Is it me? Or does it all go tits up after baby?

[ISTHISIT]

I have changed my name for this as dh may take a look. Wasnt sure which topic to put it under as it covers a few.

Since ds born 5 mths ago things just arent right. We seem to clash over everything to do with ds.

We used to argue everyday about the frequency of babys feeds.

I've cooked and froze lots of fruit and veg to wean and when I tell dp what I have done he asks why and tells ds 'dont worry daddy will give you the good stuff'.

I have to go back to work in 3 weeks and I would love for him to stop waking in night so I can get good night sleep. Every time he wakes DH says I should feed him as he cant stand him crying. OBviously I know thats ok in the short term - ds will go back to sleep - but long term he will continue to wake and wont go back to sleep without a bottle. So we are also rowing about that.

Last night was the final straw. DS woke at 10.30 - we could hear him on the monitor. He wasnt crying - just talking. Then dh brings him downstairs! Lights are on - t.v on ... (he never comes downstairs at night) and when I complain dh says I.m over reacting and took him into the garden!!

This morning I told him he shouldnt just be fed when hes not crying, and said how would he like it if i made him get up to him in the night when he had to go to work the next day - he said he wouldnt do it. 'But youll expect me to do it' was my reply.

I have cried a lot today feeling like I just dont have the support.

I love my son and want to give him the best start I can and if I want to spend time preparing food why cant I?

If I am the one having to get up in the night then I feel its my call as to what we do with night feeds.

Then I think maybe its just me. Maybe I am over exaggerating. Maybe its not such a big deal. But I'm not trying to be supermum , or saying Im right all of the time - Im just doing the best I can, and I feel like I'm battling against dh every step of the way. I just dont feel close to him anymore - which really upsets me.

Is it me? Or is this just the norm after youve had a baby. Or am I getting the blues? Please tell me it will get better. sorry so long.

Oh darling, you sound shocking
No, I don't think its just you, I think a baby puts a huge strain on a relationship and when you add lack of sleep and fretting about going back to work too, you are bound to feel rotten.
It doesn't sound like his daddy is being supportive at all and thats awful for you. All I can suggest is that the two of you sit down and agree some ground rules on how you intend to handle certain things, like the night waking

The "good stuff" comment was probably meant to be a joke, but I know I would have felt just like you do - it would really piss me off too

Lots of hugs and hang on in there

This is it I'm afraid....but only in the short term I'm pleased to say.

You will find hurdles along the way but soon you will look back on this and think how quickly it was resolved.

You really are doing what's right with regards to night feeds. If you want to prepare his food yourself then good for you.

Don't beat yourself up about this. You are doing great. Well done!

You will get plenty of support here.
You are doing a fantastic job, you have a new life in your hands and all your emotional efforts and practical efforts are, naturally, focussed on him. Sometimes DPs can be jealous and try anything to get your attention, sadly.
Keep posting and the wise MNers will be here to listen and support

Oh hun its not just you.

Not sure if it is the norm or not but it's like that in my house too. My dd is 5 months too so it could be.

Lets hope it gets better

Beetroot - no I wont do cc at night yet. What I mmeant is ds will wake once for a bottle which i think is fine. But if he wakes an hour later and then again two hours later , dh thinks I should feed him at these times too - whereas I think I should try and settle him with a cuddle. Am i wrong.

We are barely speaking now - I just cant handle this anymore.

you're NOT wrong, no. A 5m old baby does not need feeding 1 or 2 hourly, certainly not at night.

Go with your instinct and try to settle your baby. There is no right and wrong when it comes to parenthood - there is only what's right for you and your baby.

It would be much easier if you have DH's support though.

Try to find a time together during DS's routine when you know you'll have some quiet time to be a couple again. Then talk x

You are so right. If you and dh teach your ds that the way he settles himself to sleep is through feeding you are setting yourself up for so many problems. It is your job to teach ds to go back to sleep on his own (with your help obviously) or you will never get a nights sleep. So I agree with you.
You and dh need to be a united front - or ds will learn to divide you when he is a toddler! I would do as somebody else said and sit down with dh and go over how you both want things done.
You must be tired and all this is a learning curve - so it shouldnt get any worse! It is just a bump in the road whilst you both learn how to do the whole parenting thing. Be honest with your dh.
Oh and more power to you with the fruit and veg freezing - I did this and it saved me loads of time. You are doing a grand job.

