DP wanting to take baby out without me

[roseroses]

Baby is 4 weeks old. A few times DP has mentioned taking him out without me. Example today he wants to take him to his brothers, I suggested he calls in here instead but it's just caused a bit of a row. I am not ready to be separated from him and I have explained this to DP but he seems to think I'm being ott. It's not that I don't trust him, I do 100% and he's great with the baby but I just don't see why he seems to want to take him places without me so much, there's been a few occasions where he has wanted to. He says he wants to be able to parent him without me 'hovering around' all the time. He keeps asking how long before I will allow him to do this, I really can't give an answer to that. Am I being ott?

@WonderfulYou he doesn’t want to give OP a break, this quite explicitly isn’t about helping OP. He wants to ban her from coming along even though he knows makes her feel very uncomfortable.

As for bonding time, that doesn’t actually require his partner to not be in the building.

[quote SparrowNest]@TableFlowerss I think that desiring to take the baby away from a parent, for no good reason, despite them telling you it would distress them, is being a bad partner tbh.

When mine was a week or so, my mum came to say and my husband took her to the supermarket to get some gluten free food. She insisted on slowly going round every fucking aisle, looking at everything, and he was getting really agitated at having left us. It didn’t mean he didn’t trust me.[/quote]
I think that desiring to take the baby away from a parent for no good reason, despite them telling you it would distress them, is being a bad partner tbh

But the dad is the parent..,,,

You are probably making him feel you don't trust him even though you say you do. Also he probably wants to go out and show his baby off. You should be glad, some men aren't interested until they're older. X

@KurtWildeWitchOfTheWoods

He has to accept that if he wants something that makes his partner uncomfortable, he doesn’t get it.

Yeah that might apply to some things, but not to his own baby.

Nope, still applies. He can’t make unilateral decisions about the baby if they make the baby’s other parent unhappy. It’s totally toxic to suggest that he can do whatever he wants regardless of the impact on his partner.

@Midlifemusings

I think there will always be a subgroup who believe that the only real parent is the one who carried and birthed the baby. That the biological process of fetal development and birth gives the biological mother a whole different status than any other parental figure could ever have. That fathers are supporting cast and their role is to just support the mother, cater to her needs, and be grateful when she allows them to be involved. These are the people who talk about mothers allowing, permitting and letting a father do x or y. This position really puts mothers up on a pedestal as supermom or hero or martyr who does it all and sets up unrealistic expectations for mothers. That they must always be perfect and that they as women are the nurturers, the carers, and that there is nothing like a (bio) mother's love. That any crack means the father isn't supporting them enough and they just need him to do more in the background so they can stay perfect. It is so unhealthy and it saddens me to see so many still buying into it.

This is a pile of shite.

Some mothers would have no qualms whatsoever about their partners taking the baby off on his own. There’s nothing in the world wrong with that, it’s a perfectly normal way to feel, it has no implications in respect of how good of a mother you are or how bonded you are to your baby.

It’s completely irrelevant to the present situation, with this OP, because SHE doesn’t feel comfortable having her baby taken away from her. She will be made anxious by that. So her husband doesn’t get to do it, because it’s not acceptable to tell a new mother (or a new father, if this were reversed) that she just has to put up with being uncomfortable because the other parent has a want (not need).

This isn’t a sweeping generalisation about parents, or mothers, or supporting roles. This is about THIS specific OP not wanting her very small baby taken away from her. That’s her choice. Only she gets to decide if she’s happy with that.

The same would be true in reverse. If she started saying she didn’t want her husband to come on trips out with the baby, that would also be unreasonable. She wouldn’t be entitled to say he couldn’t come.

And you can bet your bottom fucking dollar that if OP had come on here and said ‘I feel like I bond better with my baby when my husband isn’t around so I’ve told him he’s not allowed to come with me when I take the baby to visit my family, am I being unreasonable?’ she would have her arse handed to her by you and other posters.

He can’t make unilateral decisions about the baby if they make the baby’s other parent unhappy. It’s totally toxic to suggest that he can do whatever he wants regardless of the impact on his partner.

But it's ok for OP to do that and make him - also the other parent - unhappy?? Why is it only one parents feeling who need to be taken into account?!

@User527294627

Okay lets flip it.

