Dads Changing Nappies

[mumontheskoolrun]

Speaking to school Mums and other Mums of babies since having DC2, I'm surprised at the amount of Dads that won't change nappies or wipe bums!!

Anyone experience this or have heard of this?

I have a friend who has a 6 year old daughter and her husband ( who is the father ) had only changed her nappy about 4 times because he had to be cause she was on her hen weekend.

WTF???

Fathers need to be hands on and be comfortable caring for their child and house.

Sage advise once given by mum “ don’t be the expert care giver if the baby, let your partner share the role & yes they will have their own way of doing things, just let them so long as everyone is safe”.

If you don’t share the role you will never get a rest or break and you can’t complain about it after. Especially what happens if you are poorly or away for a few days.

I’m in my 50s. If my dear dad was still alive he would be mid 90s …. he changed plenty of nappies.

All the men in my family change their own kids nappies. My Dad still remembered the cloth nappy folds when I had my kids. My Brother changes most of the nappies in his house.

100% 🤨

Not in my experience. Husband did as much as I did, son in law does now 🤷‍♀️

Yes they did as late as 12 years ago I did all my children's nappies and they all had sloppy poos x5 a day so absolutely disgusting. I only found out this wasn't normal with the last one.
Am not sure why I carried on tbh as it was the one thing I'd asked my husband to do as I did everything else whilst he worked outside the home. I still did it.
When I ask myself why, it's a mixture of me just getting on with it, being knackered, it being easier than asking every time, being at home so setting the pattern of behaviour and me making excuses that he worked very hard so I had to pick up the slack all the time! I hated & resented it.
Am still very angry about it 18 years later. What a fool. Don't get caught in that trap ladies 🤨🏋🏽🥊

I don't think it's surprising. I always change the nappy and my husband only do it if I'm not around. I was the one who set it up this way: I am faster, smell doesn't bother me and usually involves changeing her clothes too (like mornings and nights) so it's much easier this way.
Why would I ask him to do it when he can help out with other things that doesn't make him uncomfortable?
Its not about that he is lazy or doesn't care. It's about we share the work and this is my part. Just like breastfeeding also my part. So it's ok not to get him involved in that but when it's comes to dirty nappy it's not ok? I find it confusing.

@Tina8800 I can only speak for myself but when mine were little, especially pre weaning I actively looked for ways care for my children and support their Mum.
After weaning there's many more obvious ways but by then nappy changing was second nature anyway.
It's fine if people decide to split roles into m/f but I don't get the Dads that refuse

Well, men literally can’t breastfeed but they can change nappies! How is that confusing? They can help the woman breastfeeding by bringing her cake and tea and water and doing the burden of household chores in the early weeks of clusterfeeding, establishing supply, exhaustion etc. And part of that is doing the nappies so the breastfeeding mother can have a break from the physicality of it all.

Men don’t have hypersensitive noses – milk-fed baby poo is fine all round for both sexed to cope with and solids poo is grim for everyone, men can do a clothing change as well as women (DP did two top-to-toe changes for the constantly shitting baby last night, in fact), and what does it matter how fast it’s done? Frankly I enjoy DP doing a slow, fumbled nappy change with a wee fountain in his eye because it gives me a longer break from having my nipples chewed off.

Why do nappy changes make him uncomfortable? DS literally shit in my hand this morning while I was applying metanium: not my favourite experience but it wasn’t awful, either. It washes off. It’s just baby poo. Am I able to cope better because of my magical vagina?

@Surplus2requirements
Well yes, I also don't get the one who refuses. They most likely refusing other parts of the parenting too so the nappy change propanly isn't the biggest issue there.
My husband never once refused, I just prefer to do it myself. We talked about our roles and we constantly communicate and revisit things to make sure we all comfortable and not overwhelmed. For us it's more to do with organisation of the work and there are many other things that I prefer not to do; so my husband does it. Works for us and the baby and that is the most important thing.

We have 3 (now grown) DC. DH only changed each one time. It didn’t worry me at all.

Apparently my Dad didn’t change my siblings and I at all.

My DH does it but the fuss he makes is ridiculous

@bussteward
Wow. OK. Its nothing to do with the "magical vagina" as you put it.
For example I gave expressed milk to my baby from day one. I wanted to make sure if anything happens or I'm not around my husband can take care of the baby. I also wanted to involve him in the process of making this connection and not miss out. It was our joint decision!
People can argue if its right or wrong but is was our way and we were happy about it.
I meant it is strange to me how some parts only for "women" but all the others has to be shared.

I really don't care about the two second nappy change. My husband is the best dad I could ever wish for my baby. He told me he prefer not to change nappies. I prefer him playing all day with our baby then me arguing with him about things like nappy change that really isn't important if you look at the bigger picture.
There are plenty of things that I prefer not to do and he is happy to do it. So again: it's called teamwork and doesn't called lazy husband gets away with things due to the lack of "magical vagina".

That obviously works for you but I’m still not getting your confusion over why some things are women-only, such as breastfeeding or expressing as you did – I’m guessing only you expressed milk, what with biology being what it is? And some things can be shared, such as literally everything else other than pregnancy, labour and birth, which of course are women only.

My first dc was over 6m when his dad changed the first nappy - I know this as he was weaning and he'd had cauliflower, quite the initiation.

Dd was only 3m when she got her first nappy change from dad.

Not too many years ago but I was in an abusive relationship (didn't realise at the time) - I chose to bf and he couldn't help with that so he told me I could do everything for dc while he went out to work. I had awful pnd due to his actions - or rather inactions - we're now very acrimonious divorced and he doesn't see the dc.

I have much higher expectations for my dc and their future parenting.