I’ve had enough of my husband’s precious first born syndrome

[seaborgium]

Sorry this post is so long.

DS is still on purees because DH is terrified of choking. At the moment DH works mornings and I work afternoons. I give DS finger foods while DH is at work but I have to be very careful not to get caught. I got caught giving DS batons of courgette once and DH absolutely exploded and went on a two hour yelling rant about how DS is going to choke to death one day.

He still weighs our chubby cheeked 91st centile 10 month old DS about once a week. His constant paranoia about whether he was gaining enough weight was perhaps understandable in the newborn days when he was struggling to latch but seriously? DH once went into a panic because DS gained less weight than expected and went from slightly above the 91st centile to slightly below the 91st centile - he insisted on formula top-ups but luckily the baby refused the bottle.

DH does’t want DS crawling on the floor because ‘the floor is dirty’. So DS only gets to crawl on the floor when DH is at work, the rest of the time he is only allowed to crawl in his playpen. DS spends most of his time in the baby walker because he gets fed up with the playpen very quickly. He is in the grey zone for gross motor on the 10 month ASQ. We actually have quite a clean floor IMO.

When DS is asleep DH often asks “are you sure he’s asleep and not dead?”. He often ends up waking DS in his attempts to verify that he is still alive. When DS first began rolling back to front DH was constantly waking him up by rolling him onto his back. Some nights DS refuses to sleep in his cot and we end up on a mattress on the floor and when that happens DH is up half the night worrying about whether DS is going to suffocate or get rolled on top of.

DH wouldn’t let me buy a sling until DS was three months old. He said that putting a newborn in a sling is dangerous because newborns don’t have enough head control. DS could already hold his head up when he was born.

For the first 6 months or so DH was jittery every time I picked up DS. He was constantly going on about how worried he is that I might drop DS. He set up a bedroom downstairs so that I wouldn’t have to carry him up and down stairs.

For the first few months DH would not let me take DS for a walk without him because he was scared that we would get run over. Then he relaxed the rules a bit and allowed me to take him to the local park so long as I followed a prescribed route.

Is he the one who told you that ASD was a reason you would lose your child?

I'm really quite worried what effect the responses on here will have on other parents who suffer with anxiety who may read this.

When DD was born I suffered horrendous post natal depression and post natal anxiety. I was a single mother and overwhelmed with anxiety of how to protect my beautiful baby all alone from all of life's hardships. According to the responses here, I assume many posters would have called me abusive and said my baby should be taken from me. If I had read responses like above at the time, I fear it may honestly have tipped me over the edge.

I was lucky that my health visitor noticed I was struggling and I was referred for treatment. (This was 11 years ago and I'm aware the provision of mental health services has been drastically cut since then ). Thankfully I received only kindness and support instead of so much judgement.

Before receiving help I felt I was going crazy and considered my baby would seriously be far better off without me around but I am grateful my mental health team helped me see this wasn't the case. Thankfully there was never even any consideration from them to take my baby from me. I know now I am a good parent.

Please be mindful of who could be reading your messages.

@Whenwillspringbehere

I'm really quite worried what effect the responses on here will have on other parents who suffer with anxiety who may read this.

When DD was born I suffered horrendous post natal depression and post natal anxiety. I was a single mother and overwhelmed with anxiety of how to protect my beautiful baby all alone from all of life's hardships. According to the responses here, I assume many posters would have called me abusive and said my baby should be taken from me. If I had read responses like above at the time, I fear it may honestly have tipped me over the edge.

I was lucky that my health visitor noticed I was struggling and I was referred for treatment. (This was 11 years ago and I'm aware the provision of mental health services has been drastically cut since then ). Thankfully I received only kindness and support instead of so much judgement.

Before receiving help I felt I was going crazy and considered my baby would seriously be far better off without me around but I am grateful my mental health team helped me see this wasn't the case. Thankfully there was never even any consideration from them to take my baby from me. I know now I am a good parent.

Please be mindful of who could be reading your messages.

