How involved should a husband be with newborn

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My husband works and I am on mat leave looking after 4 month old baby girl.
he has only changed one nappy in hospital and won’t do them at home. He did help for a week post c section but then it’s back to me cooking, doing most cleaning/ironing (though he occasionally hoovers, puts on a wash and iron his own shirts) but I do most housework and 99% of baby care.
i love baby so much and not meaning to sound ‘braggy’, she has been a very calm baby and I have been fortunate to not be seep deprived and manage to EBF. But I still feel that my husband couldn’t give a damn about us.

My Husband has days when he won’t engage with baby, just a ‘hello’ when returning from work, and absolutely nothing else, not even a touch let alone nappy change, story, song etc. sometimes baby cries and husband ignores her and continues playing on his phone. His step son (young teen) also has very, very little interaction with baby. I get it maybe hard for him and maybe a bit strange but it’s so sad that he pretty much ignores the baby. I have tried gentle activities to do together to try and build their relationship without forcing the issue, because my husband won’t seem to help them.

if I don’t cook tea, we don’t eat. If I don’t iron, it builds up. If baby needs nappy change, it’s got to be me.

I still pay towards the mortgage and bills (though I have reduced this slightly due to being on lower wages now I’m in Mat leave. Everything else is split 50:50 or I pay for completely such as baby clothes, homeware etc).

sorry for the ramble and questionable grammar.
Is this normal behaviour for a partner/husband who works while mum stays at home looking after baby?

It doesn't sound normal at all, one thing that springs to my mind is does he have any sort of love/bond with the baby? Based on what you've said it doesn't sound like it, and I'm wondering if it could be PND. People don't usually think about it happening to men but I know a couple it has happened with where they really struggled. I'm not excusing his behaviour at all because your child has two parents and he should not be leaving everything to you. I think you should have a serious conversation about how to proceed with this and what you need/expect from him

This is absolutely not normal.

I’m ebf as well so do all the feeds but DH does every toddler bedtime and night wake plus will take the newborn at night if he’s being really grotty and I can’t settle him (maybe once or twice a week)

He’s on extended paternity leave so is doing pretty much all the house & garden chores, we’re splitting the cooking. I do most of the baby admin (drs appointments and jabs etc)

He does probably 2 out of 3 nappy changes in the day (obviously I do the night ones). Will take the baby after toddler has been dropped at nursery if I need to catch up on sleep. Takes the baby every evening for an hour or so whilst I have some one on one time with the toddler.

Your DH needs a reality check and a kick up the arse

You're on maternity leave not house elf leave to the two of them. I suppose you do everything for the teenager as well?

You're not being too sensitive. Not one thing you wrote about is acceptable or okay, not one..

This is not normal OP.

No interaction? No care. It’s horrible really.

If you are generally asking how much my partner did for our last newborn - he was a stay at home dad, he was doing at least two thirds of the housework and 100% of the child care whilst I was at work then 50/50 when we were both at home. We both had leisure time and exercise time to ourselves when we needed it.

how does he ever expect to be able to take his child anywhere for the next several years if he isn’t willing to help the child with nappies and toileting (it’s not helping you. It’s helping his child, it’s important to know that).

Everything else is split 50:50 or I pay for completely such as baby clothes, homeware etc).

Why? You earn less due to caring for your joint child, you do everything around the house and you pay more of the joint costs - and believe me, kids won't be any cheaper when they grow. He really has a comfortable life.

You should have equal "you time" and equal "you money" as a starting point of the discussion.
Then work out who wants which parts more or less and go from there.
It's his own child,...

Wkends it was 50/50 we shared the nights feeds and everything else. Don't get me wrong he wld happily let me do a lot of it if I let him. I was very much here u go ur turn to change the nappy etc. He was always happy to bath her though and play with her so it is strange he isn't interacting etc.

My sil is with a lazy arse like urs and honestly I wld have divorced. I wld just feel resentment building every day. Although he does at least play with the kids and show interest in them.

Talk to him and tell him how you feel. If there's no improvement you need to decide whether your happy enough to stay with him or not.

When our child was newborn my husband took over childcare completely on weekday evenings (though we spent the time together) and I would do a little cleaning or cooking. Weekends were 50-50 with both childcare and housework. All of our money goes into one pot and I didn't work for about a year and a half but he never made me feel bad about not contributing financially and vocally asserted that it was "our" money and not his.

Have you talked to him about it?

Fairly evenly split here, when my husband went back to work after an initial six weeks off he essentially took over baby duties when he got home from work until he went to bed, now he’s the one on adoption leave I do the same. At the weekend we take it in turns to have a morning off for hobbies etc.

Nope not normal. I have a six month old. Husband gets up early so I can shower etc. He pays for a cleaner for us and does all the cooking. We share bedtimes and he is much better than me at reading to her, singing silly songs. He also increased his contributions to bills and dropped mine so I probably pay 20% and he pays 80%. I do all of the day childcare as I’m on maternity leave and we share weekends. I’m probably the one shafting him in this arrangement tbh!

No it is not normal. Not at all.

DS is 14m now and I can honestly say I would not have got through the first 12 without DH here to help me. DS has been such a grumpy baby and there have been many days where i needed to not hear him cry at me for a little bit. DH has juggled his full time job with helping out any way he can.