oh, it's soo hard for you...things will get better. and you are doing a great, great job as a mum! dh is probably doing the best he can too, but men don't always see the big picture, the long term effect (pick up baby at 10pm today, you'll have to pick him up for the next 6 months because baby will think that's the way it is). DH needs to hear from somebody outside the family how things should be done. For example, if at all possible involve his own mother and make her say things to DH like"When you were a baby i would just let you cry in your bed at midnight and you settled straightaway; your wife has came up with a great idea to freeze batches of food for the baby; after you put the baby to bed don't even think about bringing the baby downstairs ' etc. Or, if you have friends with babies let them share with you two their own experiences .men appear to listen to other dads more than they do their own wifes. My DH for example often comes home telling me so and so from work/pub/the gym does such and such with their baby. Some of these ideas are actually stupid but some of them are exactly what i was doing already or told dh intend to do, but he just listens to these other men sometimes and is ready to apply their wisdom straightaway. Also, could you recommend DH to browse through a babycare book (Gina ford or What to expect the first year or even a parenting magazine with an article about babies and sleeping+feeding at nightime)? i hope this helps a bit.

Agree with everyone here ISTHISIT ...
You are not wrong ... in fact you are doing everything right IMO ... What does your DH mean about 'the good stuff' , you can't get better than home cooked veggies as weaning food! Is he planning on giving DS donuts or something?
I really sympathise with you ... our relationship changed when DS was born ... for the worse to start with, for the same reasons as yours and because I had PND and felt that I had failed DH ...
We got through that first year OK ... but our relationship now is still constantly changing, that is what marriage with kids is about ... you have to meet in eachother in the middle all the time, and compromise, both partners do.
I get very wound up at times with the way DH is with DS (he is 4 now) but I have to bite my tongue and keep quiet and discuss it later when DS is in bed. I am constantly reminding DH that I am the one who has to deal with DS day in day out, he gets the good bits (bedtime and weekend playtime!) ...
Sending you hugs ... just keep those lines of communication open with DH hon ... tell him how you feel and what he needs to do to make things better ...

no it isn't you, it all goes tits up.

now must read what everyone else has said...

oh dear, having read everything now i find myself very angry on your behalf with your dh .

in terms of what is the norm, it is certainly normal to find things difficult and for your relationship to come under strain. however, i would hate to think your dh's attitude is the norm.

can't think of any brilliant advice except to try and sit down together and reason with him in a calm way and hope he will see for himself what an utter tit he is being.

btw - i think you're doing a great job.

i think it is the norm for you not to feel as close to you're dp.
My ds is almost 9wks,i feel quite distant to my dh and i'm always having a go at him sometimes for no reason.
Everything changes when you have a baby and you need all the support that you can get.

dear isthisit - it sounds as if both of you are trying to do your best.your both on the same page. i know lots of parents including me and my dh who have fallen into competitive behaviour. ie 'you've had 20 minutes more sleep more than me as i got up last night!!' etc. as you both get more sleep deprived the feelings of resentment build up more. the fact that you have realised this is the first step in sorting it out. becoming a mum and dad challanges all your belief systems - working out what those beliefs are, what you want to do differently than your own childhoods, having to listen to other peoples opinions and just finding a way and giving the whole parenthood thing time. the tricky thing is when you both share the responsibility you also share different ways of doing things. i know its hard to back down at the moment especially when you need the support, i would try today to talk about exactly how you are BOTH going to handle your ds's weekly sleep/feeding schedule and review it at the end of the week to see what changes (if any) are needed. write a daily timetable in the kitchen and bedroom so there is no chance of conflict -it is so hard to be rational when there is a baby crying for attention. i would try to subtley educate him as branster suggested without judgement as its the hardest thing to admit when your in the wrong - especially as a parent! give him lots of praise/encouragement when he gets it right and hopefully he will start to do the same for you. the danger is when you start to feel isolated from each other. please try and work this out soon - it becomes another problem later on when children start to copy their parents behaviour. it does get better but it takes lots of talking about what and how you want to do it. then you can start to enjoy baby and each other again xx

I have a theory about this kind of behaviour..
Men get displaced when we feed babies as we are the be all and end all for babies until they start on proper dinners, lets face it...
He is trying to big himself up and make himself mroe important by making you feel less important, and trying to denigrate your mothering...
I did do all the nightfeeds as I was breastfeeding adn this worked ok as dd was very good at going back to sleep.
But you Dh if he is going to make patterns like getting your ds up everytime he gurgles then he has to take responsibility in the night too.

