Baby frightened of daddy

[jeanyeeli]

Anyone encounter your baby being frightened of daddy? Everytime my son is being held by daddy (or even look at him) just cries like mad!!! My husband is beginning to be so frustrated and started to hit him.
Help!!!

[MLBW]

Your husband started hitting your baby? Um...is that why the baby is frightened?

[jeanyeeli]

no.... he didnt hit him before - just so when my son started to cry when he holds him.

[joshsmum]

How old is your baby?

[MLBW]

By "hit" do you mean "spank"--or like hitting across the face or something? And if he is hitting him out of frustration--even spanking that's not a good idea anyway.

Is your husband a bit stressed out in general? Like is he nervous around the baby? (How old is your baby?) Is he stressed out at work? Children can often pick up on the stress of adults and it also affects their moods. How does your husband approach the child? Is he gentle, happy, loving--giving the baby a safe feeling? What is the environment like in your home? All of these can affect how the baby reacts to his father. If your son is a particularly sensitive, he may be picky about the people he wants to be held by--if he only sees his father for a brief time every day he may view him as a stranger--as he gets older he may outgrow this--however getting angry at him and taking out frustration physically will only reinforce that fear--it is the adult's (your husband) responsibility to be in control of his emotions and actions--a baby can't do that yet--they don't have the ability.

[jeanyeeli]

Baby is 4 months. Yes, I know it's wrong for my husband to hit him. When I saw it I felt hurt too because my son was slightly bruised afterwards. Hope he does outgrow this...

[Sucellia]

Hi, jeanyeeli

Does he spend daddy-baby time alone? My son loooooooooves his daddy so much. He cannot stop smiling.

My husband always smile at him, gentle with him, talk to him with gentle soft voices......since our son was born. So they have a good bond. I always make sure they get quality daddy-son time alone.

Maybe you husband needs to change his attitude towards baby and he needs to know baby cries! That is a part of baby's job!

I cannot believe your husband hit baby. It is absolutely No-No!
If he does not stop, I am sure your baby will get more frihten of your husband and will not bond.

Sucellia

[Sucellia]

I am not sure if this helps or not.

I am stay home mom so I spend a lot more time with our son than my husband. My husband absolutely loves our son but of course, being daddy is not easy thing to master. It is learning process.

So what I did was I always told him what our son and I did today, what made him laugh, what made him cry, what he liked, what kind of holding position he liked, what made him stop crying and etc every day. So my husband will know these little techniques/tips when he spend time with our son.
I also gave a lot of complements to my husband when he was doing great with our son. It made him feel more confident as daddy and he enjoyed spending time with baby.

One another thing I did was, inform my husband what to expect at each age/month. So my husband will know what our baby is like at 2 months, 3 months, 4 months......and so on.

Maybe you can do the same to help out your husband? Maybe he simply does not know what to do or how to do.

Sucellia