He does bedtime most evenings while I cook a meal for us, though he would happily swap and cook while I did bedtime - he always gives me the choice.

We share house jobs - if anything he does more at the moment - for example, when DS naps at lunch, he knows I need some time to just be still and quiet after being grumped at by DS for the morning so he sorts lunch etc.

He gets up with him the days he's not WFH so that I'm not left with a grumpy DS from dawn til dusk. We share the weekend get ups so we both get a lie in.

He takes him out most evenings after work just to give me half an hour without DS clinging to me/moaning/crying etc.

I honestly couldn't have done it without him.

You need to sit your H down and find out what's going on and why....

Why did you have a baby together? What did you agree would be the arrangements when baby arrived? He does sport on a Saturday - when is your respite time? Why are doing all the housework like some 1950s throwback?

Please ask him all of these questions.

Absolutely a full on equal dad here. To both our kids. From day 1. Did and still does bath and bedtime as often as possible. Reads to them every day. Wakes up and makes breakfast and packed lunch. Does as much, if not more of the household chores. And he’s a doctor working pretty long hours in the US. That’s because in his own words ‘being a parent is the best and most important job I will ever have.’ And he did all this even while I was on maternity leave (shorter in the US) because given that I had just carried and birthed his child and was breastfeeding that was the bare minimum he could do. Now my kids are older and he’s even on the school PTA.

Why does your husband not interact with the baby? That is unforgivable. And in your husband’s case he’s not even a first time father. I would have no respect for a man like that- I would find it hard to remain married.

Not normal. I EBF but apart from that DH did his fair share of everything else. Did most bathtimes as his bonding time. If DS didn’t settle after a nighttime feed he would take him so I could get some sleep.

Also did cooking etc

What about the stepson, how often do you have him stay? Do you have to look after him?

Nope, that's shit. Jeeez it's so exhausting reading about these ridiculous men on here, FFS. Absolutely unacceptable and weird and honestly he needs to fix up or you should leave him and have more free time and probably be better off financially.

Did you always do all the housework pre baby? What did you used to do on weekends? Did you have pre baby hobbies?

Brutal. What a vile man, I am staunchly childfree precisely because I would hate to be a parent. You shit husband should have figured out after producing his first kid that he’s not fit to breed. How dare he inflict himself on you, and another kid to neglect?

This should be posted out to every woman in the UK:

Household chore inequity and child care inequality is a form of domestic abuse. It forces women to work themselves into exhaustion and illness, whilst men buy their free time with female exhaustion.

No one wants to see themselves as being in an abusive relationship. It means acknowledging that someone you love, someone you married or committed to, someone you chose to have children with is taking advantage of you and that hurts on so many levels.

it's heartbreaking to acknowledge, but acknowledge it we must.

If your husband or partner is capable of working at their job without being micromanaged and given extremely explicit instructions, then they are capable of contributing fairly at home without being given extremely explicit instructions and micromanaged. If they act like they are incapable they are gaslighting you.

If they were capable of living independently without living in a rat-infested pigsty without any clean clothes and living off pizza, then they are capable of ensuring children are fed and clothed, groceries are done, and household chores are shared equally. If they act like they are incapable they are gaslighting you.

If they claim they love you and yet your health comes secondary to their leisure, they're gaslighting you.

If they claim they can't possibly function and it would be unsafe for them to work with broken sleep, but it's totally fine for you to have to work, drive and do all the household chores and childcare on broken sleep, they're taking advantage of you.

If they say they are going to get up in the night and help but when the time comes the pretend to be asleep/complain, they're gaslighting you.

If they don't even actually try to settle the baby and had bub back almost immediately with "they just want you:", they're gaslighting you.

If your health, sanity, sleep, work, or self-esteem are suffering because you are the one doing everything, whilst they leverage your exhaustion into their free time, they're abusing you.
Like other forms of abuse, it will not get better on its own. It's not an accident.

So please ladies. Please stop laughing it off as "just men"

It's not just men. It's purposeful.

It might not be consciously purposeful, but it is still purposeful. They know they can get away with it.

one of you being on antidepressants because your husband won't help raise the children he fathered is one too many. 400+ of you being exhausted to the brink of PND and breakdowns is heartbreaking for us to watch.

You can't fix this by night weaning. Or sleep training. Or bedsharing, or chore charts, or even kicking hubby into the spare room. There are only two things that will fix this - therapy, or leaving.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4288463-AIBU-OH-never-alone-with-kids?pg=3

I am on mat leave, my partner works from home. He often does the 3am feeds, he does a lot of cooking, he does all of the laundry and an equal share of nappies. He will often take baby if I am just exhausted, we share cuddling her at dinner (of course she wants to feed or cuddle when we sit down to eat). There is no way he would go a day without cuddling her and feeding her at some point. He doesn't do as much with her as I do, and I did almost all the bath times for the first 2 months, but whenever I suggested we do something together he would join in and was always really happy he had. We make sure both of us can get to the gym/sports we like at least a couple of tikes a week.

It sounds like your other half didn't want a child at all. I would be heartbroken if my partner responded to our baby like that. I wouldn't be able to stand it. I feel really sorry for you.