It is very possible to be abusive and unable to meet your child's needs without having the explicit intention of doing so. In fact I'd go as far as to say that the majority of child abuse doesn't occur at the hands of someone who sets out to make the conscious choice of harming a child. If you have a mental illness then that's obviously awful and you should get support and the reality is that professionals probably will work hard to get you as much support as possible. However if your child is suffering then they absolutely SHOULD be safeguarded against this suffering regardless of the cause. The minute anyone has a child there's a person who's more defenseless and in need of protecting than yourself and if you are incapable of prioritising their needs then the authorities should. Parental needs should be addressed but the main duty is and should be towards the child. Full stop

I do understand that these responses will be hard to read for people struggling with anxiety, but there are many of us commenting who do have experience with this (myself included). That doesn’t change the fact that severe, untreated and unrecognised anxiety is extremely damaging for children and yes, could lead to behaviour that unwittingly constitutes abuse. I think people are being harsh because it seems that the OP’s husband has no concept that his behaviour is not acceptable or rational. If a woman was describing this behaviour in herself posters would be urging her to get help from her GP.
OP, I think you really need someone to help you with this in real life - can you talk to your health visitor, perhaps they may be able to help discuss things with your husband? I really feel for you, and your husband, living with that level of fear is hellish - but it is already damaging your little boy and will continue to do so if you don’t make steps to change things.

Friend of mine suffers from anxiety to the point of having spent long spells as an in-patient in psychiatric hospital.

To my knowledge there has been no suggestion that she is not fit to take care of her young son.

She is a wonderful mother. Her DH has been primary carer when she was in hospital. She is very open about her experiences. It must be incredibly hard.

I know quite a few parents with ASD ... it prevents none of them from parenting their children well, without or without a partner.

Your h is hindering your ds's development: he needs to eat solids, he needs to crawl, he needs to build a healthy immune system. And your h is controlling.

Has he always been like this?

What happens when you defy him and go out for a walk?

It's not good for you or dc to live like this. I'd talk to your hv - tell them what your h is like. Get some support. Can you imagine what your h will be like when your ds grows up and wants to go out with friends??

He sounds suffocating.

@whiteworldgettingwhiter

Your h is hindering your ds's development: he needs to eat solids, he needs to crawl, he needs to build a healthy immune system. And your h is controlling.

Has he always been like this?

What happens when you defy him and go out for a walk?

It's not good for you or dc to live like this. I'd talk to your hv - tell them what your h is like. Get some support. Can you imagine what your h will be like when your ds grows up and wants to go out with friends??

He sounds suffocating.

This, with bells on. Your post made my heart break for your DS, he is not being allowed to develop as he should. Your husband is hindering him, not protecting him. You need to address this asap.

I understand the lock that cost as much as the bicycle itself -- the rest is bonkers.

People with ASD can have sole custody of their children, OP.

Your husband needs to get help & recognise he's not making sane decisions.

I sent an email to his mum yesterday. After a phone call from his Mum he backed down a little bit - he said he’d buy some new rugs and set aside one room which is to be kept clean so he can crawl there. DH told me off for emailing his Mum but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. If I keep emailing his Mum then hopefully she can sort him out.

Have you spoken to him rather than emailing his mum?

That is not a long term solution. Your child cannot grow up like this.

What would he actually do to you if you just ignored him and followed proper advice for what your child should be doing at this age?

If you're afraid to just tell him to butt out and let you get on with it then you need to do more than emailing his mum.

You've been given loads of advice on this thread. Start using some of it.

How have you got on with sorting our childcare for the times he is meant to be in sole charge of the child?

@seaborgium

I sent an email to his mum yesterday. After a phone call from his Mum he backed down a little bit - he said he’d buy some new rugs and set aside one room which is to be kept clean so he can crawl there. DH told me off for emailing his Mum but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. If I keep emailing his Mum then hopefully she can sort him out.

But that's not addressing the real issue is it?;he needs to see a GP because his anxiety is absolutely out of control.

Your baby should be allowed to crawl where he likes within reason;he's being confined to one room and the floors being kept clean in their is going to be adding fuel to your DH's anxiety fuelled fire;he's now going to obsessing over keeping the floor clean.

I know this sounds extreme but there have been cases of mentally unwell parents ending their own child's life because they believe they can't keep them safe and do it because they think their protecting their child.

Previous SS involvement makes a difference. Depending on why they were involved and their concerns, it could make your DH's behaviour slightly more understandable.

Sorry, I don't understand.

How is that a solution?

Honestly the more I've read of this thread, the most aghast I am at the level of enablement going on around this man.

@seaborgium

I sent an email to his mum yesterday. After a phone call from his Mum he backed down a little bit - he said he’d buy some new rugs and set aside one room which is to be kept clean so he can crawl there. DH told me off for emailing his Mum but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. If I keep emailing his Mum then hopefully she can sort him out.

That sounds like a terrible idea, for the sake of but more importantly your child he needs to not be pondered to, but to seek help.

I sent an email to his mum yesterday. After a phone call from his Mum he backed down a little bit - he said he’d buy some new rugs and set aside one room which is to be kept clean so he can crawl there. DH told me off for emailing his Mum but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. If I keep emailing his Mum then hopefully she can sort him out.

