when it’s just a baby crying for a minute while being changed.

So I’m not against easing him into it at all, I’m just not sure what the “start small” version actually looks like when even ordinary kid chaos seems to overwhelm him a bit.

my DH can be a bit of a ‘flapper,’ which means when he is in a tiz around something that’s quite normal I usually laugh at the situation (and implicitly him a little bit).

not sure if that would work with yours, as sounds like he has anxiety around mess/noise etc perhaps? maybe just normalising and ignoring his flapping, or giving him something constructive to do?

Or have a conversation - I want our weekends to be enjoyable and for you to help. What do you find overwhelming and what can we change (stay closer to home, change timing, do an activity that doesn’t include mud) to improve the experience for you all

Sounds like you need to send him out alone with one of the kids initially. You being there isnt going to help him learn to be calmer and more confident

@AbzMoz
Ignoring the flapping isn’t really an option unfortunately — it’s not the sort of thing you can laugh off. His whole mood changes and you can see the stress on his face immediately. It becomes very serious and tense very quickly, so joking about it would absolutely not go down well.

@Peonies12
Sending him out alone with our 4yo hasn’t really solved it either. When he does take her out he’ll come back saying it was all very difficult — she ran across a field, got muddy shoes, spilled water, argued with another child etc — all just normal 4yo stuff but he finds it very stressful.
And I can’t really send him out with the baby as he’s breastfed and that would likely be even more stressful for him because of the crying and feeding logistics. So I’m slightly stuck as to what the “practice” version of this realistically looks like.

@AbzMoz
forgot to add:
yes we’ve had the conversation of what would make things easier. Ideally for him it would be him napping for half of the day whilst I deal with kids, but as he can’t say that he just says staying home, him resting and if we do head out it’s for short 30min / 1 hour bursts where I can guarantee the baby won’t cry, he pushes the pram and I take full charge of the 4yo

If he’s generally an anxious personality and a bit of a flapper then I don’t think there’s much you can do to change it tbh.

I’d just tell him to chill out and calm down tbh. But I agree it would do my head in.

The qn isn’t what is his ideal day though, it’s how can he adequately participate… From the stating point of ‘we are going out as a family, and everyone has to engage and actually help,’ what are some of the things he cannot do? If all of this relates to him preferring not to, then he needs to suck it up.
You can spell out exactly what’s expected and stick to the script.

IMO it’s not enough that he’s caring in everything else except the kids - the kids should be the one non-negotiable!

@AbzMozhis response is that he can push a pram with a baby that doesn’t wake up or play for a bit with our eldest as long as there’s no fights over swings with other kids, no spillages, no crying etc

I just want to say that I have a DH that largely avoids doing outings/going to groups with our toddler, though probably not for the same reasons as yours (mine hates socialising and- I think- uses work as an excuse to avoid family time). Sadly for me, there is a local group for dads and toddlers to go out together and do stuff but it tends to be on weekends when his sector is busy anyway so he uses work as an excuse.

That's just pathetic though. Have you tried asking him why he thinks he gets so anxious about these perfectly normal child behaviours? It's totally unacceptable for him to suggest that he can only look after the dc if they are quiet, calm and only have consistent, reasonable demands. He should know that's not how small children operate!

You are already 4 years in - I’d be concerned that he hadn’t already built his parenting skills with DC1 to then step up to next stage with DC2 (one is one and two is a zoo 😅)

at this stage I’d say options are either a serious conversation about counselling/parenting coaching for him or you carry a big load through the rest of the early years building resentment. Does he accept that he’s struggling with young children?

Does he have a very stressful job? If so he might be at his limit (not an excuse, parents need to parent). If he is, his stress levels will get triggered immediately by small things.

I was dealing with this with a DH with a very stressful job and he sounded like your DH. Eventually he moved to a less stressful role and we moved to a place with more green space (we were smack bang in the middle of a city before). But in the interim, we had a very honest conversation, and decided I'd handle most of these moments and he would for example go for a walk when he felt he was getting stressy.

Not ideal but because he was committed to trying to fix the job situation to lower the stress, which he did (wasn't easy), it was overall a good strategy. If he hadn't been open to changing anything though that'd have been a problem.

Well that’s sub par parenting isn’t it. Not at all reflective of real life.

So, does he have a low capacity overall? Is he ill? Depressed?

Or does he use up his capacity on other things, eg stressful job, aging parents etc?

Does he go out with friends? Manage traffic jams, lost keys and other minor every day stresses?

do you think he is just choosing to be an arsehole? To make you do the drudge work?

