To be fuming DH left our 8yo to supervise the baby while he mowed the lawn??

So by your logic, she should be just as angry at herself for regularly leaving her kids unattended while she showers and her DH is out, surely?

I'd be angry at the 8yo for behaving the way she did, not the husband.

If something bad had happened surely your 8 year old would have run out and yelled for her dad? Same as if something happened when you're in the shower. You can't possibly know from the shower if your baby is choking on something.
My older two were a lot older when I had DS so it's a bit different but even at 8 I would expect them to know better than to draw on their sibling.
Is it just that you find it easier to blame DH than to deal with DDs bad behaviour?

I would be angry at your husband too. You say you were only popping to the shop and would be 10 minutes. Why did he decide it was at that exact moment he needed to start mowing the lawn? Surely he could have waited until you got back. He didn’t watch the baby and left an 8 year old to do his job.

Sorry, but what type of showers do people have where you could actually hear a baby falling or choking from another room when the shower is on?!!!

YANBU. An 8yo can watch a baby in a different room if there’s an adult available to hear them shout in an emergency. Mowing the lawn in the garden would prevent this. Of course it’s not the same as getting in the shower. I wouldn’t care about the biro, kids do daft stuff without really thinking it through sometimes.

Maybe it's your 8 year old who is the problem. An average 8 year old is capable of watching a baby for a few minutes. Why would they draw on the baby - it can't be something they've seen others do?

Children can learn from taking responsibilities - your child needs more guidance to understand how this would work.

Sorry, just can’t agree on the shower thing. Some people do shower with kids roaming, some don’t. We didn’t. You can’t hear anything with the shower running. What if the baby gets hold of a pen/ toiletries/ climbs the stair gate/ chokes on something. Literally anything can happen and you can’t hear or see it. You just can’t.

Because an 8 year old should be able to watch their sibling for 15mins without drawing all over them in biro

You are being utterly ridiculous.

The person you should be cross with is your 8yo. She should know better than tondraw on her sibling...although based on your posts I suspect you are mollycoddling her.

im with you OP . Why couldn’t he just watch the baby and do the lawn after.

That isn’t the same thing at all!

A 16 month old is not a baby for a start. An 8 year old should be perfectly capable of keeping an eye on a toddler for 15 minutes while a parent is in the garden. It’s not like he went to the pub for the evening! He was in the garden! Immediately available if there were any issues. If your 8 year old doesn’t know to shout for/go and get a parent in the case of an emergency (or indeed what to do in the event a parent collapses, or there’s a fire etc etc) you have done something wrong (and you should be talking them through/showing them what to do quick smart).

I also think what happened in that short time was pretty hilarious, although I wouldn’t let the 8 year old know they and would tell them off!

For me, it’s the strength of feeling that I’m finding hard to square, @Erisheck.

My immediate reaction on coming home to a scribbled-on baby and a husband who wasn’t watching would probably be WTF and (I don’t like this about myself) I’d prob moan a bit about dereliction of duty etc.

But within a few mins, I would have calmed down, realised that no-one died, that sometimes I do similar things eg the shower, and that my 8-year-old needs a word. I’d have used it as a reflective opportunity - why am I cross? What does this tell me about how we collectively parent? And I’d sit down with my husband after bedtime and have a chilled out convo about where the line is and why. Why can’t my eight year old be trusted and what we can we do about it, and what does that mean for the decisions we make about our attention.

What’s interesting to me is that you are STILL cross even though the feedback that you are getting is that your DH was not negligent and just made a different parenting choice that you don’t agree with.

It’s a lot of energy to expend on being cross.

There is no way an 8 year old doesn’t realise drawing on a sibling is wrong, unless there is some kind of learning disability. You are babying your child here and letting her get away with being really naughty under the guise of ‘I’m a baby and don’t know better.’ She isn’t a baby she is a reasonably aged child who should have a clear grasp on right and wrong!

If your house is child-proofed and your baby was in a safe place (in a playpen or so), you are both reasonably to mow to lawn and take a shower.

If your house is not, mowing is totally irresponsible, showering is somewhat irresponsible, and it's idiotic not to have child-proofed the house. The latter is on both of you.

And how on earth does DC8 not know not to mess with the baby?

Perhaps most importantly: why are you doing all kinds of contortions to defend DC8 and all kinds of contortions to have the severest possible cause against your husband?

An 8 year old (with no SEN) knows better than to draw on a baby.

Your 8 year old is behaving worse than my 4 year old, who I can leave with his 18 month old brother for a few mins with the door open, tv on and regular checks. Drawing all over a baby is something I would even be angry at a toddler for so the 8 year old is obviously either very badly behaved, testing boundaries or has a learning disability of some kind. The first two require immediate consequences - if the second is the case your DH is a dick for leaving them alone with the baby.

I know right!

It is possible to feed a child and have the other 2 with in your sight.

Calm down OP!

The 8 year old was given the responsibility of making sure nothing terrible happened to the baby while Dad was 30 seconds away in the garden. He was not at the pub, hadn’t taken drugs etc. He was within easy reach if there was a genuine emergency.

Realistically, Dad got a job done, kids had a marvellous time and baby got a bit grubby. No one got hurt or was truly in danger. Even if they had put a pen lid in their mouth, it sounds like 8 year old could have alerted Dad to the emergency.

You cannot spend your entire lives watching your children. Yes, take reasonable steps but you can’t remove every risk. What if the pens were in a draw? Would that still be your DHs fault?

Take a deep breath and enjoy your children while they are small. If you still have spare time I suggest praying for when the teenage years hit 😂

She still wouldn't know if her toddler was choking, though, which seems to be her main concern here. She'd also be totally unaware if her 8yo was drawing on her toddler unless she owns special pens that make loud noises every time they're used

I just don’t think an 8yo should ever be left in sole charge of a toddler, even for 10 mins. That’s my hill on this one.

And yet you regularly do just that when you disappear off for a shower

Anyone with more than 2 kids does things like this all the time. Oldest minds toddler while BF newborn, or stays with newborn while toddler has a bath or whatever. I don't think Dh was wrong. I'd be chatting to 8yr old, it's awful behaviour and unusual but honestly it's the kind of dumb stunt DS1 would have pulled so I can't be too judgemental! Honestly I think this happened because the 8yr old has never been given this responsibility before and they were having too much fun with it.

I am with OP. If an emergency happened, there is no way the father would have heard.
As quite a young child, I was asked to look after my baby sibling. No, I was not safe to do it and I think parents shouldn’t rely on older children to look after younger siblings. I remember once my mother asked me to walk my 10 month old sibling around the garden in the push chair. I slipped and the sibling fell out into the nettles. My mother was livid.

I’d actually feel more comfortable with them watching a baby than a toddler. My youngest isn’t much older than 16 months old and can get herself into a scrape whilst being supervised, let alone the sheer chaos if she wasn’t adequately supervised. 15 minutes is a looong time to not have eyes on a child that age.