This is in no way a solution for the crawling, for goodness sake kids need to basically be crawling around a garden tasting snails at that stage. It’s about development through exploration and this ‘solution’ is just a really poor band-aid.

The bit about emailing his mum all the time is bonkers, this is also not a solution. He is a grown man. He is mentally unwell and needs to proactively address this or it will affect your child. At present he is being pandered to and enabled. This will be of harm to your child in due course and expecting it to be semi-solved by having his mum instruct him for the next 20 years is not sustainable.

Your child will not be taken away because you have ASD, this is not true. If it were there would literally be buildings full of kids in care because a sole parent has ASD.

@seaborgium

I can’t leave. I have ASD so if I leave DH then it’s likely that I would lose custody of DS. We have already had involvement from social services, which further stoked DH’s anxiety. Now DH is worried that DS might get injured and social services might find the bruise suspicious and take him away etc. etc. etc. If I don’t obey his rules then he gets very angry, threatens divorce and tells me that I’m irresponsible and I’m playing russian roulette with the baby’s life etc.

Persuading him to see a GP and try antidepressants is going to be very difficult. I am now wondering if he has some kind of anxiety disorder. He worries about money, he worries about whether the house is going to burn down, he buys a motorbike lock for his bicycle that costs almost as much as the bicycle itself…

What are you talking about?? ASD is not grounds for losing custody! It is a normal human feature! Who is feeding you these lies and rubbish??? You need to leave your husband asap. He is abusive towards you, and now to your son.

I'm so sorry you're going through this OP. My late husband also suffered from anxiety and OCD and was very controlling over certain aspects of childcare. I did get him to seek counselling but really he needed medication.

Tragically he died when DD was 3. I often wonder what would have happened otherwise as all the controls were making me depressed. He was otherwise a wonderful man, but the OCD meant he was haunted by intrusive thoughts, like your husband.

Well done OP for taking a first step.

Please ignore all of the negative comments above - you’ve taken a first step and have already improved your sons situation. I don’t know if you come on MN a lot but it can be a very hostile place and some on here will just attack and scold an OP for whatever they do.

Could DH’s mum also intervene to get him some mental health help? Maybe you could ask her to tell him that counselling and maybe some antidepressants would really help his anxiety and parenting, and so would be the best thing for your son in the long run. Could his Dad also have a word.

Hope DH’s family can help you convince him to get the help he needs. And if they can’t and he doesn’t improve enough to give your son a healthy balanced life, I hope staying with family even temporarily is an option for you - it might force him to get the help he needs if an intervention by his family doesn’t help. Really hope things get better for you all.

Forgot to add, I would tell his mum EVERYTHING- so about him not letting you out with the baby at first, the finger food, all of it. I’m sure she will be really shocked by it and hopefully both of you together can convince him to get help.

This is nothing to do with PFB but really about your DH state of mental health. Has he lost a baby he was close to before? I would talk to HV and see if she would agree to come to talk to DH. It might reassure him. If not he has to go to GP. It is so over the top it sounds halarious but in reality I expect it is very restrictive and exhausting.

Frozen report any ‘attacks’. The abuser can get himself ‘help’, OP isn’t listening to anyone trying to limit the damage he’s inflicting on the child.

My relatives all live far away so I’m not sure where I would stay if I were to leave. If I have to pay for accommodation and childcare near my work then the combined cost would be more than my income. I am not confident about claiming benefits. Most of our savings are in DH’s account. So if I were to leave then I would be very much reliant on the Bank Of Mum and Dad.

Has anyone here been in a similar situation and successfully managed to get their partner to take antidepressants? Are SSRIs or bupropion better for anxiety issues like this? He’s been trying to quit smoking for years so I’d like to kill two birds with one stone and get him on bupropion.

It’s difficult to discuss these issues with the health visitor or DH’s mum or anyone else. I am scared of how DH would react if he were to find out that I had grassed him up.

Let me explain why social services were involved. In hospital the safeguarding midwife saw on my medical records that I was diagnosed with autism and language delays when I was four years old. A learning disabilities nurse visited me in hospital and the safeguarding midwife wanted to investigate whether I had the cognitive capacity to look after a baby. Then DH’s behaviour caught their attention and they began to suspect domestic abuse.

As almost everyone else has said, it sounds like he was severe anxiety. I had bad anxiety after my first was born, not as bad as you are describing but I did set up the downstairs bedroom (only for 2 weeks though, and that was as much about my c-section recovery as anything else).

I was prescribed sertraline and it really took the edge off.

He needs to see a Dr.