To think this reaction is self absorbed.

You’ve had some horrible replies, of course a little one could get tangled up inside a duvet cover, I can see how scary that would be.

FWIW if I got upstairs to check on the kids sleeping and I shout my husbands name I expect him to come upstairs, not wait for me to tell him he needs to come up. Last time I did that one of the kids had vomited on me and I was comforting her so I just shouted his name and up he came and helped me clear up.

Morning @Mrsmozza123. I hope you’ve managed to get enough sleep and your DS is OK. Explain to him why he shouldn’t wrap sheets round his neck/head. I have three DS’s and emphasised to them from a young age the importance of being careful with necks because that’s how we breath. They don’t realise.

Have read all your posts but not entire thread. I’m so sorry it appears people piled onto you last night after you’d had such an awful shock, followed by zero empathy from your DH. The pile on must have made you feel a whole lot worse.

IMHO, your DH wasn’t at all supportive and I suggest you talk to him about it again once you’re feeling calmer and have a week or so’s perspective on this.

What he needs to reflect on is:

• If you call a DP from upstairs when you’re not in the habit doing of it, especially if you have kids, they should come immediately. There could be an intruder, a vomiting child or you could be hurt.

• If they don’t come when called and you come downstairs and have clearly had a terrible and unexpected scare, they should show concern and love: give you a hug, get you a drink, show empathy and reassure.

• If a child has apparently hurt their neck or done anything to obstruct breathing, they should check on them themselves. In your shock, you may have missed something.

• They shouldn’t get defensive (e.g. by saying you’re ‘having a go’ at them) when you ask why they didn’t do any of these things. It’s to be expected people act stressed when they’ve had a shock,

Your DP seems immature, uncaring and lacking in empathy.

If he’s prone to defensiveness, when you talk to him about it, explain how it made you feel using ‘I’ statements, rather than ‘you’ statements, so he doesn’t feel attacked, e.g. ‘I feel…:

• anxious you may not come if I called on another (perhaps more serious) occasion;
• unloved that you didn’t seem to appreciate how frightened I was to find our DS in that state, thinking he may not be breathing;
• uncared for that you didn’t look after or reassure me after such a shock and l was left to self-comfort by making my own tea and crying alone to let the shock out;
• concerned about our communication, given you tried to turn it on me and make me feel bad that I expected your support.

If he still doesn’t show any empathy or reflection on what he’d do differently next time, IMHO he’s not good partner material.

Disagree. The question is was the DH unreasonable for assuming criticism where there wasn’t any and for being not only unempathic, but also getting angry. My view is that the answer is that her DH sounds like a twat.

This thread is crazy! I get it OP. I can completely sympathise with that feeling of dread when you think your child is hurt or dead!
I don't want to out myself by going into detail, but I can think of two similar occasions when I thought DC was really in trouble, and my DH reacted like yours. I wonder if it's almost a defensive emotion embedded in them?
I can't understand the pile-on from some posters here. Hopefully they are just keyboard warriors and not that horrible in real life.

Take it down to the basics.
I was scared for my child's wellbeing for a second. Natural adrenaline response had me feeling shaken. Husband chose not to comfort me but to go on the defensive and feel sorry for himself. I come to mumsnet for some compassion.

Your AIBU was about your husband being self absorbed. The only answer to that is no he wasn't. He didn't come when you called and you feel like you were left to deal with the "scary" situation on your own. He can only be on the defensive if you've gone in on the attack in some way. Everyone is minimising because actually although initially frightening it's wasn't an emergency, just a "what if".

You shouldn't post in AIBU if that's not what you are really asking. Post in chat or relationships and say you had a scare and felt unsupported. People will talk you down gently over your insecurity and sympathise with your relationship ( husband in the military).

It’s a very typical and fully human response to adrenaline. The human brain, simplified, can be split into two parts. One is our cave person brain. It’s the bit we share with all mammals. It’s our instincts, our attachment, our emotions, our fight or flight. The other, upper bit, has evolved over time. It’s the bit that rationalises, plans, can think of abstract ideas.

In a moment like seeing your child in that state, the upper bit switches off and the lower bit is in charge. Its instincts and the body would be flooded with adrenaline. As the situation becomes clearer and the upper brain starts to make sense of what is happening it puts the breaks on the lower bit.

That whole process is quite powerful and tears are a way of the body releasing those powerful hormones once the threat has gone. They also express the high emotions that the body is experiencing.

