'AITA for calling my husband out on a lie he uses to avoid changing our baby's diapers?' + 2 UPDATES

"AITA for calling my husband out on a lie he uses to avoid changing our newborn's nappies?"

Me and my husband have been together 6 years, married for 4 and have a 2 month old baby girl.

My husband has children from a previous marriage and years ago was a stay at home dad to them so in general he's great with kids, but he seems to have forgotten a lot about the newborn stage and really just wants the toddler stage, where she will be more like a little person and developing a personality, he isn't great with interacting with her yet but I know that will come easier ro him with time.

I'm still on maternity leave and he is back at work full time, his job is mainly talking on the phone all day with insurance people or people who have had a car accident recently, occasionally people buying cars they've brought in from accidents.

Things are busy right now and he gets really tired, which i try to understand but he seems to forget that having my daughter at home with me is also basically a full time job and I need his help in the evening sometimes.

We head up to bed at around 9:3/9:45 in the evening, previously I would follow him up with the baby, put her in the moses basket, come back downstairs to set everything up that I would need in the night, turn off the TV, make myself a drink to take up before going back to change babies nappy, give her a bottle before bed and then finally settle myself in.

This would all he while he sits in bed playing a quiz game he likes to play, normally I will play with him for a while before falling asleep too. Recently I've started asking him to take up baby and change her while I get sorted, I'll then come up and give her a bottle before playing some game and going to sleep.

This has only been the last 5 nights and when I go up the last 3 he says her nappy is basically dry, which is strange because she would have had in on for a few hours and it should be wet, he just shrugged his shoulders and said maybe she doesn't need a change before bed.

Completely ridiculous suggestion as it's another 4 hours at least until she wakes up in the night, meaning she would have had 6-8 hours in the same nappy.

Last night her nappy felt full and about 10 minutes before we went up to bed I checked and it had a big blue line and looked like a fairly full wet nappy but when I went up he tried telling me again that it was basically dry and he didn't think that nappy change was necessary anymore.

I called him out on it and told him that I had checked and he was just lying to get out of doing it, even at the expense of our newborns comfort, and it could lead to nappy rash which could be painful for her, I told him it was a terrible thing to do and he should be able to change a nappy.

He starts complaining that I'm checking up on him and that he's too tired to be sorting out the baby at night as really that's my job, especially during the week when he has to go to work in the morning and I was taking away what little leisure/him time gets all day. So AITA to expect this from him every night when he wants some down time before bed?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

paddington-ppear said:

100% NTA – Your husband needs to take responsibility for his child and do his share. You look after her all day and I'm sure he's more than capable of changing her nappy after work. We all have to do some form of chores after a long day at work, a nappy on a child is just one of those responsibilities. Looking after a crying baby can be just as tiring as a full-time job.

Geek_is_my_chic said:

Nta, if he can make a baby he can change a diaper!!! It takes what maybe 5 minutes and its a care taking thing that’s extremely important.

Edit: What about your free time? You’ve had the baby all day the least he can do as a newborn father is change a damn diaper

Status-Pattern7539 said:

NTA. He LIED to you and put your child at risk of developing a rash because he couldn’t take a few minutes of his time to change her and then Blamed YOU for checking up on him and had the audacity to say it’s your job.

F that dude what a sh!tty father and husband. Don’t cook his dinner or clean his clothes…and when he asks where his dinner and clean clothes are then you tell him that’s not your job, it’s his.

Adorable-Discipline said:

NTA, You guys better sit down and a have serious talk about this. It will get more hands on later! Down time only comes when the baby’s sleeping/napping. Sounds like he doesn’t want to change diapers at all. It’s not right for you to be the only one to wake up in the middle of the night to check on the baby.

BreastAficionado said:

That's your job???? Wow I am sorry you have to deal with this. Yeah sorry Dad it's just as much his job as yours. He needs to start picking up slack NOW.

Seriously you need to sit down with him as this cannot go on any further. He got his dick wet, he needs to put the work in. This was a two person decision to bring a child into the world. He needs to do the work. NTA, also I'm just sorry you have to deal with something like this. You deserve better.

She later shared this edit/update:

I want to make a few things clear that have come up in the comments. Firstly my baby has not gone to bed with a wet or dirty nappy any night, after I feed her I automatically check that she hasn't done a dirty nappy as that can happen (not a single night so far has she done a dirty nappy in the night, she's very considerate like that, but I check any way).

My husband had changed the wet nappy and put it in the bin, simply telling me it was basically dry, she was still changed but he wanted to get out of doing it in future.

It really wouldn't have caused any health issues but it would have caused me more problems to get her to sleep to have to change her after I feed her, she has relux so has to stay upright for 10-20 minutes where she normally falls asleep, changing her would wake her up again.

Secondly I'm in England and gave 90% paid maternity leave until February when I plan to return to work full time, even on this I earn more than my husband and pay the majority bills, we could survive (just about) on my salary but we couldn't on his.

Thirdly having a baby has been an adjustment for both of us and he is generally very supportive, I still have to ask him to do things that I think should be obvious but he's getting better, this is the only time a conversation about duties I expect hasn't been very productive, this could he because I reacted with anger rather than a calmer approach.

Fourthly I want really checking up on him, I was checking up on her, a dry nappy after a few hours could he dehydration and even though she had shown no other signs it was a concern to me so I checked simply to see if she was filling the nappy as she was supposed to, it never even crossed my mind he could be lying about it.

I'm fully aware he was an AH for lying about the state of her nappy just to get out of doing a simple care task nightly, I'm wondering if I reacted badly or taking away his nightly routine and downtime is a crappy thing to ask of him when I could do it myself.

Second update:

Some more things that have come up in the comments; he has 3 children who all have very fond memories of him being a stay at home dad but his ex wife had a full year paid maternity leave so both of them were home together which each of them for a full year, this us why he remembers the newborn stage so differently.

Yes there is an age difference between me and my husband but he wanted a baby from day one, I thought it was great when I fell pregnant but I wouldn't have minded if it never happened for us, he never pressured me but he really wanted another child.

His ex wife is a terrible person who cheated on him with a friend while he went through a major kidney failure and now abandons there kids at every opportunity she gets so I won't be asking her for her opinion on my husband.

We had a long talk last night about how I need him to be more involved and he agreed to change the way we do certain things in a way to suit us both, he will be more active in the evenings but I'm in charge of getting her ready for bed, he will get everything ready downstairs for me and then come up where he can just chill and decompress.

Thank you for all the support and advice, I showed him all of the comments and he saw how bad he had been and really took everything on board.