Considering a second baby with a husband who does very little with our first

[busydrizzy]

We have a one year old. Husband does the bare minimum. I don't want to LTB. And it's not because I'm financially dependent on him or anything like that. I do find that I can plod along doing things my own way which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and in other areas we work well together. I would like a second, but I'm wondering if with a husband that will do very little with the children, if this will be the end of me? I intend to go back to work full time at some point, and I'm just wondering how feasible this will all be. I imagine between work and children I'll have barely any time for myself. But then I think to myself there are single mothers who seem to manage fine and I believe some actually quite enjoy being in full control and calling all the shots? Or is this an extremely bad idea? And I don't believe my scenario to be rare as I read posts all the time from women who have husbands who don't do much when it comes to the children

Something else to think about is how would he cope if something happened at the birth which required a hospital stay? Happened to me. A 5 day induction and then a poorly baby who had to stay in for a week. So I was away from DH and my 1 year old for 12 days unexpectedly.

I didn’t know this was still the 1950’s where any husband was better than a useless one crazychemist. Studies have proven that having an otherwise present but unavailable parent damages a child, that’s a fact.

Often the ones refusing to do night waking, read stories or change nappies are ones who will also not engage with other aspects of their growing children’s lives. I’m firmly in the don’t do it camp. But if you must have a large gap but ultimately you have a big DH problem which I’m sure doesn’t end with meeting the needs of your current or future DC.

It’s a tricky one OP because going from 1 to 2 is a huge increase in responsibility. Different nap times, the newborn stage whilst having an older child to entertain, lack of sleep, mood swings.

I personally couldn’t have done it without a hands on partner but you might be a lot stronger than me x

Can you not kick him into touch so he improves before you think about a second child?

I found 2 kids more than twice as hard as one. Logistics get hard as they get older and want to do different activities, and you can't be in two places at once. They argue a lot (2 boys, only 2.5 years apart) so I spend a LOT of time refereeing. It's hard truly focusing on one or the other. Honestly I love them both of course, but in hindsight I think I'd have stopped at one. (It broke my marriage too, but in hindsight the problems were there even before then).