to be very pissed off at DH for, amongst other things, cleaning DS's bum with Milton wipes and therefore making it bleed?

[ilikeyoursleeves]

ARGH!!!!

I have just gone back to work after a year M/L and DH has DS for one day a week. For the year I was off I have done 99% of looking after DS. DH plays with him and loves him to bits but has been frankly crap at the practical side. He barely ever changes nappies, never fed him (DS was breastfed at first but he still wouldn't give him food once he was weaned), I am the one to comfort him, take him out etc.

So when I went back to work I had to tell DH what to do re food etc but he is the type who can't ever be told what to do and just wings it. I said you can't really wing it with a baby and there was loads I do that he has no idea about. Anyway, things seemed to be fine over the past few weeks of me being back at work but DS has had a sore bum, I put it down to teething. Until tonight when I realised DH has been using bloody MILTON wipes on DS's bum!!!!! He thought they were baby wipes!!!! I was so angry cos when I changed DS's nappy tonight he was crying so much and his bum was all red raw and bleeding. I said to DH what they were and how it's unbelievable that despite his son being over a year old, he STILL doesn't know what bloody baby wipes are! (and he has used baby wipes before obviously) So DH then started yelling at me saying that it was MY fault for leaving the Milton wipes out, how was he to know that they aren't baby wipes. OK perhaps fair enough in a way but for someone to have a one year old son and not know this is pretty bad don't you think? He then started yelling at me saying that I treat him like I child when I 'tell' him what to do, but I feel I have to 'tell' him things as he just won't listen and tries to 'wing it' all the time. Like last week when I told him what to take out with him in DS's bag (nappies, wipes, food, water etc)- he said he was listening but all he ended up taking out was food and nothing else. ARGH!

I just feel he doesn't listen but he then makes me feel like I'm the biggest nag on earth when I ask him to do things. He said he doesn't want any more kids if I keep going like this so I yelled I'd just have them with someone else. Not that I would (or could, given DS was IVF) but now I feel shit. I said I obviously didn't mean what I said but he just said he didn't want to know anymore and stormed off to have a bath. Now he is on his way out the door for the night.

Bloody bloody bloody men!!!

Am I being a mad controlling hormonal freak or do you think I'm being reasonable?

"The willingness and ability to change"

It would appear this man has neither of these attributes.

Message withdrawn

I don't think it is really fair to say that this father has abdicated his responsibilities as he has (presumably) agreed to be a SAHD for a day every week. He may have slightly strange views about maternity leave, but I bet plenty of other working parents have at least thought similar thoughts when they want to relax in the evening and the at home parent wants a break. Until you have done childcare 24/7 I do think it is difficult to appreciate how draining it is.

I would absolutely hate for dh to "tell me what to do", and I know he hates it if he thinks I might do that. For example when he started to cook properly he banned me from the kitchen, because he said I just couldn't help giving what I thought was useful advice, but what came across to him as patronising and irritating.

Some people do not like using instructions in any case (I have noticed this more frequently in men, but I suspect that it depends on the task in hand). Also some of us are very bad at giving instructions, so that they do sound patronising and imply the other person is an idiot. This is not conducive to a good relationship!

If I was going to offer advice I would say bin the Milton. It is not a good idea to over sterilise your envronment, and over one you don't need to sterilise baby feeding equipment any more. A hot soapy cloth is a much better option (over use of anti-bacterial products is one contributor to the growth of MRSA and other resistant microbes). I think it was a slightly surprising error to make, but would not expect household cleaning items to be anywhere near baby stuff. I'm also puzzled as to how one day of using the wrong wipe would give a baby a bleeding bottom, surely there must have been some rash before that got worse with the harsher chemicals?

If you burst out with "you have hurt the baby" then I am not surprised he didn't react well (I'm not saying that your reaction wasn't reasonable, just not constructive).

You have to let him do his his own way, just as you did when you stared out. Babies don't come with instructions, and I'm sure you made errors too (I know I did). Eventually he may do some things better than you. dh thinks he does everything better than me (I exaggerate of course) because he was a SAHD for a year or two. It is bloody annoying!

Oh, and why should he apologise to the OP? It's not her baby. Apologies should be made to the baby. When ds got nappy rash (he had a really nasty infection at one point, and my care hadn't been perfet) I didn't apologise to my dh. Why would I?

Good point nooka! It's not the OP's arse that is sore.

the funniest posts on this thread are the ones where people are getting all self-righteous about the op using milton wipes - that's kind of missing the point here. i bet she wishes she'd said that dh had used an organic cotton cloth impregnated with ecover toilet bleach, and then nobody would reproach her!

Because babies don't belong to anyone. Just because I was the one who bore our children does not make them mine. They are their own people. As parents we share the responsibility for caring for them. Introducing ideas of ownership is rather repugnant when you talk about human beings I think.

The idea that one parent is more important than the other is in my mind why fathers can be excluded from the relationship except for when mothers want them to do something. It also leads to the idea that the way that the mother does things is always right (personally I find that maternal instinct stuff really iffy - don't dad's have paternal instincts, or are we worried that maybe they will eat the baby instead of caring for it?)

Of course the mum feels angry (I think that whether that is reasonable or not is irrelevant to that instinct to some extent). The father should be sorry if his actions have hurt the baby, of course, but he certainly should not feel he has to apologise to his wife.

I'm not saying he didn't cock up btw.

But dittany he is looking after his child for one day a week. How is that opting out? I agree his previous attitude sucked (but is not uncommon, especially if it is accompanied by a mother who will do everything).

I have a deep sense that my children belong with me. When dh and I separated and he wanted to move to Canada and have them alternately live wit us, I was incredibly upset. But I still had to recognise that dh also feels the children belong with him. The children also feel that both of us belong with them. We all go together. I am not superior because I gestated them.

He's not my ex (although I can see why you might think he was). It was a nutty plan, which he recognises now. I do say my children. But so does he. I'm just saying that if either parent (or anyone else for that matter) asserts their superiority in regard to their children it is a recipe for the other party to back out. Not good for shared or equal parenting, which I would have thought was what most parents are aiming for?