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.

You do need social services involvement, not because if your asd, but because of your dh’s abuse if your child. They will help you and support you. It is abuse because your ds is being deprived of an ability to develop normally. He will grow up with cognitive learning delay which will affect his whole life.

You can’t do nothing and let this continue or else you will also be complicit in this abuse and you are more likely to lose your child.

He needs serious intervention. See a GP.
How is this going to play out as your child grows? He will have less and less control as your child's world expands and variables increase. His control will have to escalate or be miraculously cured? I think I'd bet on this not improving. Get him to seek help or its going to damage you and your son.

OP, do your family like your DH?
Do you have friends around?

I’m sorry it’s hard to read but it’s not your ASD, you sound lovely - it’s your husband’s need to control that is abusive and whether that’s a medication issue or a deliberately abusive man issue, the effects on you and your child are the same.

We often notice things escalate for women when pregnant or just after having a child. So this may all have been in the background for years but now it’s really serious.

You can talk to Women’s Aid anonymously if you like.

Call the health visitor and organise for them to come in and talk to him. What’s his background? Was his mother like this?

Let’s follow the logic here to reassure you. If you leave with the baby, there is no written or physical reason why you would lose custody. You wrote that the safeguarding midwife observed your DH behaviour and then investigated. Your DH behaviour. Not yours. That’s written on record. HIS BEHAVIOUR. Therefore, they would take custody from him not you. You cannot lose custody if you aren’t with him and the written down problem is him. I hope that helps ease your mind. If I was you, I’d go home to mum and dad with the baby and set up shop there and get yourself sorted. Contact a solicitor. File for custody. Ask the solicitor to get hold of the written record from when DS was born. File for divorce so you can get the savings. Put your child in some nursery to enable his proper development. Keep posting here for proper parenting guidelines and advice. Set up parenting folders of information so that any social services can see you are serious and engaged. Him being at nursery a couple of days per week will go in your favour. Book and attend parenting courses that give you certificates. Keep a spotless employment record. Keep records and diaries and copies of communication from your DH. If you act engaged and serious and determined then you will be taken as that. Engage a solicitor to represent you at every stage. If social services come then you say “as this situation is so difficult and because of my condition I have engaged a solicitor to represent me. Please communicate through them. They are my legal representative” Do not sign anything that your solicitor hasn’t seen and approved. Any social services speaking to you and having to go through your legal representative will soon realise that you not to be messed with and that you are serious about your parenting. Make it impossible for anyone to undermine you or reach you. Surround yourself with support and legal representation.
You can do this.

OP I would seriously consider just taking this thread to show to your health visitor

Update:

He’s compromised a bit on the feeding after that phone call from his mum. He’ll now allow DS to eat finger foods as long as it’s very soft and cut into tiny pieces. He’s also covered the conservatory in foam tiles and he now allows DS to crawl all over the conservatory. He was initially angry about me contacting his mum, but overall he’s been unusually nice since he received that phone call.

He does realise that cutting into tiny pieces increases the risk of choking?

Your update makes me sad. This is him on his best behaviour trying to win you over and it still doesn't meet your DC basic needs. You also describe his substandard behaviour as "unusually nice", which I guess means he's not shouting at you every 2 seconds. I'm glad there have been some improvements but it's nowhere near enough. It's like 1% of enough.

There's an app called solid starts, it tells you what size the food should be for a baby at each age. Small pieces of food are more of a chocking risk. Maybe this would help as you have the app to refer to? I do think he needs help though, his reactions are very extreme.

Cutting into small pieces increases the risk of choking. Second those telling you to go on websites that show you how to prepare food so that it minimises the risk of choking.

Pp is correct that cutting food into tiny pieces increases choking. Will he read the baby led weaning book for guidance? Obviously you aren't BLW, but it has a section on recognising choking Vs gagging and how to reduce the risk.

What others have said, that's actually worse. OP he's ten months old, he needs to learn to eat. My very anxious friend took a toddler first aid course before weaning, do they do then near you? It really helped her knowing she knew what to do it he did start choking.

Op, this is not a solution. I get that your bar is so low that this seems magnificent, but it's really really not.

You need help. Let people help you.

It doesn't sound like just anxiety to me, it sounds like OCD. You won't have your child taken from you just because you are autistic. You are far more likely to have continued involvement from them if you continue to pander to your husband and allow your son to be treated like this.

The very word "allows" makes my blood run cold, OP.

Your DS is being abused and neglected in such a way that it will (and probably already has) stunted his development.

Ffs.

Small chopped up food is incredibly dangerous for babies. It needs to be large, resistive things like mango pits, chicken drumsticks, steak, corn on the cob.

solidstarts.com/starting-solids/safety/safe-food-sizes-shapes-for-babies/

You're just not listening to anyone.

He is neglecting your child and putting them in danger.

Tiny chopped up food is a choking hazard. I'm going to be blunt. You need to stop being stupid, you need to stop being such a pushover and you need to start acting like a parent with a child to protect.

Oh my god your poor baby. You need to do better. This is such a worrying thread. Please speak to women's aid.

He’s either severally unwell with anxiety or ridiculously controlling.

He has severe anxiety and is clearly unwell. I can relate to him somewhat, I have it with my 3 yo DS but not with any of my other DC. It’s because I had miscarriages before him so I spent the pregnancy convinced he was going to die, then the first year of his life worried about SIDS and yes I’ve had endless worries since about all sorts of illnesses from leukaemia through to brain tumours. I had to have lots of counselling and I’m now so much better. I still have to check on DS once a night but that’s an improvement, I used to set alarms to check he was breathing at regular intervals.

So yeah, I’d say your DH is mentally ill and needs lots of support. It probably does spur from the SS intervention, he’s terrified they will take your baby away.

He’ll now allow DS to eat finger foods as long as it’s very soft and cut into tiny pieces.

A big part of food introduced croon is to work the mouth and tongue muscles required for speech. This won’t occur with soft small pieces.

I understand your DH is obviously mentally unwell but don’t understand why you are accomodating this with the ‘he will now allow’ business? Just feed your child properly ffs. He’s unwell to the point of affecting child health so why aren’t you taking charge? Seriously, if my DH had of sprouted such ridiculous crap I would have a) given him an ultimatum to accept his problem and get help along with b) telling him, nope that’s not how this will be going and then just doing the right thing by the child myself and he could like it or lump it.

This is such a sad story. Do contact your social worker.

You are both failing your child. Step up and be a parent, advocate for your child ffs. As pp said, small pieces of food is more of a choking risk. I actually wonder if this is even real.