OP comes on and posts that she had a baby four weeks ago and feels like she has never really been able to bond or parent because her husband is always hovering around her. She says she wants to go out on her own to see her family and he says no, he isn't comfortable with that. She asks him when will she be allowed to be alone with the baby and take the baby out and he says he doesn't know.

I would feel the exact same way as I do in this case. That OP should not have to ask is she is allowed and that she should be able to bond without her husband hovering over her and that if she needs to get out with baby for an hour, she should be able to.

Your position would be that she should never make her husband uncomfortable and therefore she needs to stay at home under his hovering watch until he allows her to leave the house with the baby.

@Midlifemusings no, not that she has to stay home. That she can’t ban him from coming along if she takes the baby to visit her sister, and the thought makes him anxious.

I definitely wouldn’t have felt reasonable if I’d tried to tell my husband that.

[quote Midlifemusings]@User527294627

Okay lets flip it.

OP comes on and posts that she had a baby four weeks ago and feels like she has never really been able to bond or parent because her husband is always hovering around her. She says she wants to go out on her own to see her family and he says no, he isn't comfortable with that. She asks him when will she be allowed to be alone with the baby and take the baby out and he says he doesn't know.

I would feel the exact same way as I do in this case. That OP should not have to ask is she is allowed and that she should be able to bond without her husband hovering over her and that if she needs to get out with baby for an hour, she should be able to.

Your position would be that she should never make her husband uncomfortable and therefore she needs to stay at home under his hovering watch until he allows her to leave the house with the baby.[/quote]
She’s not saying he has to stay at home. She’s saying he can’t take her 4 week old baby away from her yet. This is absolutely not a radical position and it’s genuinely insane how many people on this thread are telling OP she just has to suck her feelings up because it’s what her husband wants. Why do his wishes trump her feelings here?

Even prisons can’t separate mothers from their newborns. Why should he get to because he thinks it would be nice when his partner has made it so clear she’s unhappy?

I really feel for OP and in a way I hope she hasn't read through this thread as her feelings have been dismissed / invalidated as if they don't matter and no-one should be made to feel that way - especially a new mum having just given birth 4 weeks ago.

everyone feels different post partum as clearly evidenced by this thread - how YOU feel at this moment in time OP isn't wrong and it's okay to feel the way you do

@Midlifemusings im trying to imagine a world where the new mother can’t bond with her baby because she can’t have time alone with her child.

One where she doesn’t do at least 50% of the night feeds. One she isn’t left on her own after a couple of weeks if not days.

One where her dP is telling her how to put a nappy on, would catch the baby as soon as they wake up and grumble a bit.

One where the father would have read books/ask family or the HV or midwife about how to prepare bottles/feed baby/sleep/how many clothes baby should have to keep not too hot and not too cold.

One where they’ve put their career on the back burner just for the child. Where they take time off for all medical appointments, or when the child is sick.

Yep. Not going to happen is it?

I’m all for giving much more responsibility to new fathers. No discussion about that. But it should NEVER be at the expense of the new mother. It should never be by walking all over the mother’s feelings and telling her to just loosen up. It should never be by putting down a new mother who is now left completely on her own to deal with the baby whilst her part her goes back to his nice per child life.

Because, as a general rule in a relationship, if you find solution by dismissing one partner, ignoring their feelings and refusing to work with them, then you don’t have a partnership. You have a relationship where two people are at constant war with each other to win over the other.

That’s certainly not what the OP needs at a time when she is vulnerable.

I agree @milkieway.
I actually hope the OP has hidden that thread a long time ago and stopped reading. Because the effect on her can easily be long lasting, Incl the feeling that she cannot voice her feelings vs her DP attitude towards her and the child because she is clearly over reacting…..

If someone had wanted to put a woman back in her place, they wouldn’t have done it any other way :(

These threads always end up pro-father as mumsnet posters are so keen to be seen to be inclusive and to show there is no preference to either sex.

It’s interesting to me that the affect of women’s hormones whilst pregnant and post partum are pushed to one side as though irrelevant. There is a reason why female mammals are known to be aggressive when they have babies. We have a very strong desire to protect our young and keep then close. That would be the hormones!!!

Until these babies are grown in artificial wombs in a lab - and I’m sure we won’t have to wait to long for that delight to come along, it would be rather nice if new mothers could find some empathy and understanding on a mothering website. I’m sure emotions and hormones are running high and I would hope a loving partner would understand and respect that.

