Dh overdosed my SN DC at hospital now

[Worried20]

My dh has given my non verbal dc 4 times the dose of his medicine. He fell asleep and it was only when I jokingly said you haven't given him his sleep meds have you? That he realised he had given him 30mg instead of 7.5mg of a med he takes to control his adhd.

He has been monitored but won't tolerate heart monitors even while asleep.

I am at home with other dc as I don't drive and hospital 12 miles away and didn't want to put other dc at risk.

I'm so angry, worried and upset. Not only for the careless and insane overdose but for putting him at risk of catching Covid -19.

He has moved to a ward to keep monitoring. Dh has been obsessively working from home, was the one job of giving a drink with meds in too much to ask while I fixed my other dc breakfast.

What the hell can I do assuming this is ok for my dc. I have never ever made such an error. I'm not perfect but he has really fucked up.

[SleepingStandingUp]

So if a 3/4 years old can cock it up then so an older man can too
Sorry can you explain??

[Healthyandhappy]

Hi my daughter drank calpol before was told was been referred onto social services. Anyways I had the school nurse instead but be aware of an impending referral xx

[BeetrootRocks]

Yes I would go mental
He put his child in hospital
He was neglectful

I'm baffled at the amount of leeway this guy is getting. He didn't just overdose him, he didn't give him his drink. It's shit.

[WhittlingIhopMonkey]

My DD used to take 25mg of her epilepsy medicine a day. The tablets were 5mg so we gave her 5 tablets at a time.
One pharmacist then filled her prescription with 25mg tablets (meaning we only needed to give her 1 tablet) but I didnt realise and gave her 5 (so 125mg instead of 25mg)

I had to ring the poison helpline, I was absolutely devastated when I realised. Luckily her medicine didnt cause overdoses/fatalities and she was fine.

My point is mistakes happen. As long as your DH is remorseful I wouldnt get mad at him (well not for long anyway !)

[WickedlyPetite]

Not on purpose
Not to piss off his partner
Not to kill his son

But there's still a difference between an accident and negligence and neglect.

The guy got up, made himself a coffee, didn't even get his non-verbal child a drink or anything for an hour, and if the OP hadn't reminded him, the child probably wouldn't have got his medicine at all.

So if a 3/4 years old can cock it up then so an older man can too

Huh??

[Grandmi]

RU 562342....exactly!!

[prisonofficersareimportanttoo]

It sounds like an easy mistake by someone who isn't used to giving your son his meds. But the way you refer to him as 'my' rather than 'our' son shows how this has happened. The bulk of caring responsibility falls to you. So when DH has had to do it, he's made an error. You can tell it's an error because he has given his child the dose of his evening meds.

We've had similar before streamlining the mediation for our son where DH and I both gave him his ADHD meds. Luckily for us it was only a double dose and he was fine. I know it is harder with liquid medication so if you can at all get your son to take tablets, it would be more visible that you were overdosing or taking the wrong medication.

The way you deal with it is by both you and DH acknowledging that it was may have been a mistake but it was a careless mistake. Moving forward, put in a routine where both of you are responsible for giving your son his medication. Your DH needs to get more involved with his children - I assume the others are also his. It doesn't matter if he is normally not around to do this, if he is only working from home due to the current pandemic situation.

You are both in this together and you need to work together to get through this. Blaming each other isn't going to help, harbouring resentment that he fucked up isn't going to help, because as soon as you mess up even slightly, it will come back to bite you.

[MIgZig]

It sounds like your husband was putting his own needs before those of his child. To not automatically consider what your child needs on waking is neglect. The amount of medicine is a mistake, but to forget or neglect to provide a drink and medicine is unforgivable.

[thatwouldbeanecumenicalmatter]

Ignore justanarse, sorry I mean justaboy, he likes to pop up on threads saying any old shite to derail and make it all about him.

Hope your DS is ok Worried20

[Worried20]

He's allowed to come home soon, after being observed for 6 hours since he moved to a ward. The overdosed med was Clonidine.

Thank you to everyone who has commented apart from the couple of idiots. It really helped me, I've told two close friends in rl but I feel kind of ashamed of what he's done.

I just can't wait to have my son home and spoil him as much as I can. He will have been so confused.

