Dads as caregivers

MoFree · March 2014

For those whose DH is not the primary caregiver, has he spent extensive alone time with your child (ren)?
My DH is a wonderful, loving hands in sad, far more patient and involved than I anticipated he would be. But he is not the mother, if you KWIM.
He had full time childcare duty when they accompanied me to a conference last week. The first day was okay since he was with MIL, her SO and his family. The second day he was starting to lose patience and I left the conference a little early the last day before he totally lost his $hit. He is usually very patient but really couldn't handle her whining, tantrums and just generally being a toddler.

Ruthie04 · March 2014

I totally get this. DH has never been alone with them for more than 3 hours and it nearly always leaves him completely stressed. To be fair, a lot of this has to do with DS2 who is completely attached to me. DH says he just wanders around the house looking for me when I am gone.

I have a hard time taking personal time away and tend to only make appointments for myself when they are asleep. I do this for them and for DH, as he gets really flustered and has a hard time rolling with the punches. If he were around them more often (without me), I think he'd learn to loosen up a bit and just enjoy them more. I know I need to change this, but I'm not sure I want to deal with the stress for DH and the boys if it's not mandatory for me to be away for longer.

I often wonder how things would be if I were working out of the home or if DH stayed at home. I wonder how much of his reaction to them is his personality or a father thing.

pb_bride · March 2014

M is 16.5 m and I SAH. The longest DH has spent time with M alone was 5.5 hours - that was a month ago? M was asleep for almost half of that time (afternoon nap). I Had EBF'd M and M wouldn't take a bottle, so I could never be more than a few hours away until we were down to 2-3 sessions a day.

I think DH will do okay with M for a whole day... He is very patient and he enjoys his time with M, but I don't think DH will be able to get anything done. I really don't have any reasons to be away from them for a long stretch of time.

Having said that, sometimes I really wish DH would take M out of the house on the weekend...just the 2 of them. DH has never, ever taken M out on his own, except for short neighborhood walks. I feel guilty asking him to do that, but I long for some alone, quiet time in the house by myself!

mcgeeva · March 2014

Dh has only had to spend time with Ds#1 for one overnight and day for a bachelorette party but definitely a day here and there. He is good with ds but like yours will lose patience easily but it also has to do with him not sticking to schedules like naps and once that window is missed it's all over. Two ds eats terribly even for dinner when I would be late from work. I can't tell you how many times I came home and dh have him cheesezits for dinner or some random snacks. Last Sunday he got ds#1 out of the house so I could rest a little and gives ds a smoothie at lunch time when he naps so he was bouncing off walls all afternoon and never took a nap hence he was super whiny. Men have good intentions but they are not mamas!!

mcgeeva · March 2014

Like pb_bride said dh def can't get anything done either when spending time with ds. Maybe only women can multitask

Robeano · March 2014

I feel like I'm super lucky. DH takes Hannah every Saturday morning so I can sleep in. Now that I'm back to work and was working every weekend, he would watch her. I just started overnights this week and he has to get up with her in the middle of the night AND get her ready in the mornings. He keeps her alive, and he does some housework, but she rarely gets out of her jammies with DH lol. And I feel he calls in reinforcements faster than needed. But he told me from the beginning he wants to be involved, so I had him involved.

ccam · March 2014

DH is in construction and his work is seasonal so on days that he's home during the winter, he'll keep DS home with him. He's great with him but exhausted by the end of the day. Like the others said, he doesn't get much else done and usually sneaks a nap for himself during nap time but he really devotes the entire day to playing with DS. They have lots of fun together. DS is pretty much mine when I get home though! DH has only done one overnight with him while I was away for a bachelorette party.

TJ1979 · March 2014

Hmm. MH has never kept E overnight. But he has kept her during the day and done fine. I don't really ever travel for work, or without them at all. I would be interested to see how he would do alone with her for more than 24 hours. He's much more patient and laid back than I am though, so they would probably do great.

PennyLane26 · March 2014

DH has spent at most 5-6 hours alone with DD. I will say though that I am confident he could handle longer, it just hasn't been necessary. G loves her Daddy but has just recently started to get upset when I hand her over to him. She's in the very early stages of Mommy-mode, so I am sure this wil get worse. However once she is in his arms she's happy as a clam!

Obviously I need to remind DH about certain things (refill the humidifier, offer a sippy with meals, etc), but that's only because he isn't the primary caregiver. I have to go to a bachelorette party overnight in June so I think that will be his first extended 1:1 time with G, I'm laughing just thinking about it. I'm sure I'll get a lot of phone calls but I think he'll do great.

kzawisl · March 2014

MH hasn't been alone with both kids for more than a few hours. He has very little patience, and has even recently admitted to me (after an argument over how little he interacts with them) that babies and toddlers aren't his "thing". I guess I am hoping that when they're older, they'll be his thing? It makes me sad that he misses out on these amazing little moments with them because he says he lacks the capacity to "sit on the floor and play". I love him, and when he is engaged with them, he is a great dad...but he rarely chooses on his own to be engaged; I usually have to prompt him ("she's asking you to read her that book, honey", or I have to translate that, in toddler speak, they're calling out his name).
I was planning a girls weekend with a friend a few months ago, and he basically told me I couldn't go because he couldn't handle the kids alone for that amount of time.
I know this makes him sound like a horrible dad. He isn't. He just isn't a self-starter when it comes to this stuff.

