AIBU to think DH could have thought for himself?

[Thistledew]

I mostly get DS ready for nursery as he goes on days that DH leaves early for work. Today DH was working from home so got DS dressed whilst I was getting dressed. He dressed him in a smart pair of corduroy trousers and a pale cotton jumper.

I commented that I wouldn't have dressed him in such smart clothes for nursery and said no more. DH said that he didn't think he knew what were DS's smart clothes.

This evening, DH said that he had not liked the way I had spoken and that I should have said that those clothes were too smart and asked him to change DS. He said I made him feel stupid.

This is not the first time that DH has dressed DS in his best clothes to go to nursery. I recall at least one, if not two, occasions where DH has got DS dressed and I have asked him to change him out of smart jeans etc. DH was also with me when I bought DS some hard wearing but easy clean clothes specifically for nursery. He knows that they often do painting, gluing etc and that DS is a bit messy when he is feeding himself with only minor supervision.

I did not think that I was being unreasonable in just commenting that I would not have dressed DS in that way. I thought that it was preferable to undermining DH by telling him to redress DS.

On reflection, I wonder if DH was in fact more offended because I had not told him what to do. If I had told him to redress DS he could have had a minor grumble at me being fussy but that would have been the end of his effort. By just commenting that I would have done differently I put the ball back in his court to make him think about what to do and to think about the decisions he had made. He then had to weigh up the risk of the clothes getting ruined and make his own mind up as to whether it was worth the hassle of changing DS. What he resented was not me criticising his choices but me making him take the mental load.

Does this make sense or is there something I'm missing?

BTW, DH has, without comment, done a sterling job this evening with the Vanish and it is likely that the chicken curry stains will be barely visible on the pale cotton top!

I

@Blackoutblinds 👍

I mean. What if you go to the shops (smart unstained clothes), meet a friend (smart) but eat lunch (bobbly stained clothes) but go to the park on the way home (bobbly stained clothes) with friend (smart)

God your head would explode trying to make those decisions.

I would agree that I would be unreasonable to expect DH to mind-read if that had been the first occasion that he and I had had a discussion about clothes for nursery, but as I said in my OP is has come up at least twice before, including one shopping trip when DH was present specifically to buy some easy care trousers and jumpers specifically for nursery. If he disagreed with my system, he has had ample opportunity to mention it before now. We aren't made of money but if DH said "Let's not bother with clothes specifically for nursery but let him wear his nicer things and we will replace them/live with the stains as they come" I wouldn't have a problem. It's not how I have chosen to do it but it's a valid approach that I would be happy to go along with.

What bugs me is that he has been happy for me to make all the decisions about how to organise DS's wardrobe, but then disregards my the system and decisions I have made.

I have no clue what's so hard to understand about: clothes that look really smart and are for good
And
Clothes that are casual and comfy and maybe a little stained already, and for at home/nursery.
And I don't think it should be that hard for a DP/DH to grasp (although mine took til the eldest was 5!)

It's relevant OP because you're giving enormous headspace to something that is, for all the reasons PP have said - child growing, etc., a non-issue and I'm wondering where you find the time to do that? What do you do when things are actually important?

Why not put the 'nice' stuff away from the run-of-the-mill things and let husband know the 'rule'... "I've moved his special occasion clothes into this drawer/cupboard, so everything else is fine for whatever".

I do agree with Musti to a degree that this must be an example of lots of things that annoy you... but that will surely be accompanied with the censure. That's not good.

If your issue is actually real and you feel aggrieved by what's happened then what can be done to resolve it? It's not within your gift to change another person if they don't follow your exacting rules. I have these too and, where it's a flash-point, I put 'measure in place' (sorry, that sounds wanky), so that the easiest/quickest thing for my husband (who doesn't have exacting rules) is to do what I wanted in the first place. It saves a heap of arguments.

If you want sympathy and solidarity for you wanting things done particularly your way, and if they aren't, you're upset by them - then you have it from me, but recognise that you're fussing about something that really is minor (as my fussing is the same).

Is it worth an argument/destruction of an otherwise good relationship? Because you're going there.

You have little to worry about.

This is the sort of thing I obsessed about when things in other areas of my life were a bit shit and I didn’t want to address the bigger issue.

If that’s not the case for you, you really do need to just chill.

Everyone has what my friend calls a pet peeve. It’s a something that is way more important to you than it ought to be and way more so to you than anyone else.

For me it’s towels. Don’t fold them any other way. Don’t disorganise them in my airing cupboard, don’t mess with the system I have.

But that means. I. Do. The. Towels. Don’t. Touch. My. Towels.

Because it matters more to me. And I only live with my kids not a partner.

I mean, I'm not OP, but when I was in OP's situation, my problem was mostly that my husband required such insane RIDICULOUS methods and directions (eg put nursery clothes in separate drawers,) to understand something SO SIMPLE - child goes to nursery NOT in good clothes.
It makes you feel like you're going mad, when your husband can't be intelligent enough to put your child in casual old clothes for nursery.

