To think you don't sleep with your phone off if your children are elsewhere

[eslindanunez]

Have been up all night with a vomiting toddler. I live on my own with her and her dad sees her once a week on a Sunday. She started throwing up about midnight last night and carried on doing so for a few hours. We cosleep so the bed was covered in sick, so was I, so was much of the bedroom and the living room and she needed a few changes of pyjamas so that in itself was quite difficult to deal with it as she wouldn't let me put her down. I tried calling and WhatsApping her dad to ask him to come over so that he could at least hold her while I changed the bed and had a shower and just for moral support ( was quite worried as she's never been sick before) but his phone has clearly been turned off as the messages haven't even been registered as read. That's still the case now at nearly 8 AM. Am I being unreasonable to think that if you're somewhere other than where your children are (he also has two other children from a previous relationship) that you don't just turn your phone off and go to sleep? Because things happen and obviously this wasn't even that bad but it could've been a lot worse! I can't imagine being away from DD and not having a means to be contacted should something happen.

But merchant the on-duty parent having a hard time is about you not your baby. There's a huge difference between asking your DP (who should care about you) and your ex who has absolutely no obligation to care. It's unreasonable to expect them to, especially in the middle of the night.

I didn't once say sexism works wholly in a women's favour. Just that when a mum demands more custody solely because she's the mum then she needs to take responsibility for that and not complain about a bit of vomit.

No... if the parent is struggling to cope, it's likely to be the child that suffers. Hence, even if you have the utmost contempt for your ex and couldn't care less if they're up to their ears in vomit, weeping and dead on their feet, you step in because your child needs their other parent.

And again, if you think a mum 'demands more custody solely because she's the mum' you've got a lot to learn.

Bottom line is... if a mother isn't the resident parent, society wants to know why. What's wrong with her.

Man fathers two sets of kids (see OP) and lives with neither... no problem. Leave him be, poor chap.

merchant you clearly aren't reading what I'm saying. Not once did I say all mum's.

If a person can't cope for one night on their own then they need to get a grip. It doesn't matter how you phrase there are many of us who are never going to agree that it's reasonable to wake up your ex in the middle of the night for some vomit.

The OP can and did cope. But it comes back to why should she have to when the child's father could help her and clearly isn't doing much else in the way of parenting.

Aderyn you clearly have a very different view to me. It really doesnt matter how many times you say it. I don't think it's reasonable and I never will. At most I would say call in the morning and ask if he can help so she can catch up on sleep but even then if he's busy (and it's not his contact day of course) he has no obligation to help.

Yes it is Dianag but I can't imagine it'd go down too well if he was asking her to have the DC a night after being sick. He'd be told to get on with it and it's just one of those things, especially if she'd already made plans.