Dad not bonding with baby

[Cocolocos]

Any advice welcome. My DH has really been struggling to bond with our 5 month old, and doesn't even like her, let alone love her. He gets so cross when she cries and it breaks my heart. He really wanted a child but has found it much harder than expected. Anyone else had similar issues??

I thought it would come naturally to me but it didn't!
It always amazes me that a couple have a baby, both of them without experience, and yet the mother becomes the expert and the father has to run everything past her and be told what to do!
If you are always there of course he will leave you to it and panic or worry if the baby cries.
Simply announce you are going out for a couple of hours and go. He will cope when he has to cope. I think that most women would hate it if they were never trusted to be alone and 'in charge'.

Ya I think if you are worried he may harm your daughter then you need to be around but let him do things for her. But if you don't think he will harm her, then just let him take care of her in his own way. I agree that it's really weird that women all of a sudden become experts in parenting and fathers are just duds. I don't know how this came to be. My husband for one, does whatever he likes, whether I like it or not. He has never had to run anything by me nor have I ever asked him to. I'm not worried that my motherly control will be taken away. My husband is super close to my kids and foes absolutely everything that I do for them. I think a lot of moms feel their child is 'theirs' and no one else's, not even the fathers, so everything has to be run by them.

So just let him learn for himself and more importantly form a bond with his daughter. It will take time but it's worth it.

The best thing that happened for my dp's relationship with my dds was me going back to work and him reducing his hours so we both worked equal hours and he had the dds for two days on his own.

You don't get into the situation if you are equal from day 1. You will have different ways of doing things, but a baby is very adaptable. I always thought DH had an odd combination of clothes but it wasn't my job to interfere. It isn't too late to start leaving him to get on with it.