How do you get your partner to share the parenting?

[Blondeinlondon]

How can I get my partner to take an active part in parenting our child?

DS is 9 mths.
Unless I leave explicit instructions when I go out then he does not get fed etc. I went out yesterday and said he needs his lunch and then dinner by 5.
Called home at 5.15 to hear the sound of crying.
By the time I was back DS had cried himself to sleep. Neither lunch nor dinner had been provided. When he woke I did the dinner etc, bath, bedtime.

How can I get DH to do his share?

Sorry no help to BIL but I think that some men are just useless, luckily I didn't marry one of those, so I don't have much advice to give here.

hear hear Colditz.

I don't think people would be so sympathetic if it were a female babysitter who had behaved in this way.

I think if i was a man I would be seriously insulted by some of the copmments on here. That any human being with the mental capacity to be left in charge of a baby needs training to open a jar and feed food with a spoon is staggering!

If he had any common sense at all, he would have asked in advance about anything he was unsure about, given that he had responsibility for a helpless child that he presumably loves.

Sorry, BIL, I thk you are married to a very selfish, lazy, irresponsible man, who is either too self-engrossed to ever care what you thnk, and wjat your baby needs, or is in complete denial of his role as a father.

Yes, men often do it their way - the food may well be served at fridge temperature, two puddings, whatever, but not to feed at all defies belief.

I would be wild with fury. And DP would be incredulous if he thought I had to give simple instructions. And midwives rarely show parents how to open babyfood jars in maternity units.

can we just get something straight here?

Nobody has justified the behaviour described by BlondeinLondon. Nobody has said that its OK because he's a man.

All we have said is, some suggestions on how to help him change his crap behaviour. Which is what BiL asked for.

So, what would you do then, if you reject the idea of showing him how to do a proper job? Judge him a total failure as a dad and throw him out forthwith?

Just for the record, if it was a woman who had no previous childcare experience, my response would be exactly the same.

BiL, looking at your two posts, I assume the missing sentence in the middle is 'After I screamed at him like a banshee...'

I'd give him another chance, maybe because I'm so crap at so many things, maybe because i do remember the sheer brainache of the early days with ds when I was getting used to looking after him. maybe because ds is covered with cuts and bruises after my superb care of him on saturday morning .

Serious alarm bells would be ringing though. Does your dp think that the answer with difficult feelings and needs is to ignore them? does he think that there is no difference between a child and an adult? Risky, risky stuff. I would be worried and I would darn well tell him I was worried.

NightyNight - I would suggest that BIL firmly and very emphatically lets him know that his lax approach is 100% not acceptable, and that, yes, of course she is happy to help, advise, instruct etc if he is unsure about it, and ask HIM what advice he needs and in what form it is best given for him to refer to.

But BIL says she has prviously left notes, and he obviously hasn't read them, or taken notice. As well as help, his attitude and approach needs a serious shake-up. Unless he takes responsibility, anyhting BIL does will be fruitless.

And Nighty-night - if a woman - or other human being I was prepared to leave DS with - didn't know what to do, I would expect her to ask....and I would leave instructions, as BIL has done before, and I would expect her/him to READ them if unsure. Anything else is downright irresponsible on their part!

I may have missed something in this long thread but:
if he was giving the baby milk, he must have had directions for that or known how to do it (sterilising heating etc etc);
if he received directions re the milk, it seems odd directions were not given at the same time re the food;
if he didn't receive directions re the milk, he must have had prior milk experience, which mkaes it seem odd he had no clue about food.
Which all makes me wonder:
Did he actually give the baby milk?
Think this is shocking and tend to agree with the socks pulled up or out the door camp...

Also BiL, not being mean, but you don't seem quite as angry about thsi as one might expect...

what are you arguing about then? We are all agreed about his irresponsibility.

So your approach would be to try and make him take his responsibility, whereas mine would be to make it impossible for him to fail next time, and guide him gently to realise that he behaved like a twat. I can say that I think yours is a perfectly valid alternative approach, without going off on a load of "I can't believe this!" type posts. I personally wouldnt do it, because I usually avoid blame in work and personal relationships.

bil i think is a bit shocked by the number of posts etc and is ducking out for the time being! don't think she realised how heated it would get

GoN - I think that is unfair to BlondeinLondon, who is obviously concerned about her dp's behaviour. Should she now come on and tell us that she screamed at her dp, so that we could all feel happy that he got the telling off that he richly deserves?
This is the second post to "expect" that she should have made a scene, and I think that is unfair to someone who asked for advice on a serious subject.

