Please can I ask whether you think I am being unreasonable to be worried about my husband’s stance/behaviour on these kid’s safety issues? When I’ve tried to raise these things with him I usually get told I’m being over-sensitive and very little, if anything, changes. Here goes:
- Leaves dangerous things lying around – for example, antifreeze in a bottle without a lid on the other day (in a VIMTO bottle nonetheless, so very appealing to the kids). Other times – bottles of superglue, random car and or chemical stuff etc. When my eldest was a baby I asked him not to put a device with a button battery within reach in her room. He argued, put it out of reach and then moved it down a few days later without my knowledge. I then found her in said room with said item, with the button battery missing which resulted in an incredibly stressful 45 minutes on the phone to 111 and searching for the battery, worried that her insides could be being burnt by it, as per the BBC info-campaign I’d seen. I found the battery, but that wasn’t really the point.
- Refuses to move his toiletries bag from within reach of the children – these contain his medication and scissors. On another occasion, our 20-month-old accessed his medication from his toiletries bag, after he pooh-pahed my concern about this. He then told me I was being paranoid about her holding his pills as she couldn’t get them out. I decided to let it run while watching her the whole time, to prove the risk to him – within minutes she had the pills out of their packaging and in her hand. He then had to come running through to get them away from her, as I was breastfeeding my youngest. Despite this incident, he still leaves his toiletries and medication in the same place, despite me clearing space for these items in an alternative place in the bathroom.
- Leaves the children in the car alone – its hard to tell how long this is for and at what distance. I know he left both kids in the car when he was at a workshop recently. He told me he got my eldest out when she set the alarm off, and left the younger one sleeping. I think the car was in sight of the workshop. When they went of running errands recently my eldest also told me ‘Daddy left us in the car watching Peppa Pig’. I don’t know were they were or how long this was for but if it was for 2 minutes to pay for petrol while watching the car, I can’t see he’d have set Peppa Pig up.
- Leaves fire starting materials in reach of the children – matches, firelighters, fire starting fluids (albeit with child proof tops), insecticide spray and poop-pahing me when I have said I want to move these out of reach.
- Refused to get a fireguard when the kids were younger (and wont now, although there are older and more aware of fire safety).
- Takes the kids to the park and leaves them in the enclosed area while he drives his monster truck adjacent to the park. The kids are 3 and 4 so I often end up ‘spotting’ or assisting them on equipment when I take them to the park. Him not being very nearby, to dive in if required, bothers me.
- Installing locks on the children’s doors and locking them into their room to play, while he works in another room (‘supervising’ them on their babycam). I don’t like the ‘distance supervising’ or the psychological impact of them feeling ‘locked in’. They have told me they don’t like it.
- Inadequate supervision when out – on several occasions my eldest has told me they got ‘lost’ or couldn’t find Daddy, when they were out. In the summer he had them all day at a public event and my eldest told me there were approached by a lady asking where their Mummy was. I feel they must have been out of his sight for a while on this occasion (he admitted to me they had ‘gone round the back of the tent’ at one point) as, as an adult, I tend to observe potentially lost children for a little while before approaching them , looking round for a parent who may be watching from a distance or frantically looking for them.
What do you think of these behaviours? AIBU to be really worried?