Watching M

My husband had to watch little M on his own twice this week for the first time.  There were two things that happened at school that I absolutely couldn't miss.  It meant that I needed to be out for out 4 hours each time, and M would need a bottle.

The first one didn't go well but Dh was sort of able to laugh about it.  He was able to feed M from a bottle despite some serious issues and was overall satisfied with himself.

The second time was terrible.  I got home tonight to a naked baby laying in her crib happy to see me, the changing table pad off, baby clothes all over the place, a half-drunk bottle nearby, and Dh frazzed in the dining room.  At first I started joking about the scene of the frat party, but Dh was nowhere near a laughing mood.

I am not entirely sure what happened but M clearly lost it.  To me this is obviously because she was exhausted and overstimulated.  She had been up for an hour by the time we did the switch over between parents.  I had fed and changed her, so of course she'd been up a while.  I strongly advised that he get her to take a nap.  I have a feeling that he assumed she would put herself to sleep when she was tired despite my telling him that he'd have to lull her to sleep.

As you all know, babies don't always know that they need to sleep.  They just know that something isn't right so they start to get fussy.  M is like this especially in the afternoons.  You have to coax her to sleep for her afternoon nap(s). 

By the time I got home she'd been awake for 5.5 hours and crying hysterically for the last 4 of those. 

Dh gets pissed off and frustrated pretty easily.  And the bad mood can last quite a while.  He just went to bed in a really bad mood. 

I feel terrible.  Most of the reasons I feel terrible are irrational.

1) I feel guilty like I was somehow supposed to teach him how to feed her from a bottle.  But, for one, I don't actually know.  I've never fed her from a bottle.  And two, he never asked me how.  I intentionally didn't tell him because I didn't want him to think I didn't trust his ability to figure it out.  He is sensitive to when it seems like I don't trust him or if I am being "bossy" and won't let him do things his own way.  But then it sounded like he thought I was a bad mother to leave my baby in the hands of her father without explicit instructions. 

Was I supposed to lecture him on how to not stimulate M?  I have repeatedly but gently mentioned that he needs to be able to not always play with her, that she gets overstimulated and needs to sleep.  How hard is it to sit quietly holding a baby in the rocking chair and not play with her?  Do I need to give instructions on this?  Seems self-explanatory to me, and it isn't like he hasn't seen me sitting in the green glider we got on Craig's list for hours and hours quietly holding a sleeping M.  Get a clue.

2) I feel like the IF experience and all the shit we went through to get out of IF Land was me pushing really hard for something I want and not necessarily something that he really wanted.  I worry that he is mad at me for pushing him into something he now thinks is awful.  He says this is not the case at all, but I can't help but feel this way, to worry.

3) I don't understand why he doesn't see that M and I get along so well because we have been essentially inseparable since she was born.  She cries and freaks out with me, but I was forced pretty early on to figure out ways to console her, what she needs and when.  She still cries with me, but I am usually pretty good at eventually calming her down and solving her issue.  Dh, he doesn't have anywhere near that kind of level of experience.  He and M have to work it out and find a way to communicate.  Or rather, Dh needs to figure this out.  M's only job is to eat, poop and grow.  After this afternoon he said that babies only like their mothers, that M just doesn't like him.  I don't quite get why he doesn't see that this isn't true.  She's just much more used to me.  It actually has nothing to do with my being her mother, other than that it is usually the mother who spends so much time with the baby and does so very early on.  We figure it out -- sink or swim.  Dads don't often end up in this same situation.  But if they do, they find a rhythm that works too.  The only unfair advantage I have is that I make milk.  But I do leave lots of bottles of the stuff for him.

I guess they will work it out eventually, but I wish that he would try harder.  I wish that he'd ask for help and advice, and I really wish he'd listen to me.  It's almost as if he thinks that if baby harmony doesn't come immediately and easily then it isn't meant to be.  He has been like this with our relationship too.  I have spent an inordinate amount of time and emotional energy convincing him that marriages are work and require maintenance.  Once you fall in love you have to work to stay in love.  You can't just ignore each other for 10 years and assume that if it is meant to be that you'll still be crazy about each other.