In a nutshell: You have a rare night of drinking planned and your baby is unusually sick, but after vomiting looks lively. Your spouse is looking after the baby. Do you still go out? Do you still drink? How drunk do you let yourself get?
Details: DH has a friend visiting this weekend. They go back years, see each other maybe twice a year and are guaranteed to get shitfaced when they meet up. Not normally a problem. Tonight, they were sitting in the back yard, taking it steady and contemplating whether to go out. I went up to check on our baby (11 months) and found that he’d been sick. (Just to clarify, I had his monitor on, but I hadn’t heard or seen anything out of the ordinary.) He’s been sick nine times since he was born, and each time was just a tiny inoffensive bit of sicky spittle. He’s just never been a sicky baby. Tonight, he properly spewed, soaked his mattress and was caked in the stuff. So something was definitely wrong – not just a baby being a baby. I told DH, took DS for a bath, and within minutes, DH came to see DS and, having seen him upright and lively, informed me that he and his friend were going out. I was a bit surprised. If the boot was on the other foot I’d have at least hung around to make sure DS settled ok, and checked that DH was happy for me to go. But I suppose he had a friend to entertain and I was handling things. So off they went. Within half an hour, DS was sick again, in a big way. Didn’t feel like it was going to stop. Went all over everything, including me. So I call DH, to let him know. He’s not answering so I leave a message. Take DS up for another bath. Come back down. Call again. Still no answer so I leave another message. Half an hour later DH calls. Says maybe baby should sleep in our room tonight. I say ok. But my hands are full with DS so I wait for DH to come home so I can get the cot set up in our bedroom. Time goes by. DS falls asleep in bed with me. Eventually DH gets home, and he’s paralytic, falling around drunk. Falls into bed and passes out. I take baby out of his way and sleep elsewhere.
At the moment, I’m doing the night shift keeping an eye on DS every now and then. I can’t smell anything but sick and I’m completely knackered. So I might be being harsh. But DH not only went out immediately he knew there was a problem, leaving me to deal with things – he also gave himself permission to get so completely shitfaced he wouldn’t be any use to anybody if things took a turn for the worse. He has previous form for pleasing himself at my expense, but let’s assume this is a one-off. Would you be ok with this, or would he have a suitable punishment waiting for him in the morning?