# getting husband to help with child



## mandah2386 (Mar 21, 2009)

I am a SAHM so I understand that most of the time I'm going to have our daughter and that's fine, but how do you get your husband to share in taking care of your child when he's home from work and on the weekends? I never get to go anywhere without my daughter, if I go visit a friend I take my daughter, if I go to the store I take my daughter. It's fine most of the time, but I too would like to have time alone by myself or time alone with my girlfriends. My husband works 10 hour days 4 days a week, he's also a volunteer fire fighter. On the days that he's off he's usually gone on a call or sitting on the couch "relaxing". It frustrates me because I would like a break once in a while. When I do go to try to do something by myself and I ask him to watch our daughter for a few hours(Like if I want to get my haircut or something) he'll say "why don't you get my mom or your mom to watch her"? It angers me that he can't take care of his own child by himself.

As we speak he's gone paintballing with his friends and I'm at home taking care of our daughter. He's been gone since 9 this morning and said that he didn't know what time he'd be home tonight. I can understand if he was working or something like that, but when you are hanging out with your friends, the time you leave is in your control. I just wish for once he would be a man and act like he is married with a child(with another on the way!)

We've had this conversation so many times it makes me sick. Last summer he was a full time student, a part time worker, a volunteer fire fighter and an assistant coach for his best friend's son baseball team. He was everywhere but home with us. When I brought it up he got all mad and yelled "FINE i'll just QUIT the fire dept and the softball team" and that's not exactly what I wanted, I just wanted him to relize that we want him home too and that when he's home I want his attention to be on his daughter and not in front of the tv or on the computer trying to "relax" because he was never home. How should I go about this conversation without sounding like a nag, or is it just a lost cause and I just need to suck it up?


----------



## Sensitive (Mar 29, 2009)

I had this same problem. My husband avoided spending time with the boys, because I was always with them. At first, I concluded that he was uncomfortable caring for little babies, and he isn't accustomed to my parenting style. Things didn't improve until I started working on the weekends, so he must watch the kids. I no longer ask him permission to take a break in the evening. I just tell him as I walk out the door. So far, hubby has become a better father as he shares more of the childwatching. He still hates feeding, bathing and dressing the kids, but eventually the kids will be more self-sufficient.


----------



## NewMom2BabyBoy (Apr 20, 2009)

Hi, I just had my fisrt child 2 1/2 months ago, a little boy, and he's been incredible. He's so happy during the day and he sleeps great at night. I couldn't have asked for a better baby. I was a little scared before he was born because I wasn't sure if I had what it takes to be a good mom. My mother was never really there for me and I wouldn't exactly put her in the "good mother" category. And you know the saying that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The only thing that I wasn't scared about was how my husband was going to be with the baby. We've been together for 5 years, married for 1 but have known each other since we were children. He has a 4 year old daughter from a previous relationship who he cherishes. We moved to the other side of the country about a year ago but we do get to go back a few times a year. My husband and I have been together since his daughter was only 6 months old so I felt pretty confindent in his demeanor about being a father. The problem now lies with him being a father to our child. 

He works incredibly hard at his job which is very physical and he often works 11 days straight with 3 days off. He leaves at 6 in the morning and comes home at 7pm. So with him being gone for 13 hours a day, one would think that he would want to spend time with his baby when he came home. I can understand that somedays you have a rough day at work and when you get home you just want to shut out the world. Usually that isn't the case for my husband. He comes home from work in a great mood and the first thing he does is go straight to his computer game and he will spend the entire night talking to his friends and family who also play this online game. If the baby starts crying as I'm cooking supper, I'll ask my husband to take him for a few minutes until I'm finished and he'll just say that "he's busy". I'm so tired of hearing that phrase from him. I'm to the point where I don't even care that I'm not anywhere near the top of his pirority list but it seems that the baby isn't either. 

