New baby - to have lost a bit of faith in my partner?

[NorthernMum2021]

DP and I have just had second child, DS just turned 3, DD 7 weeks. We are constantly bickering over little things but it all stems from me losing faith in him doing what he says he's going to do, because there have been multiple occasions where he hasn't.

The biggest one - on multiple occasions (at least 10 times in the past 7 weeks), DP has failed to get up in the morning with our DS. We are sleeping in separate rooms as I am breastfeeding and co sleeping with the baby, so it is DP's job to have DS on the monitor (on his phone) and get up with him in the morning. It is always for a different reason, e.g. his phone charger fell out, he forgot to turn the volume up, he forgot to put the app on. 1 or 2 times is excusable, but more than that and I feel that it shows he doesn't care or can't be bothered to ensure that he's going to be able to hear DS. Now every time it happens (3 times in the last week!), I get really angry really quickly because I'm just like, how can you not care enough to make it work?!

Not sticking to the morning routine that we'd agreed. Obviously stuff is up in the air when the baby is newborn but after a few weeks I said I'd like a bit more routine for DS, e.g. eating breakfast at the table, getting dressed, playing, otherwise he was just watching TV for over an hour and eating cereal on the sofa in the mornings We discussed and agreed on a morning routine multiple times and it got done maybe once or twice before DP just didn't do it any more and I had to remind him or have a big blow up about it and we'd have the same conversation again.

Not checking things in fridge before he gives them to him, e.g. he put a yoghurt past its sell by date in his nursery lunchbox, fruit that was clearly off.

All these things and others that I can't even think of right now have massively shaken my trust in him. It makes me feel like he doesn't think things through and is happy to just wait for things to go wrong, and I see that as a lack of care and it really upsets me. Now I am on high alert so feel like I am constantly nagging or picking up on things.

Other little examples - watching too much TV - we've agreed on half an hour in the morning and up to an hour in the evening, but I have 0 faith that if I didn't go in in the morning and ask how much TV he'd had that DP would turn it off after half an hour.

DP put the pram in the car the other day so it fell out when the boot opened. Not the worst thing in the world but it was just yet another example of him not thinking things through. He's always sorry but for me there's no point being sorry if he's not realising that the problem is not the individual things themselves, but the lack of thinking through the consequences or caring.

AIBU to be annoyed and losing faith in him, and getting annoyed really quickly now when he does any tiny thing 'wrong'?

We've had so many conversations about it and yet it's just happened again this morning. That's 3 mornings in a row. I even showed him this thread last night so it should have been fresh in his mind. Where do I go from here?!

He is taking the P. How can he get into bed and not remember to have the monitor on? He doesn’t respect you at all. You’re getting up with the baby and doing everything, and also having to presumably wake him up to sort the toddler. My ex was hopeless and got up when he felt like it and let me have a lie in, but made so much noise that I rarely went back to sleep.

If you’re up in the night, lift Mr3 and shove him into bed with his father. Walk away and shut both bedroom doors.

mine did similar, would “get up” early but then loll on the sofa in a stupor and end up bringing the baby/toddler upstairs by 8am, sometimes earlier, saying he couldn’t cope and needed to go back to sleep.

I went from irritated, to resentful, to absolute blind hatred over a few months. Especially as he could get up early if it was something he wanted to do.

Erm can't say I've had that problem dh will get up the 3 mornings he is on a late shift at work and half the time I won't realise the twins and wee one have been sneaked downstairs and get a good couple of hours of sleep..he did the same with the older kids when they came along...the rest sounds a little controlling to me, I wouldn't be making an issue about tv, prams etc we all get it wrong and tbh if your dh feels like he is being watched and judged then it just gets more wrong I learnt that quickly from our first born that how I do something doesn't mean it's wrong for dh to do it a very different way and hey our kids have survived many an out of date yogurt lol or the olders wouldn't be teenagers

Does he work? Any performance issues there?

If not then he just simply doesn’t care enough. He’s not putting his full brain to it.

My ex was like this. He just wanted to relax at home and he saw the work of parenting and house keeping as easy and so he didn’t need to engage his brain. Things would slide. I was away for three days with work and DCs teeth didn’t get brushed once.

I see it as internalised misogyny from years of patriarchy. It’s women’s work. Women are inferior. Therefore it must be easy work. Actually it’s hard. And takes a lot.

With my ex it took me stepping back and letting him fail and allowing the impact on DC. DC was older though and I didn’t let anything important slip. But a couple of missed school things impacted my ex and he felt guilt and put more effort in. He was also verbally abusive to us all and wouldn’t change so hence hes ex.

He needs a consequence that he feels.

What did you do? I feel like I'm approaching the 'blind hatred' phase

What consequence can I allow to happen though because I don't think it's fair to let it have an impact on DS, ie let him scream for one of us and nobody come!