What the OP has described is completely normal.

I don't think you were overreacting op, he's still only 4, seeing anything like that stuck covering a young child's face and round their neck would scare me the same way. Not sure why you're getting such a hard time. Also only took me a quick Google to find this:

https://capt.org.uk/suffocation-prevention/

Your dh sounds like he goes on the defensive to any perceived criticism or disappointment, mine does that too. If he'd been there in the moment and seen your son like that himself I'm sure he wouldn't behaved differently. My dh would prob have thought I was overreacting as well if he hadn't seen it for himself. I'm with you op

Irrational anxiety! I'm sorry what qualifications do you have to diagnosis people based on one post on mumsnet?
Have you diagnosed yourself with being an arsehole?

Crying is never an over reaction....it's a normal human response to stress and no one should ever be shamed for it.

My husband is like this. Everything is about him. He never offers any help or comfort in difficult situations because if you're unhappy he assumes it's something he did and he immediately goes on the defensive. I understand why he's like that but God it's wearing. You can't talk to him about a fucking thing, and he's useless in an emergency.

I think he wasn’t kind, even if he didn’t rush you were obviously worried. It doesn’t take much to comfort sOmeone. His reaction sounds uncaring. Are you generally quite anxious as I say this only if he’s used to you being panicked and has stopped reacting?

Next time he goes away start listening to Dr Ramani on you tube and see if it fits. I suspect it will. If it fits, it will, at least, help you to step away and observe his behaviour differently and make it feel less personal. I’m going to make some massive assumptions based on this, and probably influenced by my own experience, but your DH is a twat!

In a typical MN reaction the majority of replies are posters having a dig at Op and telling her she was over reacting.
Whereas the real point of the post is that Op was panicking, called for help, and her husband ignored her. He didn't know it was a baseless panic (if it was), he just didn't move his lazy arse to find out what was wrong.
Op if you're really in trouble you maybe need to commit to what you yell, something like 'Help me! Quick! Come now I need help!'.

Jeez...you're like a dog with a bone!

Don't you have anything better to do than pick apart an upset mums story and attempt to catch her out?

I think it’s a shame so many people are piling on the op in an unkind fashion.

It’s also frustrating when people on here use anxiety to minimise any reaction they don’t agree with from another woman. In the not so distant past op would have been accused of hysteria. Just another way for women’s opinions and experiences to be dismissed. It’s also very insulting to people who do have genuine anxiety disorders.

If any one of those criticising the op for an over the top reaction walked in to see what they thought was a child not breathing then anxiety would be a very natural response. It’s in fact how our bodies are supposed to react in a life of death situation.

Agree with this

our LO came into bed with us on holiday once - it was a sofa bed. Somehow she managed to go through a gap in the headrest (which was kind of the arm of the sofa) and got trapped by her head. I still sometimes get a bit of a flashback to that, what if we hadn’t woken up and she had hanged herself… though in the moment it happened we actually sorted it out quite calmly, it’s been afterwards I’ve thought about what might have happened.

Exactly. I support this all the way.

I don't think the OP needs reassured that her child won't suffocate in his own duvet cover in the night.
I think she needs reassured that she's not mad to think her dh's reaction was self-absorbed and disproportionate, given she hadn't even accused him of anything.

You got a fright….we can empathise with that. Your going off and crying and blaming your husband seems to me like a massive over reaction. You did ask and seem annoyed at the answers

These posts criticising OP for feeling scared in the moment are totally missing the point. It doesn't matter whether, with all the luxury of hindsight, you think she was justified. The fact is that she was, and when she needed support and a bit of sympathy her husband was more concerned with justifying himself.

OP, I think you need to explain that you were simply telling him what had happened, you weren't criticising him, but that his reaction was unhelpful given that what you needed at that point was support.

I'm sick of reading this passive aggressive nonsense on here.

Ach OP, at first I though maybe you were being a tad precious...but actually, you're not. You're simply describing what happened.
It's one of those scenarios where communication is misfired and misinterpreted. Your dh took your fright as a personal attack, either because he misunderstood you or because he is self-absorbed and can't handle what he perceives as criticism.

I could be wrong but what I think you're really concerned about is your dh's capacity to make things all about him and his feelings.

God some of you posters should be ashamed of yourself - OP had a shock. Even if it was irrational - and I don’t think it was particular out there - she’s genuinely upset and was looking for comfort and reassurance. Why bother posting to be mean?