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Q
Sacramento, CA
We have a beautiful baby boy, Ethan, that will be 2 months thus Saturday the 22nd. I have learned a lot about SIDS and the causes of it as well as chances of suffication. It seems as though my husbands concern for those things are not there at all. When I get up for work, we lay the baby down in bed so dad can feed him and they can fall asleep together. My husband seems to love to put the baby on tons of pillows and then put the comforter on him to "warm him". I also walked in to the living room one time to find both of them covered with a thick lap blanket in the living room on the couch. He said it was because "the baby couldn't fall asleep because it was so bright" which is NOT TRUE. I constantly tell him that it's not safe and he dosen't seem to care to change it. He says, "come on H., the baby's not going to die" which makes me feel like I am being way too over the top and paranoid. I have no idea how to talk to him. I've asked him nicely, I've yelled, I've done everything that I can think of. I am now to the point where I'm scared to leave the baby during the day. I know he would never do anything to intentionally hurt our child but he's one of those that thinks it could never happen to us. Besides the risk factor, I don't understand why he wouldn't just humor me and NOT put the baby near all the pillows and blankets to 1: avoid arguments and 2: NOT hurt my feelings and make me feel stupid. Anything that we could do to avoid danger I would think he would understand. Please help and give me advice. Have you been through something similar? How might you go about handeling the situation? I don't know what else to do.
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Q
Denver, CO
First off let me say I am not worried about my husbands ability to take care of our baby...
I have a little girl who is about 4 1/2 months old. I stay home with her full time and she is breastfed. My husband works long hours so I am able to stay home with her. He sees her for about an hour a night (most nights) and one day on the weekend since he works 6 days a week.
She for sure is a baby that LOVES her mommy and isn't a fan of most any other person that wants to hold her- even grandparents and aunts.
We do get out, but it isn't for play groups. More just going to the mall and store and stuff like that. So really I am the SOLE person who interacts with her a majority of the time.
I have a half marathon I am running in San Fran in 2 weeks and I will be gone Sat-Mon. We have gotten her used to taking a bottle a few months back so we are good there, but even then that is only one a day and the rest of the time it is breast. As much as we can, I try and have my husband bath her or feed her when he is home at night, but since most nights she is in bed before he gets home, he misses out.
The next two weeks we are going to both do our best to have him do as much as we can for her, but because of how our life is set up, that is just hard.
Last night we had him give her a bath and feed her. She FREAKED out!! I have the easiest time putting her to bed, but she cried for nearly 45 minutes when he did and finally after he went to comfort her one more time and she freaked out again, then she fell asleep.
I am just worried for her!!! I feel terrible!!!
I mean I feel bad for my husband that he will have to deal with a very unhappy baby for 3 days. She smiles when she sees him most of the time, but if he holds her for any longer than 1/2 hour she is looking for me big time!
I am not sure if anyone has had to deal with this at all or if there is much we can do at this point, but any advice to help us all out would be great.
Again he is great with her, but she just loves our snuggle breast time and our routine. I am excited about my trip and the time away for me, but just breaks my heart that she will be so upset.
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Q
Minneapolis, MN
Our daughter is 4 months old and my husband doesn't spend a whole lot of time with our daughter. We both get home from work around 530 and I am the main person who takes care of her. When I went back to work we mad a deal that we woud rotate nights on her bedtime feeding and bath and putting her to bed. Well, this has slowly gone back to me doing it almost every night. I don't want to force her on him I want him to want to be with her and bond with her. But it's like he doesn't want to. He gets frustrated easily and short patience with her sometimes if she is crabby or doesn't eat. I don't know if I should just start running errands or leaving the house so he is the one to take her or maybe I am enabling the behavior because I don't make him do it?? Any suggestions? I am kinda stuck
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Q
Appleton, WI
I'm breastfeeding my son and during my first two weeks I was very engorged and needless to say I have plenty of milk stored up. When my husband tries to give my son a bottle he will not take it from him. My mom, sisters and my aunt have all feed him with a bottle and he has taken it just fine from them. My husband does work some long hours and some days he doesn't get the extra bonding time with him. Has anyone else gone through this with your kids? It would be nice to get a few extra hours of sleep some night before his next feeding and it's also making my husband frustrated afterwards.
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Q
Cincinnati, OH
We have 2 children: a son who is 4 and a daughter who is 3 months. When we had our son my husband was over the moon- totally involved in everything. Here we are 4 years later and our daughter arrives (which he begged me for a second child) and where is my husband? Sleeping. He has never been to a well baby check with her (Never missed one with baby #1) and hasn't spent more then an hour or two with her because he complains that she "screams her head off" the entire time I am gone, as soon as the door clicks shut, he says. She is too young for seperation anxiety so I don't buy it. Basically I am burned out. We have no one here to help us, we are transfers from out of state and reliable family lives far away. I've tried a sitter but it's hard to trust someone not family for me, especially with an infant. He claims I am the only one that can soothe her. It's making me resentful of him- he has only changed a handfull of diapers and given 1 bath in her whole existance. Next week I return to work. I want to cry when I think about how much harder everything will be because he is not helping out. I know that the first year is tough- our first was not a good sleeper, and still is a "high energy" child. I swear he thinks the baby and I nap all day- he actually gave me a list of things he wanted me to accomplish while home on leave and I wonder when he thinks the toilet gets cleaned and the laundry done? By fairies? We have talked at length about this and he doesn't get it. I am at a loss. Any suggestions would be very helpful.
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