Thank you, agreed all the other stuff is me being controlling and stuff I can let go. I'm just not sure what to do about the mornings issue.

This is weaponised incompetence. He’s doing it so you get up every morning because you can’t trust him to parent properly. He also wants you to do everything else. It’s a very common tactic from men to move all the mental and physical labour of family life to you. I personally couldn’t live with a man like this. To many it might seem minor but to me it shows his lack of value for you, your wellbeing, and that he’s out to extract as much as possible from you at his gain and your expense. It’s why all the stats show men thrive in marriages and women’s lives get much worse.

Just get a conventional monitor. One thats always plugged in...he cant forget/ not charge then:)

We divorced. He’s still rubbish in the mornings. Luckily DC are older now but still don’t like being ignored in the mornings.

I would be blunt & ask him if he wants this family unit to continue and him step up or would he prefer going back to being a single man and you split up as you may as well be a single parent the way he is behaving.

I hate to say it, and I’m sure some people won’t agree, but this is pretty much a universal experience for mums.

Dads can be kind, loving, funny - whatever. But the bulk of parenting still lands with mum. We do the thinking ahead, planning, organising. We get up because we have to. We have the drive to ensure kid is fed a balanced diet and is ready for school, party, day out etc.

Dad follows suit but doesn’t lead.

Like it said, this may not be the case all the time but from my experience (3 kids, lots of mum friends and family) it’s VERY common.

It’s very hard and yes, does lead to constant bickering. The only reassurance I can give is it gets easier as the kids get older.

Op is NOT at all unreasonable to expect the father to behave like a grown up and to parent his child. That includes getting up on time, feeding him and putting not-out-of-date stuff in his lunchbox. And doing all this with his brain switched on as something for which HE is responsible. She is a very new mum and we all know how exhausting that is.

This. He can't be bothered. The more he lets slide, the more you'll do. He knows this.

What he's not understanding is that you have to put the effort in at the beginning to make the good habits.

Do I mind my kids eating breakfast on the sofa now they're teens - no, because they're not going to spill rice-crispies everywhere. Did I mind when they were 3? Yes, at 3, they ate at a table so they didn't spill their food (or when they did, it was easy to tidy rather than soaking into the settee)

I'm relaxed about TV/Ipad as long as I'm not ignored eg. if they're watching something and I say 'dinner in 10' then I expect them to wrap up what they're doing and appear in the kitchen in a sensible amount of time (late for dinner also not acceptable without good reason - ex and his family used to take forever to arrive, despite warning, and it would sit there getting cold)

And bedtime - no mucking about. Bedtime is for going to sleep (once they're of an age they can cope with that - I couldn't have done cry it out, I'm too soft in that way). Ex wouldn't do that either, so I had to train them, and still he thought that bedtime was too hard (it wasn't - they are super-easy to put to bed)

All of these things take effort and discipline, but once the habits are established life is so much smoother. (just don't try to establish until the kids are able to do it or you'll be the frustrated one - no point expecting a toddler to understand what 10 minutes means for example)

You’ve tried to explain. Time to go on strike. Dont cook for him, do his washing, give him lifts anywhere, plan a day out with your baby and leave the 3yo at home, dont negotiate, just say, “you’re looking after Jim today. I have plans”. Stay out past Jim’s bedtime.

If the eldest is three just tell him to go into dad in the morning, not you. Not sure why a monitor is still needed at 3.

And then 3 year old is perfectly capable of saying what he wants for breakfast

But yes he gets up and does breakfast.

Also a much simpler rule all round is no tv in the morning, that way no one gets distracted by it.

The food stuff is just an error, assuming food in the fridge is fine. I wouldn't check dates of yoghurt in my own fridge.

Same with pram in boot. It's annoying but not done on purpose.

So yes he hasn't done as much and needs to learn more but the only thing really to be clear about is to make sure he gets up.

This, no idea why you need a monitor at 3 why can't DS just get up and go and wake Dad up. I don't know why hardly anyone has mentioned this.

No you are not being unreasonable, but please talk to him about it and not in an aggressive getting-at-you way, he could really be struggling. Men never talk about this stuff or really show it.

It really irks me when a couple 'agrees' on something (like getting up with the baby) and then the man just ignores what was agreed.

If he didn't agree at the time, he should have flipping said!

But he knows that saying 'no I don't want to get up with the baby' is unfair and puts him as the bad guy, so he'd rather just frustrate you and make you angry at his 'forgetfulness'.

Yeah please don't do this OP. Can you really imagine a scenario where this sort of behaviour goes well and results in positive change in a relationship??

In things you have posted I don’t see you as being controlling, what I have seen is a useless dad. Having a morning routine is important, yes it can go a bit haywire sometimes, but it doesn’t look as if your DH is even trying.

@FurierTransform struggling with what?