Man warns wife; 'You NEED to step it up as a mother to our 6-month-old.' AITA? UPDATED 2X

When this man is upset with his wife's parenting, he asks the internet:

"AITA for telling my wife she needs to step it up as a mom for our six month old?"

Throw away account here. I know the title sounds bad but let me explain. This is going to be a long post. About six months ago my wife gave birth to our beautiful baby girl and it was one of the best moments in our lives.

My wife was on maternity leave for about three months and then went back into work. She was actually supposed to be on maternity leave for a month longer, but decided to go back to work early.

This information is important later. My wife and I both work full-time jobs and currently right now we have a family member who is babysitting her every day.

( This is during the time when my wife was at home full-time on maternity leave) I noticed after the first month or so that my wife’s sister would come over a lot to help her. I didn’t think much of it as I’m sure it was nice to have some help when I wasn’t there.

Her sister would initially come over maybe once or twice a week, but that radically changed into every single day. Sometimes I would get home and my wife’s sister would still be there helping her with the baby. I gently asked if everything was okay to which my wife dismissed as her just needing help.

My wife’s sister on the other hand, pulled me to the side one time and told me that my wife was having a hard time being around the baby, especially when she needs a diaper change, was throwing up and all the other little messy things babies do. I brushed it off as something that she would get over.

(This is about three months after my wife gave birth). My wife decides she wants to go back to work a month early. And since then, we’ve both been working full-time with the babysitter coming four days a week.

This is where I start noticing more about my wife’s behavior towards our baby. The few times my wife has changed our daughters diaper, I could hear her gagging…

My wife is a highly sensitive person and get grossed out easily. She hates when people chew with their mouths open. She can’t look at anything remotely unsettling before a meal or she’ll lose her appetite.

We don’t own any pets because she thinks animals are gross, etc. These are all things that I didn’t think too much about as everyone has different sensitivity levels. And I thought she knew what she was getting herself into when we both agreed that we wanted kids. Kids are messy and gross sometimes and I thought she could handle it.

She then started asking me to change our daughters diaper every single time. When my daughter throws up, she expects me to clean it up, every single time.

Even now when our daughter is crying, she almost ignores her and side glances to me that I should deal with it. I have no problem doing these things, but when I ask her why she can’t do it she says things like poop grosses her out because she doesn’t like the smell or the sight of seeing it.

This has a really started to affect me because our daughter usually wakes up around 3 AM for a diaper change and I am expected every morning to get up and change her when it should be a switch off every other night. It’s really starting to affect my work.

So a couple nights ago when she woke me up to tell me to change our daughters diaper, it was around 4 AM and I snapped and told her that she needs to step it up as a parent and a mom and help me do these things as I can’t always be the one to do them every single time. I told her that I thought it was weird and immature that she couldn’t do the simplest things like changing a diaper.

She obviously didn’t like that and she’s been giving me cold shoulder since then. How should I approach the situation and am I the asshole here?

Before we give you OP's updates, let's take a look at some top responses:

cream0 writes:

I had hyper emesis during both pregnancies. During my second pregnancy it got so bad that I was unable to change a poop diaper, even with a mask and then.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, for him, my husband works just a few minutes from the house and so I would have to call him and have him come home and help with poopy diapers for the first 16 weeks of my pregnancy.

I fully realized how ridiculous that was. I was very remorseful. So to say that, I understand to some extent, but it didn’t ever stop me from bonding or snuggling with my daughter

agah writes:

100%. As a mom of 5, I say it often and with all the love in the world- parenting is a literal shit show lol. Even before we had our sons together, one of my first memories with my stepdaughter (she was 4 when we met, amazing 15 yo now) is helping her change and clean up after she wet/had an accident in bed.

What broke my heart was that she was terrified to tell me at first what happened, because at her mom’s house she said she would get screamed at and shamed for it, and told she was “disgusting” and a “baby”.

We actually bonded a great deal that night because I treated her with empathy and understanding, not treating her like a chore I was disgusted by…she actually never wet her bed when with us again (we had 50/50 custody).

Now that she is older, we still legally have 50/50 but she chooses to stay with us most of the time. Point is-this needs to be addressed ASAP because the child IS going to pick up this energy from the mom, and it will do damage.

Despite being “sensitive” before having a baby, a big factor as others have mentioned may be PPD. We are far more likely to get over the “yuck” part of parenting when we feel that emotional attachment, if she is dealing with PPD she may not be able to feel it. Which wouldn’t be her fault, as long as she can do what’s best for the baby, your family, and herself and seek help right away.

hahaui writes:

NTA, My husband,too, is grossed out by vomit, poop and everything else that smells. I'm the one who clean the toilettes and taking out the trash. That's ok for me. But he wanted kids, it was his big dream to become a dad.

I told him beforeahead that if I give birth to a kid, I don't want to feel like a single parents, that I am just not able to do all nights by myself, do all the care by myself.

I'm fine with changing clothes after vomiting and full diapers through the day, but that I want at least every other weekend that he gets up at night to calm the baby down and of course change the clothes or diapers when needed.

That if he is alone with the baby while I have an appointment or whatever, he needs to chance the diapers, too, he can't wait for me to come home.

That if the kid get a little older and the daycare or school calls because the kid is sick, he has to step up, too, as soon as I have all my kid-sick days used off(in my country both parents have the same amount of days they can stay home with sick kids while being paid). He agreed. We got a kid.

There were moments I heard him gag while changing diapers while I tried to go back to sleep and I'm sorry for that. But I'm still a person with needs, too. I also need to sleep.

Our daughter is 2,5 by now, but still wakes up at nights sometimes and of course she gets sick now and then and she just won't do 100% of the poop in her potty. 98% of the time I'm changing diapers, 99% of the time I'm with her when she is sick, I stay up 95% of the time in the nights if she has nightmares or is ill.