He says that he plays the game to keep in touch with his family and friends which would be fine if it were only for a night or two each week but it's every night. He walks in the door, takes off his work clothes, uses the bathroom and walks straight to the computer because he wants to relax. I'm a stay at home mom now and plan to be until my baby starts school full time at least so I don't mind that my husband doesn't do any house work on a regular basis. I consider that a part of my job as a stay at home mom. And I love taking care of our son. It's only been 2 1/2 months so I still enjoy the time when I'm changing diapers. I'm sure that will wear off by the time I've changed my 4000th diaper, but for now it's still one of my favorite times of the day. And that's only because there's not much that you can do with an infant so I enjoy every minute with him when he's awake. He cries when he has a dirty diaper and he does nothing but smile when I'm changing him. He knows that he can depend on me to take care of him. My husband has probably changed less than 10 diapers since he was born. He's missing out on those little moments with him. He went to change him the other day and the baby did nothing but screamed the whole time because he wasn't used to seeing his dad do that for him. My husband doesn't pay attention to his cries so he hasn't learned what the different cries mean. The only time that the baby really cries for any lenght of time is when he has a really bad gas bubble in his tummy. And if I haven't calmed him down after a minute or two, my husband will look up from his game and say "Will you fix him already?" He gets frustrated because he uses a headset to talk with the other players on the game and when the baby cries, he can't hear the other people talking. 

The baby is only awake for 2 1/2 hours after my husband gets home there will be entire days when my husband doesn't even pick him up or talk to him. The baby will be in his swing as I'm cooking supper when my husband gets home and he goes straight to the computer. After I finish eating, the baby is usually ready to eat again and then I change him and it's time for him to go to bed. An hour later, my husband will look at me and say "Where's the baby?" completely oblivious to the fact that I put him to bed an hour before. 

You would think that his days off would be different but there not. The last set of 3 days that he had off I counted the hours that he played the game and I counted the time that he spent talking to or holding our baby. On Friday he spent 14 hours straight playing the game, 16 hours on Saturday and 13 hours on Sunday. 43 hours. And the time he spent with the baby over thoses 3 days - 17 minutes. And 10 of those were when he was sleeping. I laid the baby in his arms one morning as I jumped in to have a shower. So he willingly spent 7 minutes with our son and 43 hours on the game. Tell me that his pirorities are in the right order. He didn't changed on diaper, didn't feed him when I offered to pump off some milk so he could give him a bottle, still hasn't bathed him once, and hasn't rocked him to sleep. I don't even care that he not once told me that he loved me that weekend or hugged me or even talked to me other than to say that he was too busy to feed him or if I would get a glass of water or whatever. (By the way, I told him to get his own damn drink). I clean the house and cook supper and his lunch for work the next day ( which is just supper leftovers) but I'm not his slave and never have been. 

To top it all off, we decided that I would move back home in a few months with the baby to be closer to our friends and family and he would stay up here working. I'm fine with the idea and we've done this before for over a year. We don't have a problem doing the long distance thing. He flies home every 12 weeks for usually 2 weeks and then comes back out to work. But within 2 or 3 months from now, he's not going to have the chance to change his diaper of feed him or play with him. I've told him time and time again that he's going to wake up one day not long from now and regret all this time that he never spent with his son while he had the chance. 

How do I get him to put his baby on the top of his pirority list? And then how do I get him to put me a little higher up the list?

Any suggestions are welcome, and if you don't have any advice, I'd still like to just talk with someone who might have experienced this before. 

Thank you. 
(sorry for going on for so long)


----------



## zwilson50 (Mar 26, 2009)

Sounds like you need a break. I do agree your husband should help. Not really sure how to get guys to understand. Being one, I can be a little hard headed, slow or just plain stubborn. Sounds like the volunteer FF is damn near a full time commitment. Or it is being described that way buy your H. You gotta hit your husband where it hurts for him to realize you need help. You would know better than that on how to get him to understand.

Good luck.


----------



## lovingmom (Apr 29, 2009)

I had the same problem.. hubby went to work, came home, jumped on the computer, ate supper at the computer playing world of warcraft. I hated it. He didn't help with his son, it was getting really bad. I had to talk to his friends that were also playing the game and they both realized they needed to spend more time with their families. It worked for a while. I eventually had to yell at him and tell him he's missing out on his son and his life. Just recently in the last probably 4 months, he'd come home and play with his son... yes play, spend most of the evening with him. there were some nights when he just wouldn't, but I just let it go. There are nights that I just go out and he has to look after his son. Now he looks forward to those nights. It's not perfect here, but it's better than it was. I think the part that got to my husband was that I said your son is missing out on time with you. You never want to spend time with him and for that, he misses you greatly.


----------



## ntiedo (May 11, 2009)

Your husband is not really behaving has a father i may not really blame him sometimes it has to do with his family background or the way he is brought up. Since you applied all possible means of dialogue to know avail. what you should do is this, whenever he is relaxing jut tell your daughter to go and meet daddy and immediately she is off to daddy leave that environment. when you do this always your husband will get used to his daughter.


----------

