Husband left his friends who I don’t know alone in our house with our 6 month old

Honestly OP, on a website full of (what seems like) useless fathers and husbands, you sound like you have a really good one.

Please just listen to those of us saying he did the best for everyone in the circumstances, he presumably knows his friends well enough to trust them, didn't want to disturb you on your day out (this in itself makes him a green flag!) and everything and everyone was fine in the end.

I am team DH here. Now I know that MN is primarily mums. There will always be slant towards our fellow mum. Bias is maybe a strong word, just a fraction off centre. But here we've gone full Fox News on the bias stakes.

I am not quoting one poster in particular, but in summary:

DH had friends around while parenting. Would we honestly tell a woman off for this? No, we call it "staying connected" or "using my support network".

Question DH judgement over suitability of friends, but would we distrust a mothers judgement, in the absence of any suggestion that we shouldn't? A man would be called controlling and told that given he was out of the picture he had no right to comment.

The guy should mess about calling for permission? The euphemism is "discuss" but we really mean permission, meanwhile the girl is screaming in agony. "Just wait dear, with your shoulder bone sticking out, while I make sure the wife is happy. Oh, no signal, she's not answering, maybe we should wait until mum gets home" Don't think so. Or maybe a poster would say that he should deal with it himself and allow OP to have her once in a blue moon coffee afternoon in peace.

Maybe we should be patting this guy on the back for using the tools he was given in a crisis. If there is drip feed that DH and his mates are all thieves/ druggies/low life bums then perhaps OP is right to call in to question his wisdom. But otherwise? Sounds like a good guy.

I understand it's all been a bit new and unsettling for you, but that context makes it even more correct that he handled the situation without spoiling your rare treat.

Honestly, you're allowed to be unsettled by it, but he sounds like one if the good guys to me.

OP I do understand why you’re concerned and I think in a normal situation he would have been unreasonable.
but in this emergency situation, sounds like he did the right thing. Baby is statistically safer at home than in the car, especially in a stressful situation.

this.

Honestly some of the responses here just make me realise what a crisis of trust and community we are in at the moment.

This is a nice example of a functional society: a mother, a son, and three friends he has known since he was a child have been able to rally around and get an 11 year old who has had a nasty accident to hospital and care safely for a six month old baby.

Would rather live in this world than the world that some people on this thread live in where they wouldn't leave their baby with a friend because they are worried about child sexual abuse or shaken babies, or would let their young sister wait in pain for goodness knows how long for the over-stretched NHS to find an ambulance.

Broken arm and collar bone is pretty awful. I guess the alternative would be take baby with but that's far from ideal.
Did the female friend have kids? Did any of them?

It sounds like an exceptional circumstance where his decision making was under a lot of pressure.

I agree. She’d have had a better time being fussed over by friends then in a car for an hour, half of that with an upset child.

I think you're being unfair to him to be honest. These are friends he's known his whole life and he felt comfortable leaving the baby with them for a short time. He's the baby's father, surely you should trust his judgement?

Exactly, so he prioritised his sister over his baby and his wife.

Leaving a baby with someone other than a parent is a very big deal. This wasn’t really an emergency in the sense that there were not simple work-arounds. The husband could have sent a friend to play chauffeur . He could have called a taxi. There was no real reason he needed to go himself.

If I had to go collect someone and drop them off somewhere, I wouldn’t leave my 6 month old with my friends. I’d take her with me! It’s weird to just leave your child with other people instead of just putting them in the car to go on an errand. The friends could have then hung out and had a relaxing drink and waited for me to return.

So the OP tells him what to do next time and he can’t make an autonomous decision about his own child?

No wonder there are so many useless men around when women treat them like they can’t make basic decisions about their family. The baby was fine with these trusted friends. There was no problem.

Which is why he didn't ring you, he didn't need you to come home, didn't need you to make the decision for him, or give him permission, and didn't want to be the one responsible for you cutting your outing short for no reason.

His sister has fell off her bike, had broken bones and was no doubt in a lot of pain, your only options to give him would have been:

Have a discussion with you, maybe even an argument if he didn't agree.

Make him take baby, so spend longer prepping to take baby with him, knowing full well if she needed attention while he was driving that he couldn't give it to her?

or wait for you to get home before he could leave?

None of the above is reasonable IMO, and all would have delayed getting treatment for his sister, he made an informed decision, the friends were fine, baby was fine, sister made it to A&E to get treatment promptly, and you had a nice time out oblivious. If it wasn't an emergency I could see your point, but he handled that really well IMO and you need to appreciate he made the best decision by baby, his sister, AND by you.

Yes she’ll be deeply disturbed by being left for an hour at 6 months old.

The reality is that she probably had such a fuss made of her that she will have been delighted with life.

But no. Let’s leave the 11 year old in agony lest the six month old have to face such a traumatic event as being left with nice people for an hour.

Agreeing with pp that in general the husband’s judgement should be trusted.

However, going to A&E you never know how long it will take to be seen so I’d personally rather bring my baby with me. Might have added some time to get ready and I assume he didn’t know how serious trouble the sister was in at the time.

I‘ve done too many safeguarding training sessions to be fully okay with the situation, but they where three unrelated adults which tends to help from a safety perspective (compared to just a family/couple or one lone individual).

And? He could have paid for a taxi if money was a problem. You know you can actually call a taxi for someone else? It really wasn’t that necessary for him to drop everything without telling his wife.

Read the update duck

This is crazy, babies are well known for needing known faces around be it a parent, grandparent or whatever, to leave her with strangers was stupid. She could easily have been unsettled. Add into that the op obviously has issues about leaving her that the dh would of course be aware of it would seem an unpleasant thing to do knowing she'd hate it.

If there's a next time tell him to stick the baby in the car seat while he taxis people or I don't know, ring you and see if you want to come home?

I think YABU a little bit. I can understand if you’ve not left your baby often this probably feels like more of a big deal. However, ultimately your DH made a judgment call in an emergency situation, I think you both need to be able to trust your partner in that scenario, even if you might have made a different call.

Your baby is safe, nothing went wrong.

It’s not about you. It’s really not. He did the right thing.

Agree with this. Its his baby too. Most people manage just fine to leave baby for the first time. Its not such a big deal

Oh yes he can. But not about leaving a baby and f* off when it’s not actually that necessary (he had at least 3 options other than leaving OP in the dark).

Why did his mom not call an UBer if her daughter was in such agony? It would have been faster than waiting for the husband to drive over, no?

It’s more your outrage that he dared to have his friends over. That pile of shite undermines every other point that you make on this thread because it shows your clear agenda. Not to be taken seriously.