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.

Is the helpful supportive husband in the room with us? He sounds a prick OP, his sleep is not your concern when you’ve just given birth and you’re breastfeeding. You need to wean off the pumping, your supply will reduce down.

He sounds like an irredeemable toad.

Please tell someone how he is treating you

I was thinking of you last night OP- I hope you get out today and have that coffee and walk with your little one. I’m sorry you’re having to go through all this when your baby is so young and so soon after giving birth.

Yes. And don't feel a failure just because you sometimes struggle. Babies don't come with a manual and even experienced mothers can find the 1st 6 weeks with a breastfed baby difficult at times.

This is one of the most disturbing threads I've ever read on MN. I am so, so sorry you are going through this. 2 weeks pp is an incredibly vulnerable time and you need to be looking after yourself and your baby, with your partner looking after everything else - the house, laundry, cooking etc.

Well done for standing up to him about sleep and bed.

Send his fucking guests packing right now. Do not be presenting an "everything is ok" front - no fucking spreads, let them see you bleed, go down and ask where the fuck is your burger and what they are playing at.

If you are at all tempted to save this relationship, have an extremely serious conversation with him right now, and explain how close you are to leaving and what you need.

And please consider seriously whether you have the strength to leave. This is abusive inconsiderate shit, and it will only get worse as the baby grows.

And a warning to everyone reading this who has not yet had children and is considering it - the decision of who you procreate with is the single most important one of your life.

But OP doesn't want to share feeds though. She wants to just breastfeed her baby when he's hungry with support from her husband. She wants to stop pumping and for her husband to be a supportive, kind and decent partner but unfortunately he is the opposite of that.

You can get baby nail clippers but I found them scary too. My mum used to bite our nails short so that's what I did.
You can also get little cotton mittens for babies.

He wants to show off to his family he’s a great dad at your expense is partly right but he’s making out your a a threat to your baby and deliberately hurting your ds. You are so vulnerable right now post partum and he’s making you pump for his benefit that goes against the advice of the midwife. I think he wants to claim you’re abusive towards the baby and setting you up. I would go to your parents and tell them what’s is happening and co sleep in peace. He is being abusive to not only you but your son as he’s interfering with baby bonding with you and breastfeeding.

Kindly OP, I have read all your responses and I want to add a slightly different view - not because you are in any way wrong, but because I’ve recently been postpartum and experienced a few bits where I can add a perspective simply to furnish you with some balance! Thoughts are this:

• Agree with poster saying he’s showing off in front of family, my DH did various showy offy silliness and I’d be like what in the hell is going on why has he made X obscure remark?! It calmed down after the first visits were out of the way and he relaxed into his role - turns out it was his own anxiety and excitement prompting this character shift I’d never actually borne witness to before because normally he’s just always himself. So an angle to consider is he’s in hyper protective anxiety state himself OR “look at me I’m super dad” and misplacing your importance in this.
• You are POSTPARTUM. I was hyper activated at everything my partner did for 6 months and had mum rage. We had many a disagreement in the way he did things vs how I wanted to do things and I can say I didn’t like him for a period of time. Now I’m in a different headspace and it’s like this fog has lifted because nothing is really an issue to me anymore, but my lord for a period everything he did wound me up or I would over analyse as a potential attack on me or the baby and was ready to fight him. None of it was abusive, it was just chemical / hormone fluctuations where I think you’re instinctively wired to protect baby at all costs and in our unfortunate instance I found my partner to be a pain in the ass because he gave input instead of frankly sitting back and letting me get on with things.
• Shifts CAN be normal. I am EBF and we had this exact shift pattern while my DH was on pat leave. We did have separate rooms however, it was a deliberate choice we made to preserve each other’s rest and also because if I’m awake breastfeeding then I want to do whatever the hell I want vs creep around someone else resting. Is it the case that without these guests you could each have a bedroom? You on sofa unless you proactively choose it is a hard no, tell him when he’s birthed a baby and recovering and thinks the sofa is an ideal spot for his body to piece itself back together he can crack on.
• This might be the ideal way to bring up the guest piece - no way would I have visitors in my home for this long at this point. You’re in it now, but moving forward this needs a reset. People meddle, get in the way, and don’t know how to manage new babies but have all the opinions I found. We had a hard rule on keeping people away and my DH was actually excellent at supporting this - which we needed because his mum was very intense at the start (this too has calmed down thankfully). Boundaries are key.
• 12 month mat leave - let this topic go for now. You do not need to solve this today, you are adding high stakes chat to a fractious time. Newborn trenches are hard and not whimsical, so please don’t add to your mental load with this topic when your partner clearly has no capacity to think beyond his own POV. Tackle it in 1-2 months when some of the routine is established and you’re both more confident in your parenting vs right now when all wounds are literally still open. For the record - yes, you should have 12 months and he needs to help suck up the 3 unpaid situation if it’s simply a lifestyle vs breadline decision, this is a once in a lifetime experience.

