Father Claims He Doesn't Get 'Equal Time' With Baby, Says 'Selfish' Wife Needs To Switch To Formula

Dec 22, 2021 by apost team

When bringing home a newborn baby as a first-time parent, things can seem overwhelming. The baby has a lot of demands and needs to be kept on a schedule of eating and sleeping regularly. When you’re a new dad and your wife is breastfeeding, it may feel like you aren’t getting as much time with your child as you want. This is what one man on Reddit said happened to him with his wife and son. 

The man explained that his wife breastfeeds, and the baby, who is 3 months old, still sleeps a lot. This means that the dad feels like he isn’t getting any time to bond with his son. His solution to this was to tell his wife that she needs to switch to formula feeding the baby so both parents can spend “equal time” with him. 

Part of the issue is that the dad has been quite overbearing, and so the mother has asked him to leave the room while she feeds. Another issue is that the husband believes his wife should have to go along with whatever decision he makes about his son. These two can’t see eye to eye, and the situation is complicated by the man’s mother who has been telling him to be present for every single feeding because he thinks the wife has postpartum depression. 

Now, the dad thinks his wife is refusing to switch to formula to spite him and his mother. She has made it clear that what the husband is demanding is unreasonable. The dad asked Reddit users for their opinions, and the majority pointed out that there are other times the husband can bond with the baby outside of feeding time. Read on to learn more about this challenging situation.

The husband began his Reddit post by explaining that he and his wife haven’t had many problems outside of this disagreement. He wrote: 

“Luckily as new parents, we've had less issues compared to others in our family BUT what really created an issue was the fact that my wife gets way more bonding time with my son than I do. She breastfeeds and doesn't let me come anywhere near her while she's doing it, claiming she was already in pain and I was making her stressed out with my behavior.”

The father added: “It all came to head for me last night after my wife told me to leave the room while she was feeding our son cause I was ‘bothering’ her and making her feel ‘stressed out’ with my ‘judgemental’ comments but I was just making sure she was feeding our son properly since she's dealing with stress and possible PPD and so I had to (not under doctor's recommendation though but following my mom's advice) be present in every feeding session to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

The wife said that switching to formula was unreasonable because she has no issue feeding the baby herself. The dad shared, “I disagreed and argued that she left me no choice and that she needs to respect whatever decision I make regarding our son even if she doesn't like it and doesn't necessarily agree with it but she argued back saying I'm delusional to think she'll just switch to formula to fix my hurt (feelings).”

He ended the post by writing: “Long story short, we kept going back and forth on this argument and she told me to drop it but I refused because, in my opinion, she's being selfish by how she's treating me as the other parent.”

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Commenters did not agree with the husband at all. One person wrote, “Your wife isn’t taking a long time to feed the baby - THE BABY TAKES THAT LONG TO FEED. Your controlling, selfish behavior is no doubt contributing to your wife’s stress…Read carefully: when your wife and child are at their most vulnerable, you are putting your wants ahead of their needs. You should immediately seek help from a psychologist to understand why you are behaving in this way.”

Another commenter added: “Your mother does not belong in this relationship. This is a partnership between you and your wife. It sounds like you’re allowing your mom more access than she is entitled to. Your mother is a mother but that doesn’t mean that how she raised a child is how you AND YOUR WIFE will raise a child…. You do not need to be in the room every time your wife feeds the baby. You know how you can bond? Change their diaper. Help put them to sleep. Hold them when they are awake.”

Others agreed that the father could bond in other ways. A third person said: “New dad here. Diaper changes, sleepy time routines, and alert periods in between the sleep-eat-poop cycle have provided mind-blowingly, heart-warmingly lovely bonding interactions. It’s great, I love it, and eating time is eating time not bonding time. I just imagine some guy coming over to me as I’m chowing down and I know that’s not comfortable lol.”

Hopefully, after reading this feedback, the dad was able to reflect on the situation and will try to bond with his son in other ways. 

Do you think the dad is being unreasonable? What would you tell him? Let us know, and be sure to send this along to your friends and loved ones with children.