I dislike parenting with my husband - any tips?

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Things have improved significantly since our baby was born and he’s now nine months old, but we clash over decisions often with the more minor things. I’m worried about what the future looks like bringing up a child for the next 18 years having to make joint decisions.

A few examples from just this morning: We argued about the fact that his mum has been giving our baby cow’s milk for the last I don’t know how many months. He’s currently nine months and his mum usually looks after him one or two days a week. I asked my husband if he can give her some formula instead as I’d prefer our son to stay on formula based on NHS guidance. He started saying it’s ridiculous, NHS guidance is written by idiots (!), and there’s nothing wrong with cow’s milk. He said I should speak to her if there’s a problem. He then did agree to go along with it reluctantly, but I’m fed up of having these disputes in the first place.

This week we also argued because he bathed the baby in a bath that had visible bits and hair floating in it with discolored water. When I pointed this out and asked when he’d last cleaned the bath, he couldn’t remember. There were also open dirty nappies left in the bathroom, multiple had been there god knows how long. The cat litter trays he keeps in the bathroom while he and baby bath for often half an hour twice a day. When I said it was disgusting, He later sent me a message saying I impose my views on him with constant scrutiny and judgement and that I’m spoiling fatherhood for him.

He goes gym then does not pre wash instead baths with baby, I think this is unhygienic? Maybe I’m being too OTT but he won’t wash first says I’m being dramatic.

He recently got annoyed because I was feeding baby crisps and asked me not to because they are full of crap (these are Ella’s kitchen finger food ones so not the healthiest but also not that bad). He has OCD so I think that’s why, but I’m not agreeing to not allow baby to have finger foods - he should manage his ocd.

These are the kinds of things we disagree on. I could list more but this is to give you an idea. I’ve relaxed a lot and started letting a lot of things go to keep the peace.

Has anyone else had experience of something similar where they’re just finding it irritating to parent with their partner?

I’m genuinely worried about the next 18 years if this is how it’s going to be.

Have you never noticed these traits/tendancies before op? You need open, non-judgemental dialogue between you. If you didn’t discuss your approaches to parenting before, now’s the time!

@Purplecatshopaholiccall me daft but it never even occurred to me to discuss this - we only ever talked about the big things like where they might be educated, live etc but not the smaller day to day things.

he has always had these tendencies yes, but I guess we were very independent before so it never really affected me

If mil can't follow basic NHS guidance what else does she think is best for your dc?
That would worry me . Is dh actually ocd or just your way with words?

Multiple dirty nappies left in the bathroom, what do you mean? In a bin? There’s a lot going on here. You need to have a conversation - many conversations with him.

If multiple nappies had been in the bathroom why hadn’t you dealt with it?
why was the bath so dirty? Do you not clean it either?
Babies need formula to a year old for the vitamins etc. cows milk on top won’t hurt them but might fill them up so they don’t drink enough formula. Surely he wants optimum nutrition for his dc?
Crisps seems a silly thing to argue about. If he doesn’t like his baby having crisps can you not give the baby some bread or a cracker instead?

strange that so many nappies are in the bathroom and the bath is dirty, do you not clean it either ?

To add we have separate bathrooms so no I don’t use his and therefore don’t clean it. I don’t use his at all due to the litter trays and general state of it

I hear you, I have the same issue. You’ll have lots of people saying ‘why wasn’t this discussed before having a baby’ but who would have thought that such day-to-day things or really obvious things need a discussion. Funny enough we also had a cows milk issue. All I can say is that it got better for us once our baby turned one. Mostly due to the fact that certain things like eating and sleeping are more relaxed once they’re out of the baby stage.

The only thing I wouldn't mind is bathing together after the gym. A bit of sweat is not going to do any harm.

The rest is not ok and in some cases positively dangerous- open cat litter around a (presumably) crawling baby, dirty nappies and cow's milk. YANBU to be unhappy with this. I do think that sometimes you need to compromise to avoid endless rows- it's not wrong to have different opinions- but these things are absolutely fundamental to your baby's safety and health and I wouldn't budge an inch.

PS, to add to my previous post: be pragmatic would be my advice. Ideally agree to hold off cows milk for another 3 months, let go of the bathing together after gym issue because it won’t harm the baby, put a nappy bin in his bathroom and, if you can afford it, agree to get a cleaner.

it is an issue with parenting.

inevitably there will be things that you disagree with your dh over.

unless you are going to leave (in which case he’ll parent his way on his time and you actually have less control) you have to decide which battles you want to fight.

personally I’d give in on eg the crisps one which I really don’t care about in order to win on the cat litter one. For example.

Did neither of you send formula to MIL for when she is providing free childcare?
You’re not wrong about drinking cow milk - unless you mean adding it to food?

You must have known about the state of the bathroom before having a child with him.

The bathing with baby after the gym is a none issue, not ideal in your eye but you have to deal with. The crisps are also not ideal but he is going to have to deal with it because parents will always have different views.

If he thinks NHS guidance is crap, then i think you need to sit down and think about other scenarios in which NHS guidance might be necessary for your child and discuss them ahead of time
Vaccines
Diet
Exercise
Mental health
Fevers, rashes etc
Id want to really narrow down in what situations he wouldnt follow guidance in order to establish if leaving your child alone with him while you went away was something you need to worry about, to be honest.

Presumably he was like this all along, so I’m a bit confused as to why you thought he’d be any different? He just doesn’t sound the tidiest.

The NHS comment would piss me right off.

@canisquaesohes actually really tidy around the house with things like wiping surfaces, vacuum etc which is what makes it weird. It’s like he decides what’s tidy and not and once he’s decided he follows his own rules and won’t listen to anyone else

@Thundertoastje says these things are guidance and you still need to use your own initiative to work out which parts of it to follow 🙄

It’s a bit of both. Cow’s milk can lead to anaemia in babies. So I agree that that’s a big deal. Dirty nappies left around - big deal.

Litter trays in the bathroom aren’t ideal either but I don’t see why them bathing for 30 minutes near them is a big deal.

The dirty bath - why is it his job to clean it and not both of you? This was likely done in a snippy way when you could’ve said ‘eurgh looks like we need to clean the bath’.

Pre-washing after the gym… that’s not a thing. His sweat won’t harm the baby and the point of a bath is to get clean. This is silly of you to point out.

He is correct that baby crisps are UPF crap. If you get to be fussy about things then he does too. It’s not his OCD, they’re just not necessary.

You both need to agree to certain rules RE: hygiene, cleaning rotas etc. But other than that you need to leave the other to parent when they’re parenting. Neither of you is an expert presumably so why are you both lording it over the other?

Sounds like his personality might make it difficult to parent, as it’s essentially a lot of teamwork.