But for that little % left, I want my husband to step up so I can have some rest when I need it. And he does. He feels really uncomfortable with the 'gross stuff', but he knows that it is his responsibility as a parent.

Your wife has a responsibility, too. She knew that she has sensory issues but she still wanted a kid. She knew that kids poop and vomit. Still she wanted a kid. So yes, she needs to suck it up or get herself some professional help to work on her issues.

If you have enough energy left, you can suggest that you will do the 'gross stuff' as long as she needs with her therapy to be able to cope with her issues (or at least give her a period of time that you can manage to get up alone before she needs to help).

But while I'm feeling sorry for your wife, your health matters, too. She can't expect you to do all the care work with the baby. And as soon as your daugther gets older she will recognize that her own mother is grossed out by her.

She needs a mother who is able to be there for her when she is sick. I feel sorry for kids who know that one parent isn't able to care for them, it strains their relationship, too. To develop a healthy relationship with her own kid and bond with her, your wife needs to cope with her issues.

That being said I think that while your not an A for telling her she needs to step up, you are kind of TA for not taking your SIL concerns serious from the beginning and got your wife the help she needed immediately.

You first started to taking her problems serious when it started to affect you more. While she should have told you about her struggles, it seems you didn't care that much about your wife while she was post-partum and left your SIL with the care of your wife and baby. It's nice that she took care of them, but it's not ok that you left her with this responsibility all alone.

misterleave writes:

I’m reading your words and thinking about if the gender roles were reversed, if you were averse to smelly/gross leaky babies and your wife wanted some help taking care of the baby.

It seems like you (I mean this in the plural, you as a couple) don’t want to have kids. Messiness doesn’t end after the diaper stage ends.

But the baby you have already produced needs to be cared for in a loving, accepting way. Your shrinking away from baby’s effluent is a memory that child will retain. For the sake of the child, you should really step up. Pretend, in the night and at odd times when the duty falls on you, that you are suddenly a single parent.

Please treat your child in an accepting manner at all times. And please reconsider producing more children, while you are having this trouble/parental conflict with only one.

One day, this little child will be puttering around learning about life from you. You have an opportunity to make the next generation better than yours. Parenthood is the most difficult job. It starts in a strangely unrelated way and it never ends.

While you’re taking care of this child, envision teaching them to drive, to fix engines, to catch and throw a softball, to mow your lawn and shovel your driveway.

One day, all of this will happen, if you get this starting out stuff right.

simplerub9 writes:

She may have post-partum depression and some of this kind of sounds like that… it could even amp up her gag response to the smells and sights…

maybe since her sister was really supportive and helping her but you have now shamed her for not taking to motherhood quickly enough, her sister could maybe talk with her about PP depression and help her talk to her doctor about it.

Also, yeah you may have to continue taking on the bulk of the baby duties until her issues are sorted but that’s also part of parenthood. For nine months she was growing an entire human with her body and her body and hormones don’t just bounce right back to normal after that.

It takes a couple of years to actually fully recover after creating a human being so possibly show her some love, support, and grace while she goes through that instead of treating her like an inconvenience because you don’t get as much sleep as you’d like… that’s also just part of parenthood… parents of infants are usually quite sleep deprived it’s part of the gig.

Oh and yeah you’re the asshole for saying that to her rather than communicating your concerns like a grown up and giving her space to open up about what’s going on with her.

Update 1:

Yeah I think you are tbh. It sounds like a story we're hearing from only one side. Regardless, why not have an adult conversation rather than "snapping". Wild.

Because I’ve been changing our daughters diapers for the last six months and every time I try to bring it up to her, she says that she can’t do it because it grosses her out. Did you even read the whole post? I snapped because she woke me up at 4 AM when she was already awake she could’ve just gotten up and done it.

Is she holding, feeding, interacting, bonding with baby other than changing time? Our baby is mostly bottle fed because both of us work. The interacting and holding is pretty 50-50 between the both of us.

So she does everything else for the baby but your annoyed about being on diaper duty? So why do you deserve to sleep why she doesn't? Why can't you handle nights?

All I am hearing is you want mom to take on all Chile related tasks.... We do everything pretty much 50-50 except for this one thing. Like I said, I wouldn’t mind it as much but because of my daughters sleep schedule she usually wakes up early in the morning and cries because she pooped in her diaper.

I don’t think it’s asking to much to have my wife get up and change her diaper a couple nights a week so that I can get a full eight hours of sleep like she does every night.

Update 2:

Hey guys, I just wanna say I did not think my post would blow up but I’m glad it did. Thank you to everyone who commented and for those who were understanding and polite about the situation.

My wife and I are both first time parents so we obviously don’t know everything when it comes to parenting but I am trying to be more understanding of my wife’s feelings.

One question that a lot of people asked was why did we have a child when she is so hypersensitive to smells and gross things?

To answer that question we did have multiple conversations on this topic before we had even gotten married and despite her known sensitivities, she has told me that she wants a family. I did not force or pressure her to have a child with me. We are also both Christian and abide by our faith to have a family.

Based on the plethora of comments, saying that my wife might have postpartum depression, thank you. I didn’t even realize that might be the case. Just goes to show that this potential phase a mother can go through should be talked about more during the pregnancy phase.

I did talk to my wife last night and apologized for my rude attitude a couple nights prior. I also asked her if she would like to go to the doctor to get evaluated for PPD. She agreed and we’re doing a bit better now.

As for the diaper changing, I was honest with her in saying that it would be unfair if I was expected to take care of all the messy outcomes of our daughter, especially as she gets older. My wife agreed and said that she will try to help out more in those areas by wearing gloves and a mask. To the top comment thank you for that advice!