Ask DH to take over the food prep, he'll not have a fu**ing clue, guaranteed! My dh can cook, but evne now he still does not know how many cubes of food or what combinations come from the freezer to her bowl, how I heat it, what I add to it etc...
Your DH is jealous pure and simple...
You just carry on and ignore him as bets you cna, you're the mummy, so you're right of course!!!

Big, big, big hugs, ISTHISIT. I know where you're coming from, but believe me, it does get better. It was all tits up for me, too, to start with. The last thing we need is a bossy so and so of a dear p/h thinking they know best. Just do your own thing and in the fullness of time dh/p will realise it's you - not him - that knows best. And he'll see this from ds's reactions.

Why does daddy think you haven't prepared 'good stuff', btw? That would really gnaw on me, especially if I'd taken the time to prepare/freeze it. What does he consider 'good stuff'.

All hugs

carla

Hi all,

thanks so much for your response. You all really seem to understand what I mean.
Well today we've had pretty much the same thing.
Someone else feeding ds and they wanted to give solids first - he's only just being weaned so explained that milk is much more important than food at this stage and dh just rolled his eyes and said 'listen to the boss'. Then later when I gave dh some carrot to give ds, he said to ds 'you dont want this do you - say mummy -wheres my pear?'
He may have meant this as a joke but I feel that he really doesnt get what im trying to do. Everytime he makes a comment it really hurts me. Ive tried to explain that ds has to develop his own liked/dislikes as hes his own person, and he can only do that with a wide variety of foods.
Im not saying I know everything but I'm with ds 24/7 and so have a better idea of whats going on with him than dh.
I really feel like we we are sliiping away from each other , and Im worried that what we had wont ever come back.

Let's face it. Until the baby came along, your dh was number one. Now he is no. 2, and he hates it. Most men feel an element of jealousy IMO, even if they love their child to bits. I know that mine did. It DOES get better, but try not to bicker over the 'little' annoyances if you can avoid it!

ISTHISIT, i empathise too!

I remember my mam wiping a baby spon with a manky old tea towel and when i said something she lost the plot and started on the..........'wait till you have 2 or 3 and no time for sterilising'......
Also remember lots of arguments and bad feeling with dp till we both 'adjusted'

Is there any way you could go for a nice meal out together and bring it up then? Just tell him how upsetting you find his 'jokes'??

ISTHISIT - reading your posts really take me back to how I used to feel when my DS was smaller. Looking back I think the chronic fatigue really changed my personality and I became hypersensitive and not able to stick up for myself. My DH sounds quite similar to yours - in fact he did the exact same thing and went to get DS out of bed one evening when he was barely murmuring.

I dealt with it by bursting into tears and I think DH thought I had gone quite mad! He also used to be very flippant about my pureeing etc etc and want to give him jars of food (in fact I am wondering if he is a bigamist!)

My DS wasn't sleeping through and like you DH didn't help in the actual night (ie when he was asleep) - I was getting hysterical about getting him to sleep through before I went back to work and obsessing I think. DH couldn't understand why I was so worked up about it (funny that!).

Anyway now DS is 14 months and things are so so so much better - in fact not suprisingly they got much better once I got my sleep back. When DS was 6 months old I bought the solve your child's sleep problems book and the Gina Ford book and told DH he was either in or out but I was doing it anyway - it took about two weeks to completely crack it and since then we have never looked back.

So a long way of saying don't be hard on yourself - it will get better and you will both probably look back and realise that you were being a bit crap (you for not sticking up for yourself more and DH for being a prat)! My DH certainly does (or at least he agrees when I tell him!)and so do I.

But Beety, it's hard to do when you know taht you are going to be the one dealing with a miserable, over-tired baby all day!

I think you and your DH need to sit down and discuss what's important to you both in the way you look after your DS and why. Having a baby adds loads of tension to any relationship, I often look back at my pregnancy and the period until was 6 months old and think that it was the lowest point in our relationship. DH and i had huge slanging matches at least once a week!

Things will sort themselves out, but you need to get your DH to talk and find ways of letting him help out with DS more.

ISTHISIT, sorry to hear you're having such a hard time. trust me, it'll get better, especially as your baby will sleep better at night. Would you be comfortable showing DH this thread (either copy&paste and e-mail it to him or just online)? I'm sure he wants what's best for both of you (you and the baby) and he must be stressed out after all it's not easy for him either and he's just trying to be more relaxed about things but it doesn't come out the right way. After all it appears to me that he voluntarily gets involved with looking after the baby so he just needs some outside guidance/suggestions. I think it would help. Only if ofcourse you're comfortable with this idea.