No, NN, it's just an observation about tone. Her tone does not suggest that she was as shocked at what happened as I think most people would have been and that seems strange to me. It may well be she is very shocked and it just doesn't cme across in her posts. If she was not shocked, it seems to me that there is no harm in posters pointing out to her that she ought to have been so that she doesn't let her child remain in potentially dangerous situations.

sorry but how hard can it be to give a child some lunch?

I think the stock answer of leave him is not appropriate without some effort to fix things. Here's my advice to based on your original post BIL:

Sit him down
Read him the riot act
Tell him it's his last chance

If he can't be arsed to look after the baby after that, then make your own decision about your life choices - either you can be 100% responsible for your child and accept that your partner will never take over that responsibility or ask him to leave.

FWIW, I think the conversation about training a father is pointless. Of course parenting is about learning but the basics (feeding and hygeine) are not rocket science and I don't think being male should be a "get out of jail free card".

Good luck to you.

she was shocked...hence her post! she does trust her dh, and one this specific time was only out for a few hours... not all day
all she wanted was some ideas for how to get him doing more... not to be slated for having a neglectful husband, fo not being shocked enough (wtf is that about anyweay?) and being told to leave him

i feel bad for speaking on her behalf now...b ut seriously... do you honestly think that she would leaev her son with him if she felt he was genuinely at risk?

and fwiw i don't think you can tell anything about a person's "tone" over the internet...

She has got a neglectful husband. If he left a baby to scream itself to sleep in hunger, he doesn't care about it.

I would never ever trust him near my child again, and I would never love him again after neglecting my baby.

My genuine advice to her is

This man is not worth educating, he does not seem to care enough about being a father to learn how to be one. This doesn't sound like 'didn't know what to do', it sounds like ' couldn't be bothered to try'. You will never change his attitude, you will never trust him again, and eventually I think you will hate him so much the sight of him makes you feel sick.

I genuinely think this man will never be partner. He will be a tag-along, letting you wash his socks and cook his food, paying the money to keep the house going and offering you no support bar financial.

I have read all the posts on this thread, and my advice is still to get rid of this childish little boy.

Don't agree starlover, you can tell masses about "tone" from what someone writes. What you can't always tell is whether your impression about someone's attitude is correct.

If there's one thing that really gets on my norks about MN, it's this thing people have about talking about an MNer as if she isn't there and can't see what's being said about her .

she obviously doesn't hate her dh or want to leave him, why should she? Yes, he needs a kick up the arse, but it's not something to break up a family over!

Maybe she isn't seeming shocked because she has the self-control not to rise to this kind of baiting.

well said cm!

CM, some people would disagree with you. They would most certainly see the neglect of a child as a good reason to break up a family. I did.

(But of course I'm not suggesting that's the only possible course of action in this circumstance - just disagreeing with you that it's not a "good" reason. It's one of the best, imo.)

the thing is... blondeinlondon hasn't given ALL the details or circumstances here... and i do feel that some people have jumped to conclusions about what did or didn't happen.

BiL - sorry if the general sense of shock and outrage has been ott - but I think a lot of people have given their gut reaction, and that it is sympathy for you, rather than any blame - of course none of this is your fault!

In terms of getting your DH to share parenting, I think it's fair to say that you are starting from a different place than many others, and have your work cut out. Do you think he does have any sense of the importance of what happened? And will he apply himself more conscientiously next time?

Caligyulea (like the xmas name!), I didn't mean poor parenting generally can't be a reason to end a relationship - of course it can. It's this one-strike-and-he's-out attitude that I find a bit baffling.

This kind of thing absolutely amazes me.

Childcare is not that hard, especially if you have been doing it for 9 fecking months. Very much agree with SD, EIS, Caligula here. If he did need training (grrr), he should have managed it by now!

I split with my ex when pregnant and do you know what happened after our dd was born? He took an interest! He insisted he changed nappies, bathed her, etc etc. He wanted to be a good dad and he is...

BUT...

I think nearly everyone (esp by 9 months) knows that a child (like ANYONE ANY AGE) needs fed a few times a day. It's not even like the guy had to even cook something, BiL had jars!!

The guy is a complete arse who should be ashamed of himself. How could he leave that child starving? I find it upsetting just thinking about it.