Vent....

[turnlisa]

The thing is that you have to make him realize that there are 2 of you. I have two DSs. When my oldest was a baby, my DH travelled a lot and purposefully worked longer hours at the office. I am not a stay at home mom but work 40 hours a week in the computer programming field. With my DH being a workaholic, this means that I had to give up some career aspirations since I felt my child deserved at least one full-time parent. It got so bad that when my DS got up in the morning, he would look at my DH and cry! That was when I decided things had to change. We had both made this child, made the decision to have him, and he was going to have 2 parents! (Can you tell I am a feminist yet? ) I put myself into a position at work where I had to travel for a business trip. This forced my DH to have to stay at home with my DS. I came home to a messy house and a more understanding DH.

Now we have a second child and my DH is much more involved in the children's lives. He makes time from work to spend time with us and has learned to put us first. It helped a lot when I compared him to his father who is known for never having played with him as a child. Force the issue a little bit and insist on the family time. Go for it, girl!

 

[justhat]

My husband is sort of like this too, I think mostly because men in his family don't interact much with kids until they are at least 2. My FIL proudly says that he has never changed a diaper and he has 4 kids. I, on the other hand, came from a family where not only was my father very involved in my life early on, but so was my grandfather and 3 of my uncles. So to me, it's natural for men to have a role in a young child's life so I encourage my husband to do so whenever possible. My daughter also cries whenever he holds her, kind of like turnlisa's son, but I still hand her over several times a day when he's home (which still isn't much since he gets home around 8pm and leaves for work before she wakes up). I would love to leave her with him for a few hours and go out, but she won't take a bottle from anyone other than me anymore (weird I know cause most breastfed babies only take bottles from people other than the mom). Once she will, however, I do plan on leaving him with her so he can see what it's like to be a parent with no one else to help you, like I do all day. He has slowly gotten better too and now when I hand him our daughter he'll sometimes change her diaper without my prompting!

 

[HappyLawyer]

talk to him and let him know how you feel, good luck in working this out

 

[DWhittles]

Thanks guys!
It's nice to know there are other famlies who have the same issue! I felt like I was swimming in a sea of wonderful daddies and I wasn't married to one.