Keep your chin up, I think you’re in a position of having to share your fragile state (postpartum) with an audience (his family visiting) and this is probably triggering some upset and discomfort that’s in your posts - try to sit with what’s really going on before you conclude anything huge. I could / would have left my DH every week for the first 6 months because he irritated me and when we talk about that time now (at 11months postpartum) we’re only just starting to laugh about it and actually are a bit what the hell happened / didn’t expect the relationship turbulence to quite the level it created as we’re otherwise pretty strong. A new baby is a relationship reckoner as you have to learn how to interact in scenarios even the best relationships haven’t tested before the baby arrives.

not minimising other posters here - only you know your circumstances, simply want to add a different angle to digest. Hope you’re okay OP.

I'm glad you've stuck to your guns about nighttimes but still awful he is not helping. I used to feed then hand over baby to my husband for burping and nappy - you're right, having a newborn means everyone doesn't get uninterrupted sleep!

As someone who pumped too early with my first and gave myself a massive over supply - I would suggest you speak to the breastfeeding team or there's a good Facebook group called Breastfeeding and Lactation with trained admins. They will also be able to advise about how to feed a bottle without creating teat preference - although I would stop bottle until 6-8 weeks whilst you're still establishing feeding. With my second I didn't pump until 6/7 weeks for a bottle and I didn't have any of the issues I had with my first i.e mastitis, bottle preference, leaking, over supply.

You're doing fantastic, establishing breastfeeding is a tough gig but you're smashing it alongside visitors, cooking etc!

Much of his behaviour seems selfish and controlling. Plus, having his relatives in the house is too much so soon after the birth. I am fearful for your safety. Do you have supportive family or friends that you can stay with so that you and the baby can be cared for in the way that you should be?

Not everyone has the ability to run off to Mum and Dad as an adult. Some parents have passed on and others live very far away.

Glad you are in bed and feeding your baby as they need.

being pushed out of bedroom onto sofa is really not satisfactory, that’s fh in princess selfish mode completely oblivious to other people’s needs

if he is on the sofa it’s his choice and when he returns to work if he needs sleep that is where he will need to be

Please talk this over with your midwife.

Do you have a place to go ? If you do pack and go . This is all very weird . Also call your HV and speak about this . It seems planned and manipulative. I here is he from OP ?

Just another saying get this on record. He might just be being a twat but if anything ever happened between you and you left him or vice versa, these types of men will use anything in their power to discredit you. I have been there with my ex. I was on mat leave and sleeping. Baby was asleep in crib next to me. His dad came round randomly to 'check on me' when he was at work and let himself into the house. I came downstairs and baby started crying. In court this turned into a story that he had let himself in because he was walking past and could hear baby screaming and found baby on the floor by himself downstairs whilst I was sleeping. Total lie! The judge saw through it, and he ended up going on a perpetrator programme but my god the lengths he tried to go to to make me look incompetent!

If you only have 1 bedroom so he has to sleep on the sofa, where are the family staying at the moment? How long are they there for?

I'm glad he has backed down on the feeding issue OP. But there is still a lot of other things going on here so please be careful and mindful that he doesn't seem to be have your wellbeing as a priority. Yes you are being gaslit about the red marks. It wasn't just the red marks was it? He mentioned "inappropriately dressing" the baby in something too large and the baby being too hot?

He was very clever as to not outright accuse but it seems like he's sewing the seeds here.

The rest of it is just awful. The enforced feeding schedule, having house guests so soon after baby arrived (even if you "agreed" he should never have entertained this), not letting you out alone with baby, the assumption you'll reduce ML to meet his needs - its all coercive control.

I hope it's all a miscommunication and he is just an overenthusiastic and misguided new dad but I would advise serious caution and vigilance @Aristocack

Best of luck (and hope you got a little sleep)

I had assumed fh had sent op downstairs due to the noise of baby. Leaving unused bedrooms upstairs freely available

but that is my assumption and based purely on guess work

there could be 4 people sleeping on the sofa for 10 days, that’s how long the relatives are staying, for all we know 🤷‍♀️

This is good advice. I found my DH intensely selfish for the first few months before my first slept through the night. Focused on his own sleep rather than realising that I was completely wrecked after a difficult pregnancy and birth and actually he's just an observer. Apparently it takes a woman 7 years after her last child for her body to get back to normal. So two weeks in you will still be in bits physically and emotionally. The suggestion you sleep on the sofa especially with a sore shoulder is shocking. He needs to realise that you are vulnerable and if he is a good husband, he will change his ways. I think it's a learning curve for him almost as much as you (but not quite...!!).

So I need to make a correction as I was tired last night and wasn't clear - the sister is here for 10 nights in our spare room. Cousin and cousins boyfriend are here for 3 nights and on a camping bed in the dining room. Partner was on sofa in living room.

Apologies if I’ve missed it but I couldn’t find any mention of the number of bedrooms in OP’s posts, so I assumed that there are other bedrooms, but they’re taken up by the ‘guests’. If that’s the case then it adds a whole new disgusting layer to the fact that OP is forced to sleep on the sofa as the only alternative left in her own home.

Talk to the health visitor. Get it all recorded at the very least.

Omg a guest for 10 nights!! OP! This is just awful. What are they all thinking? They need to go to a hotel. You need quiet and time to bond with your baby.