My husband is a flapper, particularly around food/choking etc and also the patience when walking with a 2 year old. I think he also used to panic more as he didn’t realise the toddler was like that all day with me as well, he thought she just had these moments when it was the weekend. I would send him some pics during the week of what we were up to, and now I make sure to include a couple messages/pics when things aren’t going perfectly as well, which he said helps normalise it! We also find we make sure we both have half an hour atleast on the weekend to ourselves to recharge a bit. He does have a very stressful job which doesn’t help, as sometimes feel he’s used all his battery up with that some weeks, so we will usually have a more chilled weekend if that’s happened

I think have a talk when he's calm. I'd be asking him to brainstorm some solutions.

Lean in. It'll cause rows initially but may help him see that the children aren't actually doing wrong.
If the baby cries during a nappy change sing 'you don't like having your nappy changed'- it let's DH know you know there's a problem but nothing you can do about it.
If DD runs across a field ask her to run faster or can you run like a gruffalo or something.
I say this because as an anxious flapper myself I'm never sure what I need to deal with, and you 'validating' the behaviours will let him know this is an ok thing to happen and he doesn't need to do discipline or a rescue mission etc.

Sorry op, in my experience this sort of ginger gets worse as they get older not better. My dh cant deal at all with teenage behaviors, just freezes whenever there is the slightest sass from them, so they run rings around him. It makes me very sad.

It is interesting/not tenable that “learning to manage these stressors” seems off the table.

Why are muddy shoes so catastrophic for him?
Obviously his reaction is completely out of proportion, but you may make better progress with why he reacts like this. It seems like a fear mechanism - what are his parents like?

It sounds like he needs to experience “worst case scenario” to realise the world won’t end.

For example, the baby cries and people look. The four year old gets covered in mud no clothes to change and has to walk home dirty.

Do you think BFing meant he has never solo parented so completely relies on you? I’d arrange it so he had sole charge for 48 hours to learn how to cope, at least with the 4 year old.

Everytime a scenario arises talk through it afterwards. Discuss ways in which to handle it next time. Get him to agree if the toddler starts arguing next time he will... and give reasons why it's OK. Such as this will teach him to be patient, its ok for him to have a tantrum, we are teaching him that....
You dont need to tell him, and you can frame it in a way that you want to make sure you are both being consistent with boundaries so it's important you both stick to what you agree.

Mine was a bit like this
resulted in me doing everything whilst he did nothing. Nearly broke me.

we separated and he doesn’t have good relationships with the kids: they knew from a young age he actively chose not to spend time with them.

So your dh has suggested taking bottles rather than breastfeeding. I can understand that to be fair.
Other than that he sounds like he finds patenting hard, well yes, it is!
I also think he has a point about travelling long distances with small children. Who is it benefitting here? Could you go more locally so the journey is not as horrendous?
Are you travelling to these places for the benefit of the children, or is it for your benefit op? Are you bored as a sham.
Im not suggesting you stay at home every weekend, just alter the location, remove some if the stress.
I think your dh needs to engage with his children more. Do you ever go out and leave him with the dcs? How does he cope then?
All the examples you gave are normal behaviour for children and babies.
Would your dh consider parenting courses?

Yes, if mine did this I’d tell him to stop doing it. I don’t have much tolerance for pathetic behaviour.

Mine does occasionally flap over cooking but it is usually left something too late to start, his parents have turned up, and he’s getting stressed. I then step in and take over something but not without making it clear that this could have been avoided if he’d started it an hour earlier and why didn’t he? I think it’s for him to acknowledge his poor time management and learn from it. So in your case I’d spell it out that he’s got to stop flapping and deal with inevitable small things like a sensible person.

He goes not get to opt out of day trips. We took our 8 year old and 6 month old baby on holiday as many people do. I was not prepared to stay home or only go on a one hour park visit!

I get this my dh also flaps. I have 2 dd from previous marriage who he met at 5 and 7 and he was fine . But they were easygoing kids and I likely did the majority plus when they are not yours there’s a feeling of being able to hand them back.
Even so I was quite surprised at how much he struggled with ds. I’d ask him to have him for half hour so I could rest/bath and within ten minutes he would come ‘find’ me and say the baby missed me. He never did solo trips out until DS was around 6 and even then it would be a quick hour at soft play or similar no lunch or adding on a trip to park. And yes if we go out for day the instant DS cried or struggled with something or fell over it was like a black cloud came over him and the day was ruined (due to his mood rather than ds) He use to try and make trips out as short as possible by ‘needing’ to do jobs in the morning then might as well have lunch. So it would be 1pm before we got out the house and at 230 he would be making noises that he needs to get back and start tea !!
it’s got better as DS has got older (now 10 but autistic so still some struggles with regulation) I struggle with chronic pain and that now impacts on my mood. What I have weirdly found is that if I go into a funk too dh immediately tries to get me out of it and drops his own funk. Because it upsets him to see me struggling he now tries to be more upbeat.