Julie21613 · March 2014

My DH has actually been pretty good. If I've had a rough day, when he gets home from work he takes over completely. Most nights he feeds DD her cereal while I am cooking dinner. But as soon as she is down for the night....bam... he falls asleep too! :-)

luvboston · March 2014

My DH watches LO but I do everything else like laundry, formula making etc because he cannot take care of her and get things done, he also believes he deserves alone time when she is sleeping or get to play on his iPad after taking care of her. I don't trust him to take care of her overnight or when he is with others because he loses focus and forgets her needs come first. He would never take her to the bathroom with him even if her entire body turned red and she was having an epic fit.
Either woman have 10x more energy then men or they are just lazy!

CarrieB. · March 2014

My DH is the primary child care provider. He is home w both girls during the day, but overnights are still hard for him. I've traveled a couple times overnight for work and it's been difficult.

However, I think that men can be great at child care. You just have to be okay that they are going to do it differently than you would. Give your DH lots of positive feedback. My DH is super patient with the kids and rarely yells, but he can be a little spacey sometimes and will forget to change the kids out of pjs. But that's really not a big deal. Give your DH a chance to parent on his own and see how great he can be.

TJ1979 · March 2014

That's a really grat point @CarrieB.‌ I used to get annoyed at mh for not doing things my way. Before kids, I would reload the dishwasher if he didn't do it "right." But who has time for all that? As long as everyone is safe and happy and things get done, who cares if it's perfect or exactly the way you would have done it.

kzawisl · March 2014

Follow up: I went to moms night out tonight and DH was responsible for bedtime with one sick, cranky toddler (and one who was feeling fine). He lived to tell the tale!

Mayzie15 · March 2014

I'm lucky too. MH has a lot of patience with our little one he hasn't had him overnight by himself but I haven't either. We've not spend more than a couple of hours from him since he was born. I think MH would do great - he's all boy and loves to rough house with daddy

itsmevkb · March 2014

I'm a little surprised by some of these responses. It has never once occurred to me that I am a more capable or "better" parent simply because I'm the mom. In fact, when Shannon was a newborn my husband would sometimes say something like "how do I make him stop crying?" implying that of course I would know because I was the mom and I would respond with "how would I know, this is my first baby too you know." My husband does as much, if not more than I do most days, for our kids. We definitely don't do things 100% the same way but we do talk about big parenting issues like discipline so that we remain consistent on those things. Both of us lose our patience sometimes and both of us get tired by the end of the day. We have both handled longer stretches of solo-parenting with equal success and exhaustion and all of our kids have gone through both mommy and daddy phases.

I guess the thing is, if someone rarely has to something they will never be as comfortable as the person doing it all the time is. That's true for everything. Now the question is, why aren't dads doing more? Is it because they refuse, because they just aren't home as often (which is the opposite in our case) or because moms don't expect them to do more because well, I'm the mom so I can do it better/quicker/faster, etc.?

@TJ1979 - I still re-organize the dishwasher because I'm type A like that ;-)

BabyKsMommy · March 2014

Dh is great with DS and I work in the evenings. Dh is responsible for putting DS to sleep several nights a week and for half the day on weekends. Ds has very recently started getting attached to daddy. Before it was always mommy, he's 28 months.

Dh does things differently than mommy but it works. He's careful to put sunblock on him and loves to take him to the park, toy stores or to get ice cream. They have a great time together and will only get closer as ds gets older.

pb_bride · March 2014

@itsmevkb, in our situation, it is mostly because DH works and I SAH, plus I don't really have any reason to be away from them all day long. I'm sure DH can/will handle fine if I'm gone a whole day, but I don't expect him to also do the dishes, clean the house, cook lunch/dinner etc while he is watching M. He's just not as efficient.

JBDamonM · March 2014

I am too hard on my husband.....he spends a decent amount of time alone with Molly and never, ever complains. Just last Sat I stayed overnight at a local hotel with my friends from college...he did single dad duty....then took her most of the day Sunday and did daycare pickup, dinner and bath lat night and tonight. The one thing I do almost always do is bedtime.
Things are never done the way I would do them (he skimps on mealtime quantities, never cleans the highchair...) but they are done. I am very grateful to have it easy in this area

mcgeeva · March 2014

itsmevkb good question!!! Mine will do a lot when home he needs a push. I have realized after bing married do a while they men will not do things because they know we will do it. I'm at fault Like the dishwasher issues as well I do it better so I like to do it myself. But sometimes it's easier to do something for yourself to force them to have to do it all. One they will appreciate what we do more. I do have to say first baby dh was super frustrated and easily hand over ds when the witching hour hit but this time around maybe due to experience he has been handling it better so far and more willing to help during these times

Jenny935 · March 2014

Heh...I almost feel like we're backwards and he'd join in this thread to say some of these things about me!

We both work, but DH only works 4 days so they're home one day a week together and they have fun. We tend to do things pretty similarly I think, but I think I hit my exhaustion wall before DH does. DS was the first baby I ever really interacted with on a regular basis because I always babysat older kids, and DH had lots of baby experience from babysitting and family. I also had a rough delivery and was pretty out of it for the first week of DS's life, while DH did everything except the BF...so maybe that all plays into it, who knows.

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