I wish my hubby can be more hands-on and supportive.. my hubby's idea of helping is by staying at home (not going out) with me.. all he does at home is to play iPad, surf youtube, online shopping.. while i do the feeding (via bottle), change diaper, bath, coaxing the baby to sleep 24/7.. I am so stressed out.. how can I talk to him about being more hands on? I need to have time out too..

May I know if you are a house wife? Does your husband do laborious job and long hours? I'm asking this because if your husband is working long hours, he need to destress after coming home from work. I know this might sound unfair to your because you are taking care of kid 24/7 but is totally different kind of stress compare to him. Most importantly you don't want him to feel stress coming to home after work because that lead to adultery, drinking, smoking and gambling. I do suggest you have an agreement with him that he take care of baby for a day once a month or once every 2 weeks. where by you can go out and de-stress. Alternatively you can give him some simple task that he can do daily. Singapore men go army before, if you can train them to do routine stuff they will do it automatically with time. (Example laundry - putting clothes into washing machine) Like Yuna Liz highlighted we perform better without SGT Wife bossing us around.

it took me 4 months to finaly sit and have a good talk w my husb.. he was brought up the way that man goes out to wk while the wife stay at hime and take care of the house and the kids. i cannot possibly blame him fir letting me handle my lo 24/7. what i did was do things that he miss doing w us. like movie date. couple time. so i aak him to help w things at home so i wont be so tired daily and promised that 2 week 1 time we will hv a movie date night. just us. sometimes man are like babies. you hv to tell them then they will do. so he help me out w bottle washing and sterilising. also i make him play w the baby 2 hr daily for more bonding him and lo. it was difficult but until he gt the hang of it. now everything is auto. plus feeding and bathing the baby. and as wen he is off. i start my day at 12 noon.

Take some time and sit him down to talk about it. Tell him that even 15 minutes of break for you is a luxury. Ask him to take a little bit of his time out to play and communicate with baby I.e. feeding baby. It will be hard to suddenly ask daddy to do the diaper change and coax baby to sleep as they do not know baby's preference as well as we do and I definitely do not trust for them to bathe baby so if you are feeding via bottle, that is a great opportunity for him to be a little bit more hands on. If it is your first baby, it will take some time for daddy to get use to accepting a baby into their life. They do not have natural maternal instinct like us. My husband took near to 6 months before starting to get a little bit more involve with baby.

Sometimes the most effective way to get the idea across is the extreme way haha. My partner does the same whenever he is at home. His idea of helping is being around and not really doing much. What I'd do is to plan a day to myself outside and leave him with a list of chores and errands. Strangely enough he completes them when I get back. I think your husband takes it for granted that you'd do everything if you're there. Leave him to babysit his child for a day (or half) and you go out to relax or run errands. He will not ignore his crying child and definitely do his share of parenting ;)

maybe you will have to take things in your hand and show him that unless he helps out, there is not much you can do for long. head out with baby and spend the day out, shopping for essentials and such, but don't cook anything at home for him. maybe he will end up being forced to make something for himself. next time, head out alone on a day when he is at home and tell him it is something you cannot avoid. tell him what is kept where and just go. i am sure that by the time you come back, he will get a dose of what it is like to handle a baby alone the entire day.

Make him sit and talk to him. And tell him the exact things you have stated in your question above. Tell him what kind of help you want from him. Men take longer time t understand and take the responsibility of the new humans in the family because they are not made to do the real chores of the baby. You intentional let the baby on his laps. Let him change the diapers. Don't be available all the time. And do not be the first one to get up when the baby cries.

the only way you can talk to him is by talking to him. tell him that you are too tired and need a break occasionally. he may be scared to take on the daddy duties, but you too are a new mom and tell him so. say that you will help him get comfortable, and he can start by bottle feeding the baby (you can pump). or he can help pat the baby to sleep, or change diaper or clothes, and if nothing else, can play with baby while you get to sleep.

Talk to him and simply state how you hope he can help. Come up with a chores list and assign some to him. Sometimes, I think it is a matter of the other party not knowing how exactly to help. To some, keeping you company while staying out of your way is a way of showing support. Communicate with him and tell him how you feel. Don't be surprised if he thinks that he has been helping and supporting you all these while.

Tell him what you need done. 'Lambing' also helps. Us new dads tend to stretch our partner's patience. If we ask you "can you handle the baby's bottle-feeding/bath/diaper-change/etc.", and you tell us 'it's ok', then we tend to take your answer at face value and continue on in what we were doing before aaking the question. Involve us. Sometimes we need explicit instructions. :P

Totally agree with Yuna. Just take a day off and tell him baby is his for the full day. He will soon realise how much effort it takes to raise a little one. You can also take turns over the weekend, so for eg, Saturday baby can be his responsibility - so bathing, feeding, sleeping, all is his. And yours can be on Sunday.