Partner accused me of hurting our baby in front of his family? Am I overreacting

[Aristocack]

This has literally just happened and I've excused myself to the bedroom in complete shock.

I have birth 2 weeks ago to our son. My partner overall has been a really hands-on good dad and always steps in to help when I'm struggling the baby. This is good but I also find at times that he criticises me. This is both of our first child.

This week we have 3 of his family members visiting from abroad. They are staying with us for 10 nights, they arrived late last night (and I had a lovely meal spread put out for them) . I spent this morning upstairs with baby as he's been cluster-feeding and I'm breastfeeding and don't want to whip my boobs out in front of them.

At 4pm after me and baby had had a good sleep, I got ready (left baby in his bassinet in the bedroom) and then got the baby ready and was about to bring him downstairs when he had a blowout and covered himself, me and his bedroom bassinet in poo and sick. I got overwhelmed and called my partner and asked him to come upstairs and help as by this point our baby was hungry and crying. Partner took the baby downstairs to give him a bottle of expressed breast milk and I clean up the mess upstairs and showered and got changed again.

I come down and say hi the family and I was about to go and get myself a drink (they were having a BBQ in garden) and partner is feeding the baby with them stood around cooing. My partner calls my name and beckons me over so I go into the garden. He says "What are these huge red marks on the baby's face? These weren't there when I left the baby with you." His family members all stayed silent. I was in shock that he'd just asked that so I stuttered a bit and said "It is his nails, we need to cut them." It is his nails, they are very long. I tried to cut them last week but I was too terrified to cut his finger and had a close call so I stopped and haven't attempted since. I've been reminding my partner that we need to do them and that I'd like him to help as he has a steadier hand but we haven't got around to it yet. My partner then reiterated "These weren't there before I left the baby with you this morning." Everyone stayed quiet so I just sort of slinkered off to wash my pump as I have to pump every time the baby has a bottle.

As I was stood at the sink he shouts from the garden "Don't you think the baby was too hot upstairs? His face is covered in sweat." and I spoke back and said "He is fine, he is wet from the crying." and my partner said under his breath "Yeah of course". Keep in mind this is in front of all of his family members.

By this point I felt completely and utterly ashamed and humiliated so I went upstairs to pump. He's just come up again and I thought it was to apologise but then he said "Did you put the baby's teddy bear coat on when you went on our yesterday? I saw it out on the dining table. Isn't it too big for him?" and I just told him "No it's fine." and he left.

I can't stop crying, I'm really trying my best with this baby and he's just making me feel like a shit mother in front of everyone. The family are here for another 9 nights. I had been really looking forward to them coming over and showing them my baby and now I just want to run away.

I’m not going to comment on the relationship side of things as I am a long-confirmed singleton and so my advice would probably not be very good. But I just wanted to recommend putting socks on your baby’s hands so he can’t scratch himself. Also, I get that scissors are terrifying around a newborn so lots of mums actually nibble their babies’ nails to stop them scratching themselves. It doesn’t hurt baby and it’s a lot less nerve-wracking than using sharp implements. I would recommend taking photos of the red marks, just in case things escalate. Midwives, health visitors and doctors will be well used to uncoordinated newborns scratching themselves. Finally, it’s okay for babies to wear coats or clothes that are slightly too big. They grow so fast and are so expensive; just roll up sleeves. It’s absolutely no biggie. Sending you care and empathy.

Partner found it too exhausting with me having to feed baby every 3 hours overnight as he would be awoken up by me waking up so he came up with a shift solution where I have the baby 10pm-4am and he does 4am-10am but I of course have to pump in order to make this work so that he can do the 4am-10am feeds as we want to avoid formula. This means he still gets 6 hours sleep but I don't really as on my 6 hour break I still have to wake up mid-way through to pump or I get engorged

You sound very meek. All this muttering and scuttling off. Ask him what he’s playing at, trying to make you look bad? Don’t be scared of the visitors. They were quiet because your husband was being mental. Don’t let him bully you!

Wait is that a typo - you only see the baby for 6 hours a day?

Where is “abroad”

If my male relative behaved like this, I’d hand him his arse. Why aren’t they supporting you.

OP, has your partner shown behaviours like this before?

I would be leaving with the baby and going to stay with my mum or another close relative.

No. He is still on paternity leave and most of the time we are together with the baby. At 10pm he goes upstairs to bed and I am alone with baby until 4am. At 4am he comes down, takes the baby and I go up to bed until 10am. We will then both be awake until he goes to bed at 10pm again.

doh, sorry just saw 10am. You are two weeks in and this isn't working for you so it needs to stop because feeding your baby shouldn't be dictated by your husband's need for sleep. Holy moly.

