New baby affecting our relationship

[EmmaOt]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post and I'm sorry if it's too long but I was hoping someone would have some advice for me.

My DH and I had our first baby 11 weeks ago. I think it's relevant to say she was planned but my DH took some persuading. Since she has been born my DH has found it hard. He loves her, that is obvious but it is as though he is jealous of her. He seems so unhappy. He says that he misses when it was just us and he doesn't want to be spending all his time looking after her even though I do all the night feeds and early morning feeds, I do most of the housework, cooking, tidying etc but he does some when he gets in from work and at the weekends. It's true our dd does take up a lot of my time but she is 11 weeks old! Ive told him it will get easier as she gets older. I've tried to make sure we have time together, eg a cuddle on the sofa but it's not all evening like it used to be! We still go out eg to pub for lunch but now it's all 3 of us and I think he misses just the 2 of us. I think he's being a bit selfish as I am trying so hard to make things easy for him and I'm not sure exactly what he is finding so hard.

Every time we talk about it we end up arguing and getting upset. I'm really enjoying being a new mum but it's bringing me down, it's almost like he has postnatal depression.

Has anyone got any advice to help me help him adapt to being a new dad?

Five years ago we had our first baby. Like you I was probably more keen than DH but the baby was planned anyway. When the baby arrived it felt like we were being hit by a train, so much to do, so much to learn, so little sleep, throw in a bit of PND, a redundancy and it was quite a soup. My DH was quite hands on, because he was between jobs but it was a long time before we adjusted. We had lots of arguments and rows but somehow things just started clicking into place.

A year ago, we had our second baby. Massive adjustment again but what was most telling is that my DH said that now he finally feels like a dad, that he finally accepts that role. Don't get me wrong - he was perfectly caring before but somehow deep down always struggled with the change. I don't think what your DH feels is particularly strange or selfish as such - he has the right to express his emotions. However, this is the reality now and now you two have to figure out how to make the most out of it. Do you have a NCT group you arrange get togethers with? I imagine it would be immensely useful for him to able to talk to other new dads too.

I go to a postnatal group regularly and every so often a new mum arrives, looking utterly shell shocked and with this look on her face that spells out 'What have I done?!?' Within time, that look fades and they become happier. Why would this process be any different for new dads?

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I've only just discovered mumsnet and everyone is so helpful!

Emmie, i hadn't looked at it that way, I'm really enjoying motherhood and (so far) finding it fairly easy, I think I thought that he would automatically fall head over heels in love with her and put all his doubts to one side.

I think I need to be a bit kinder towards him, give him time to come to terms with his new role and make sure he knows he is doing a good job.

I think maybe as you're finding adapting to motherhood pretty easy you could be worrying too much about your dh's reaction. At 11 weeks I was still very much living hour to hour and thinking wtf have we done?!? It's a pretty rational reaction to the shock of it all I think!

"we are both in our late thirties and have done our own thing for such a long time."

I can identify with that. We were 41 and 48 when DD was born, just after our 19th wedding anniversary. The adjustment to parenthood from our old lifestyles was massive. We had got far too used to doing what we wanted when we wanted, and having an unbroken night's sleep (and had got quite selfish)

Posted too quickly. We love DD to bits, but to start with we mourned the loss of our old lifestyle.