How much time do new moms spend with babies?

L

lordfeather

New member
My wife and I had a daughter 2 months ago. In the past two months, my wife has spent no more than 1 hour total daily with my daughter. She says she’s very tired and needs to rest so she spends a lot of time sleeping. When she is awake, she goes out for coffee with her friends or to get her nails done or to get a massage or to go sit in the park for fresh air. Or she’ll just stay in bed and read magazines or watch TV. She isn’t cooking or cleaning or getting groceries or anything else either.

We’re both on parental leave right now, but I feel like I’m doing almost all the work. I’ve tried to talk to her about this (including asking if she wants to see a doctor for physical or mental health concerns) and all my wife does is yell at me for not understanding all that she has been through. She keeps saying she deserves to rest given that she carried the baby and that I’d never be able to do what she did so I should care for the baby now. She calls me selfish for asking her to spend time with our daughter.

Most of her pregnancy was also her resting and me doing 100% of chores, cooking, housework.

I don’t know what is normal but I’m so exhausted and thought we would be more like a team than we are.

Is my experience the norm?
 
@lordfeather Well this is definitely not the norm. It’s one thing for dad to help as much as possible, but 1 hour per day of mom with baby…? This simply perplexes me. I spent about 18-21 hours per day with my daughter when she was first born (exclusively breastfeeding). It was really hard. The other 3-6 hours was IF i got the chance to sleep and my husband held the baby. Now I think I also got less help than some moms due to our circumstances, but your wife definitely is having a hard time adjusting. She might be in a serious postpartum depression. Sounds like she really needs to talk to someone asap. She might be really trying to push this new reality away. Postpartum can be a scary time for a lot of moms but this seems very extreme. I’m sorry you are both going through this.
 
@boanerges1989 Or her maternal instinct just might not be strong. It isn't in every woman. We're not all meant to be mothers. Sounds like Dad here has bonded, so baby is getting what she needs. It might work better in this family if Dad is the primary caregiver, you can't just assume post-natal depression only because Mom is not completely maternal, that'slike saying a woman's main function is to breed and if she's not maternal there's something seriously wrong with her. That's reductive and untrue.
 
@davida1949 But even if the genders were reversed, I would think something's off. 1 hour is basically nothing. A dad who is home all day but shows no interest to spend time with the baby would be concerning, too.
 
@marshmelly I agree that it might not be PPD, but why risk it? If a woman truly has that little of a maternal instinct, why would she have opted to become a mother? There definitely could be many reasons behind that decision, but ultimately something is not right if a woman carries through with having a baby then basically refuses to see or care for he or she. It’s indicative of something really not good going on. Like another person said, if the father spent that little time with their child it’s also a really bad sign for the whole family.
 
@marshmelly Absolutely true. Mom is not bonding, and that's a problem. If she never does, she'll probably leave at some point, and dad will be the primary caregiver, which is not a problem in itself, just that... from the way he's talking, that wasn't their plan. And now he's going to have to re-think the whole business, and perhaps become a single parent, which is very, very tough, for a man or a woman.
 
@jakehostetler You misunderstand, I wasn't saying it's not a problem if she leaves. I was saying that dad being the primary caregiver was not a problem in itself. Obviously it's much better for the baby if they stay together even if she becomes primary breadwinner, him primary caregiver.
 
@queenofhearts1992 Simple, old-fashioned, misogynistic, gender sterotypical phrasing, yes.

Don't think it was an overreaction on my part. Obviously you've never seen me actually overreact before (angel emoji)

Also, this was for a commenter, not the OP.
 
@kevinmh12 It’s not ok for a dad to only spend 1 hour with baby either… it completely overwhelms the person who is doing it all, and not only this, when you care for a child as the primary caregiver, you need the other parent to help with the cooking and cleaning, or else you literally cannot feed yourself, at the newborn stage. It’s really not about misogyny at all…
 
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