Parenting Struggles
This may be a long post but I'll try to keep it short.
I'm a first time mother to a 5 week old boy. I'm married to my husband, of 10 years and we are pretty happy most of the time.
Parenting has been a whole new journey for us. My patience has always been great and my husband's, not so much. My husband has always had a bit of a short temper and little patience. It runs in his side of the family. Learning a brand new baby, has been interesting to say the least between the two of us.
To begin here, our first few weeks with our new baby boy were simply blissful and happy moments with a lot of happy tears that we have a family of our own. My husband and I came from not so pleasant childhoods and so we vowed to make sure that we would end the bad cycle and ensure to be there for our son 100%.
Around week 3 of our new life, things started getting more stressful with lack of sleep, baby was cluster feeding up hours of the night and crying. Lots of crying... as babies do. My husband's lack of patience has come out and I found that many nights when we would take shifts to help take care of our son, my husband would get upset at our son and raise his voice. I've told my husband several times that is not the way to calm a fussy baby because baby will feed off our emotions and reflect it back to us. Unfortunately, it seems like it doesn't matter to him and he can't help but get overwhelmed by the crying. I've stepped in countless times now to console our son, sometimes even my husband. Raising a kid was never said to be easy.
Tonight I joined 7 cups because it is just getting to be too much. Our baby was crying in his crib, waking for a feed or diaper change this early morning at midnight and it was my husband's turn. My husband didn't wake right away to go help our son but instead yelled loudly "Shut up" from bed. Our son is in his own nursery in a crib outside of our room and I have a baby monitor above the crib. So baby didn't hear or maybe get bothered by it but I sure did. Baby continued crying and it took a moment for my husband to get up. When he did, he stomped his way to the hallway and slammed our bedroom door closed and when he entered the nursery where our son was, he was still raising his voice saying shut up and other things I couldn't make out. He was able to console our son after 10 minutes or so and tried to lay him back down in the crib. As soon as he did and he came back to bed, our son started crying again. My husband said that he is a failure parent. I turned off the monitor and went to go grab our son and console him further and let my husband sleep.
It's not the first and certainly not going to be the last time that my husband raises his voice. ****I chatted with a listener here tonight and she was trying to criminalize my husband saying that he committed a crime and he was verbally abusive****
I highly believe everyone has moments like this. Life doesn't always work as we want and situations are tough. As everyone else here, I'm just looking for some support. I'm not looking for someone to tell me I'm making excuses for my husband and that I'm in the wrong. I just want to figure out a way to tell my husband that he needs to seek help as he won't listen when I tell him. He says youtube videos about how to manage, helps. However that's not a long term solution.
I need someone to help guide me because I'm at a loss myself and I really need the kind supportive community I know 7 cups is and has helped me previously get through tough times.
Thank you for reading if you've made it this far.
@Aseutter7
It’s really lovely that you
and your husband made that vow to break that cycle. Raising a newborn can definitely
be overwhelming. I can see why it would be tough to have patience sometimes. It’s
really commendable that as a new mom you step in to console both your son and
your husband. I’m sorry that you had that experience with a listener. I can
understand your husband feeling overwhelmed. As you said, raising a baby is no
easy task. His actions in making an effort to watch videos on how to manage better,
show that he is seeking to do better. I hope you two can find a long-term
solution soon. Sending hugs. 💜
@Aseutter7
all what you described is normal behavior for first time parents ...........lack of sleep and frustration about how it is going hits almost everyone.... those who say it doesn't are either lying or pretending IMO
i feel it is RUDE for anyone based on simple story to make such over the top accusations and perhaps should not try to help anyone if they have that attitude.
it is a long journey and you will get a routine going ...... babies can be fussy and learning parenting is very trying..... i say at least he is making an effort while many parents say they will in the end it ends up with the MOM taking all the turns on diaper changes and feeding etc... i lived that .....
give yourself a break and remember it does get better
@Aseutter7
As a parent myself, this sort of thing can develop into you feeling unable to fully trust your husband to be left alone with the baby if you need to go out sometimes. Then it becomes a situation of the mom becoming "tied" to the baby and being unable to leave the house without taking the baby with you. As well as getting up to soothe, feed, and change the baby at all hours of the day and night, and suffering exhaustion and sleep deprivation.
I would highly recommend some counseling for yourself if your husband remains adamant in refusing counseling. Especially since you said you came from some kind of dysfunctional family in which you were raised. Nowadays, video counseling is easily available... since obviously the baby couldn't be left alone with his father to manage, nor could you bring your baby to counseling appointments.
I speak somewhat from experience because my husband, although he wasn't upset or angry with the baby, had a disease called Narcolepsy that made him "sleepwalk" instead of being properly awake, thus he couldn't be trusted to act properly if he was left alone with our baby -- although it wasn't his fault at all, since it was the narcolepsy and not him behaving badly. Still, it did feel like I was almost single parent despite the baby's dad being there and willing.
That's the hardest time to go through when a baby is crying. It can be very annoying and hard to put up with and it definitely will test your patience. When he can't do it, you will have to step up and do it. In the meantime he has to get help from a doctor maybe there's some meds he can take I don't think he's a criminal there's so many people just like him. A crying baby definitely irritates me too and I'm a very patient person people have told me I'm the most patient person they have ever met. There must be something instinctive about that. He has to find a way to fix himself because only he knows what's going on when the baby gets older he won't be as irritated with the crying, but something else might set him off. He has to be able to control his emotions and not let his emotions get the best of him. He has to think both ways...how does it feel to be yelled at and told to shut up...it does not feel good. He has to think twice before he speaks and that's easier said than done but I wish the best for you and your husband you have to figure something out! Peace
@Aseutter7 some tips from my extremely cranky cousin
He used noise cancelling headphones, he said oh well I can attend my kid much better now and I dont want to hear this head popping loud cry, he still uses them whenever his children start a tantrum he run for a headphone
When his children were 1 to 8 months old , he used to drank coffee , small/half cups, strong espresso before bed , he is not a coffee lover so he said coffee helps him to wake up in night much easily