[Inthemuckheap]

@1forsorrow you are so right. I have staff on their knees at the moment covering for others who have gone off for various reasons mostly C-19 related. If they made a meds mistake I would understand - I wouldn't be happy and would go through the same procedures as at any time - but I would understand.
Really hope you DC makes a full recovery OP and do be kind to your OH - he will likely be in bits about this.

[Thingscanonlygetwetter]

I hope your son is ok.
My ds was given a dose of morphine by his dad , thought it was calpol. The phone call to me and then me drive home, while he phoned for help was awful. I expected an ambulance to be there picking him!
We were told everything would be ok and do nothing. If he’d been taken in after an accident with broken leg or something he’s have been given the same. They seemed very understanding/ not worried.
No ss referel etc and his dad couldn’t feel any worse himself

[anonymousLangFan]

Mumsnet is so weird sometimes. The biggest worry here seems to be how the poor poor husband who has time for work and coffee is feeling. Some even insinuating it's not fair to expect him to perform a parenting task if the poor man also has to work.

[Durgasarrow]

It's neither offensive or not offensive to imply that the father did something wrong deliberately to the child. We don't know this person. We also don't know all the facts. Is this medicine in pill form or liquid form? It's one thing to get confused about whether to put 30 mg. liquid or 7.5 mg liquid into a drink. But if it's 1 30 mg. pill v. four 7.5 mg pills, it looks like less of a mistake and more like something suspicious. Because there's no reason why a doctor would dose someone with four pills that add up to 30 mg when she could just prescribe 1 30 mg pill.

[Soontobe60]

@Durgasarrow

It was liquid, and the dose he gave was the dose the child normally has in the evening. So actually, it's a very easy mistake to make. Your suggestion that the father had purposely overdosed his own son was just plain nasty.

[Durgasarrow]

No, it's not nasty. The father did not do this extremely important job with the care it deserved. He was not paying enough attention to do it properly. He may not have harmed the child deliberately, but he did harm the child.

[managedmis]

Good news, op

[Sirzy]

I’m glad he is coming home.

I have set alarms on my phone to remind me when to do all of Ds feeds and different meds at the moment because with normal routines out the window and everyone that bit more stressed it does make things even harder.

[lborgia]

Omg, how is everyone being so pro-DH?

This is absolutely about not giving it the due care and attention it needs. It’s not about sinister reasons, it’s about being careless with his child. I’ve had this a couple of times, and yes the reasons were “it was early..I’m not used to doing it” but by far the worst is “I assumed...”.

If he has ever accidentally put salt in his own coffee, absent mindedly put diesel in a petrol car, then maybe there’s a precedent, but I think this is because it doesn’t require the same level of attention as his very busy work.

[justilou1]

I would be furious, tbh. I know this is a stressful time, but this is his kid, he made himself a coffee and gave the kid an iPad so that the kid would bugger off and leave him alone. It was deliberate negligence that led to this overdose. He didn’t give the child anything to drink. He didn’t check the medication. He didn’t even think to feed the child. He was not thinking of the child’s needs at all. He was only thinking of himself. I am quite sure he is aware of this, and I am quite certain that OP is too. I think he should not be let off easily or with kindness. This was not simple human error at all. It was negligence and lack of care.

[mathanxiety]

It is a very stupid mistake. I honestly know I wouldn't make that mistake.

I also know I wouldn't get up and make myself a coffee and leave my son without a drink for an hour.

I would not excuse this.

I agree with Justilou and others - this was fecklessness, selfishness, and "negligence and lack of care".

Don't let him get away with this, @Worried20. Your anger, frustration and impatience are not misplaced. You absolutely should be able to trust your child's father to focus on what he should be doing in the home with his child.

Tell him what you expect for the future in no uncertain terms.

Don't let him turn this into a pity party for him ('I'm so upset about covid and the economy and so worried about all of you, woe is me, boo hoo').

You all dodged a bullet. He needs to apologise sincerely and without reservation.

[Oblomov20]

Many of these posts seem like total total overreactions: "I’d be livid. id kill him."

For goodness sake, it was a genuine mistake by Dh. And OP's ds was dozy, but has since woken up, which is good.

This is unfortunate. But not a life or death situation.

Please be kind to your Dh.

[justilou1]

This “genuine mistake” could have killed OP’s kid while he had a coffee and dicked around on his computer, absolutely bloody oblivious

[Oblomov20]

Killed?

[mathanxiety]

He could have ended up needing airway support.

This is not a benign mistake to shrug off.