Well said @FreeBritnee
Post partum mums needs trumps dads wishes

@milkieway

I really feel for OP and in a way I hope she hasn't read through this thread as her feelings have been dismissed / invalidated as if they don't matter and no-one should be made to feel that way - especially a new mum having just given birth 4 weeks ago.

everyone feels different post partum as clearly evidenced by this thread - how YOU feel at this moment in time OP isn't wrong and it's okay to feel the way you do

I agree. I think it's absolutely vile how this thread has been derailed by a few posters pushing their agenda. They have no concern for the effect their words have had on the OP or anyone else posting, myself included. They've said that if a mother is not breastfeeding, she is interchangeable with anyone else who can hold a bottle. I'm sure that's most helpful to mothers struggling to establish a bond with their baby. And I count myself in that. To deny the role a mother plays so they can push their agenda is disgusting. I'd like to think they are ashamed of themselves, but I doubt it. They are enjoying the view from their high horse too much for any introspection to take place.

@tofuschnitzel I’m not even convinced it’s obliviousness, I think some people on here get pleasure out of kicking people when they’re vulnerable.

i agree. I think it's absolutely vile how this thread has been derailed by a few posters pushing their agenda. They have no concern for the effect their words have had on the OP or anyone else posting, myself included. They've said that if a mother is not breastfeeding, she is interchangeable with anyone else who can hold a bottle. I'm sure that's most helpful to mothers struggling to establish a bond with their baby. And I count myself in that. To deny the role a mother plays so they can push their agenda is disgusting. I'd like to think they are ashamed of themselves, but I doubt it. They are enjoying the view from their high horse too much for any introspection to take place.

There’s another thread running concurrently with this one saying the same thing to a woman whose partner wants their 5 month old four days on the trot 50/50 to fit in with his shift work. Screw the fact that his behaviour as described on the thread marks him as abusive. Screw the fact he has done next to no childcare thus far and plans to palm the child off on his own mother. His right for 50/50 apparently trumps the mothers and she should find work to accommodate his work.

It makes me sick to my stomach how misogynistic this site is. Turkeys voting for Christmas constantly.

@TravelLost absolutely agree
It's a vulnerable time for lots of new mums (I appreciate not all feel vulnerable - but many of us do!) and the comments on here could be so harmful

I hope OP finds some kind words and reassurance elsewhere as clearly and sadly she isn't going to find that on Mumsnet

Mother and father are in no way equal, I can’t believe this has been used as an excuse to sprout such shitty beliefs to a new mum.

Baby’s heart rate is regulated by mum, not dad. Babies have a bond with their mum long before birth.

I’m sure daddy can help out a bit more without having to take the child away from their mum at 4 weeks old. Focus should be helping mum, and that doesn’t mean taking baby out alone unless mum is comfortable with that.

I don’t see why you can’t go with him until the baby is a little older. I wouldn’t be ok at all at that
He doesn’t see you or the baby all week and then he feels confident enough to take him on his own
I don’t care if people call me ott for me is a : no way, why can’t I be there?
He’s not being reasonable by pushing you to do something you are not comfortable with, especially since you are the main caregiver

Yes let him take him. Get some sleep; have a bath and enjoy it.

I had to formula feed with my twins this time around (5 weeks old) and husband has me sleep in the spare room on a Friday night and he dead with it, gets them and our two year old up and ready and takes them for a walk Saturday morning.... it really is bliss.

Do it, you will really enjoy the time to yourself.

I always find this stuff quite fasinating - I left my twins at 4 days old for a few hours with my m'n'law and sister as they were bottle fed. If my husband had of said he wanted to take our children to see his family...he has a right as its his children too? Maybe your partner thinks you need a break and its his way of suggesting that.

Whelping bitches get more consideration than this.

@ittakes2 you wanted to leave your babies, not everyone wants to.

I’ve seen new parents in town by themselves the day of going home from hospital, without their baby, baby having their first night away from home.
I mean… it’s great they’re comfortable, but it’s a bit odd to be leaving newborns with others so soon surely?

Like I said upthread, it’s each to their own. No one should be judging op for not wanting to be apart from her baby yet. She’s still finding her feet.

Hi all

We're just posting a reminder to please be kind when commenting - being a new parent can be an extremely difficult time, and we want the OP to get the support they need.