Partner is clueless with newborn

[JHill123]

My partner and I have our first baby, a beautiful baby boy who is 5 weeks. I do all the night and day care and I don’t resent that at all, I love looking after him. But I’m astonished how utterly useless my partner is with our baby, all I ask is that he takes him while I shower and in that time the baby screams because my partner can’t soothe him. He has no instinct on how to hold him, cant see cues for wind/hunger. He puts his nappy on incorrectly. I asked him to take him out on his pram for a few minutes today and he couldn’t figure out how to put the pram up and asked for help, then he couldn't put baby’s jumper on so asked for help, then baby cried and he panicked, then he returned and wheeled a muddy pram through the house across a cream carpet 😂 He’s been so incredibly stressed and tired since baby arrived even though I’m happy to do all the care and I’m sleeping in separate room very jolly on about 3 hours sleep while partner sleeps soundly all night. I’ve been patient, slowly showing and explaining how to change nappy/ hold him etc, but today I’m starting to feel frustrated. Do some men just not have the instinct with babies? Do they improve with time and practice? Do I need to build his confidence? My partner makes my dinner every day and asks how he can help constantly, he is not lazy and he adores us both so perhaps that is enough and I should be grateful for that and accept baby care is solely my job!

I personally as a first time mother was just as overwhelmed as DH, as we both became parents exactly the same time. If I wasn't able to breastfeed, I would have had no more formula feeding skills and knowledge than DH.

You don’t need to breastfeed. One of the reasons I didn’t was so DH and I could share feeding.

Not to mention the fact that even if a mother starts out breastfeeding, the statistics show that most babies very quickly are formula fed anyway.

Tell him to sing when it a stressful situation it will calm him and baby

Also as baby gets bigger (in about a year!) he'll become the fun playing parent and you can get a break then

I didn't say anyone needs to breastfeed. You choosing not to breastfeed doesn't take away the fact that women's bodies can naturally feed a baby the way mens can't and that Oxytocin is released when a woman feeds or comforts her baby. We were talking about whether being a parent to a small child comes more naturally to a woman than a man. I'd argue the fact we are able to do the above means that we are naturally more geared up to it.

We’ll have to agree to disagree - DH was equally able to comfort and feed DT’s. We both had to learn the best ways of doing things

Men also release oxytocin when bottle feeding or comforting their baby.

Exactly.

Again, I didn't say a man can't feed or comfort their baby. You chose to bottlefeed so therefore your husband could choose to do it. If you didn't have access to formula milk he wouldn't have been able to because he wouldn't produce milk naturally. Again, hence me saying women naturally are more geared up for looking after small infants.
And AGAIN that doesn't mean I don't think men can't be just as good or even better parents than some women, just that I think naturally most women are more natural with small children.

Exactly the same as women do?

Which is irrelevant since women don’t have to breastfeed if they don’t want to.

I don’t breastfeed either so that DH can be just as involved with feeding.

How on earth does that make any sense in the context of whether women are more natural with children than men or not? Of course women can choose how they feed their baby but nature designed womens bodies to carry and feed a baby, mens can't. Are you saying that you think that has zero meaning to whether men or women are naturally better designed to look after a small child?

Beyond the surge for birth mothers yes (same for dopamine).

It has zero meaning as long as formula is available as an option.

OK. I'm not sure you grasp the meaning of natural but I don't want to get into further arguments.

What triggers the release in men when they are feeding?

Other than giving birth, I think there is zero difference.

A combination of the hypothalymus and pituitary gland, English isn’t my first language so I’m not 100% on the correct spelling. Dopamine I think is tyrosine metabolisation.

OK!

But how is it released when a man feeds a baby? A woman's is triggered by the physical act of feeding a baby

It takes time to learn these skills and if you're doing all the day and night care except for a few tasks, he's not getting enough time to develop them.

If he's naturally not as good at them as you were at first then the best way to get round this is probably relying more on him to do the care in a less ad hoc manner, and give him continuous care of the baby say for a whole night or for several hours.

If you think he wouldn't do what you want with the baby then you could always supervise this, so every time he gets up to change the baby's nappy, you get up too and help him if he needs it.

This might feel a bit intense and you might think if I'm going to be awake anyway, might as well do it myself, better one of us is rested. But without the time to practise the skills himself it won't improve for you.

Not that clueless and perfectly normal. You will need patience as a parent, this is a good test. Also, you are in this together

The same ways its released in a woman when she bottle feeds a baby. You do release oxytocin is released when you exercise, listen to music, and generally do things you find enjoyable.

A tad condescending to fathers? They aren’t useless and are a 50% parent. What’s to say the mothers way is better?

It is most definitely not in the same way as those things. I can say that as someone who both exercises and has breast and bottlefed.

I don't want to turn this thread into a feeding discussion.

I do feel sad though that, as so often happens now, if anyone dares to say a woman might naturally be better than a man at something, they are rubbished and scoffed at.

I'll leave commenting further and hope things are going smoother for the OP now