The baby is still a newborn, and your partners focus should be supporting you to feed the baby.
It’s not for you to be entertaining, it’s for family to be helping out. If the visitors include MiL, can you get her onside? In many cultures, the new mother is not expected to do anything for the first month or so. So ask her to help and to explain to her seemingly cold and uncaring son what support should look like.
It’s too soon to be pumping, you need to get supply properly established first, and one of the advantages of EBF is that you don’t need to faff around with cleaning equipment and bottles. If you are pumping now, DP could be cleaning the pumping paraphernalia.
Make use of the visitors, let them hold the baby while you sleep or rest or have a shower. Tell DP he can cut the baby’s nails himself, and make sure he is responsible for cleaning up poonamis while you hold the baby.
You are doing the job of keeping the baby alive, he should be doing almost everything else at this stage.

Sounds like he is setting you up and gaslighting you. I'd be very suspicious of his motives.

If you feel strong enough: "What do you mean by that?" - if not, considering going to stay with your folks. I doubt it is the first time this behaviour has come out.

OP this is terrible. You are 2 weeks after giving birth. You and your baby need to spend as much time together as possible. The bond with you is the most important thing for your baby at the moment. Your husband is not being supportive - to put it mildly.

Please stop pumping and do the feeds yourself. I pumped with my second child and it was incredibly difficult and much harder than feeding. Go back to feeding your baby and STOP with this pumping to appease your husband. This is NOT about him. It is about you and your baby. End of.

Do you have family nearby? or who could come and get you? I strongly urge you to ask your mum or sister to come and pick up you and the baby and take you home with them for a while. Tell your husband his behaviour is not supportive of you and baby and you need a break and go. Just go and spend the next week or so in bed with your newborn feeding and bonding.

He is not a nice man, not a good father. There is something deeply off about his reaction to being a father - controlling, selfish, encroaching. Very wrong. You can deal with that later but is there any way you can just get away from him for a week or so so that you can establish your feeding with your baby. Time to deal with his fucking awful attitude later.

I would also confide in the public health nurse and tell her you are concerned about how your husband is interfering with the proper establishment of a feeding/relationship with your newborn.

Can you take the baby and go to your mum’s?

The night shifts work well for him as he still gets to have a 6 hour stretch of unbroken sleep every night. Whereas on my 6 hour "rest" I have to set an alarm after 3 hours to pump to prevent getting engorged. And during my 6 hour shift I have to make sure I pump alongside feeding the baby to ensure that my partner has enough expressed milk to get him through his 6 hour shift. It has given me an oversupply and now I have to pump during the day in between feeding baby as the oversupply means that my boobs became hard (making it hard for baby to latch) and the excess milk sprays uncontrolled into baby's mouth which stresses baby. I have to pump before each feed to drain the excess and make it comfortable for baby to latch

Just on the feeding side alone, do you want to be pumping for his shift? It may be easier to just feed the baby directly at that time, unless you're getting unbroken sleep and prefer it that way.

Pumping is a lot of mental strain in the early days, you may actually be better rested without it.

Stop pumping OP. Just stop. He cannot physically make you. It is making your life so much harder.

I would never agree to have guests for 10 days at the best of times, let alone with a newborn.
I would embarrass him back & tear a strip off him in front of his family, hopefully they'll feel so uncomfortable that they fuck off.

Please stop pumping. Just BF with direct latch. If he is disturbed by your feeding the baby, he should sleep in another room.

But what he is doing sounds like coercive control. You need to remove yourself from this situation.

Oh OP - you're the one recovering! Don't pump if it's more hassle for you - I found it way easier to just feed rather than having to muck about with pumps and bags and things.

I have to agree. This is disturbing bordering on alarming behaviour that smacks of a setup. Let him get his sleep by taking your baby to your parents, and just sleeping whenever you can around the baby.

If you were my daughter, I would completely get it.

TBH, you're doing amazingly - I don't even remember the first 2 months with my first baby, it passed in a fog of feeding, pain from recovery and lack of sleep. Just being up and at a BBQ is way more than I would have managed (and now he's a strapping 16 year old, still with a scar from where I accidentally scratched his eyebrow dressing him with my short nails - because accidents happen)

Do you have any support from your own family op?

Is your husband a foreign national?

You are so vulnerable, I really think you need to speak to a professional. Health visitor is a good place to start or GP who can refer you to domestic abuse support.

It's a shame no one called him out on being a twat.
Maybe have a private word with him telling him if it carries on his family will have to leave

Bloody hell @Aristocack!
Two weeks post partum
Three relly's visiting from overseas
Your DH is gaslighting about you harming the baby
Your DH is sabotaging you establisging breastfeeding, whilst ensuring he has more sleep than you.

What culture is your DH from
What cultire are you from?
Do you have family/parents close by
Do you have access to money
Do you have access to your passport?

If you don't have family to go to, you need to notify your hv/gp.
If you don't gave family to go to, you need to contact a women's refuge.

This is chilling.

https://refuge.org.uk/
@Aristocack link above

Humiliating you by interrogating you in front of his family is very disturbing, if my OH did that to me I'd read him the fucking riot act.
Does he come from an honour culture where woman are the property of men?

Do you have anywhere you can go and stay? You need to get away to get some headspace to realise how awful he’s being