You sound like a bit of a nightmare. The ‘you don’t do it exactly as I would so therefore are wrong’ type. Your DH has the right to dress DS in whatever he wants as long as it fits and is comfortable.

I doubt you’d like it if DH made passive aggressive comments about the way you parented DS.

🤔 But you’re obviously the type who’ll read Lots of comments saying you’re being passive aggressive and respond with ‘I was not being passive agressive!’

Yes you were, you’re asking strangers for an unbiased opionion and don’t like that they don’t agree with you.

TIL men are too dumb to tell the difference between play clothes and fancy clothes. Good lord.

I thought that I was being chilled about it by simply commenting I would not have dressed DS in that way, and that changing him or asking DH to change him would have been making a fuss. It made my point that the clothes were likely to end up stained and reminded DH to make a decision whether to change him or to deal with the consequences of the added laundry.

If it had been me, I would have accepted that I had made a less than wise decision and I would have taken that on the chin and said no more about it. I feel that it was DH who turned it into an issue by later complaining that I had made him feel stupid.

We aren't communicating as well as we used to and I want to improve things but sometimes struggle to work out what we need to do differently. PP's are right that this isn't really about the clothes but about communication, and how we can resolve differences of opinion or approach more amicably.

For a kid though, nursery is super fun.

Why wear your best clothes to a boring old adult lunch when you could wear them for playing with your mates at nursery

My daughter likes to wear her favourite clothes to preschool because the other kids really APPRECIATE the unicorns, you know?! Ha.

I just buy my kids Scandi clothes and they wear them anywhere. I view stains as virtue signalling what a cool mum I am, hashtag making memories style

Yes, Batteries, unicorns are for fun, no matter what they're emblazoned on... and your peers appreciate them more than anybody else.

It's just different perspective. I remember wrinkling my nose at a dress my grandmother bought me. So expensive (apparently), but to me, it was a horrid dress and I didn't even like the colour. So it stayed for 'best' until I grew out of it or would have done if I'd ever put the wretched thing on beyond a grandmother-ly visit.

My swan knickers from my nanna though... oh how I loved those. I wanted to wear them all the time, just those, because I wanted to show them off to everybody.

I'm still sad that I wasn't permitted to do that. I mean, if you can't show off your most favourite knickers when you're 5, when can you?

I went back to work when my DS was 4mo and DH became a SAHD. There were many, many times when I came home from work to find DS dressed in some pretty weird clothing combinations - but I never ever commented since it was DH who was looking after him and therefore could dress the child in whatever he fancied no matter how ludicrous it was . Frankly, I was happy that our child was clean/happy/fed - the choice of clothing was the least of my worries.

I think you probably just need to take a step back and accept that you and your DH make slightly different choices...neither of them is necessarily 'right'.

keeping track of DS's clothes is not a massive job but requires a review every month or so of what he has in his wardrobe

I am just.......seriously? Do people really live like this?

I thought the OP was more upset about her husband being annoyed at the way she handled the situation. The OP didn't seem that upset about the jumper else she would have insisted he be changed.

I don’t think I ever “reviewed” a child’s wardrobe. More just kinda thought “oh those are a bit tatty” when ironing or more likely when I saw them on the child and thought I must put them in the bin when I take them off the child.

I dunno 🤷‍♀️ A wardrobe review implies a much bigger thing, more organised and planned than I ever did.

I think if you are the kind of person to make a huge deal about the mental load of a wardrobe system for a toddler, which has rules and reviews and you are married to someone who thinks this is really unnecessary micro management (probably 90% of the population) you have to accept you can either relax your standards, or accept you may not have a happy marriage.

If this is representative of your approaches to general life, it's only going to drive you further apart as your DC grows older. If you are like this over nursery clothes, you are going to find schools/friendships etc really difficult for you to deal with.

It's hard to tell whether this is just a level of (very understandable) PFBishness (is that a word ) which a lot of us were guilty of (I was like this with food until I had DC2). If however you are generally like this and overthink (IMO) fairly minor things, it would be very wearing for someone to live with, if they think differently to you and you are too inflexible to compromise.

I'm not having a go, as I said I was like this for a while but if the majority of replies here think you could be generally micro managing and inflexible, it might be worth taking it on board.

Having a happy and supportive relationship where you are kind to each other, is in the long run, far more important than curry stains on a pale top.

But why the actual hell would you buy any clothes for a child that aren't "easy care"???!

It's madness!

As one poster says, everything from Tesco is easy care and no one can tell the difference.

It's just blowing my mind.

I mean even if you go out for the poshest of lunches, they're still going to get destroyed. Surely absolutely everything should be "chuck it in the washing machine?"

Even flower girl dresses should be machine washable. It's logical. Kids spill stuff.

Aw come on now, I think it's quite easy for a parent to look at clothes and think hmm that's perhaps a bit dressy for nursery. OP you should have just said dp that's not the clothes he wears to nursery could you change him into something suitable for playing and getting dirty. For god sake why does everyone start with the "He's not a mind reader" crap. No but he is a fully grown adult with a functioning brain and could probably use a bit of common sense, especially as it's happened before.