Partner not careful enough... What now?

[Qwerty16]

I don't think my partner is careful enough with our kids and I don't know what to do about it.

We have two kids, DS 2y7m and DD 7 months. I was just on the phone to Bupa as my back is bad and carrying DD is painful, DD was crying making it hard to speak, partner was WFH so I messaged asking him if he'd put DD up in the cot in her room. She hasn't used the cot yet so it has been covered in a thin plastic decorating sheet to stop the cats climbing in (she has been sleeping in a snuzpod but will be starting to move to her room soon, hence I thought it would be good to try some naps in there.) He came and took her upstairs and I continued the call while he went back down to work. By the time I was off the call I could hear her crying and when I got upstairs I found her completely wrapped up in the plastic sheeting, over her head and face and mouth. He says he thought he moved the plastic out of the way but obviously not as it was all piled on the chair next to the cot and she had pulled it through the bars.

It was absolutely terrifying - if I'd just trusted my partner to put her to bed safely and not checked, or if the call had lasted longer, I'm convinced she'd have suffocated and died at she was completely wrapped up in the plastic. I feel terrible that it happened, and I just can't stop thinking what if.

I'm really f*cking annoyed with my partner (who at first responded with a complaint that I kept bothering him while he was WFH and that this meant he could never WFH again, but later apologised saying he was rushing and should have been more careful) but I don't think it's a one off.

Last weekend he left her in her pram outside at around 830pm in our garden which is quite far away from the house, there's no line of sight, it's part forest, you wouldn't have heard her crying, and it's open to a public footpath. He was bringing things back up to the house after a BBQ (I was putting DD to bed). He didn't understand why I thought it wasn't okay to leave a seven month old baby alone and out of sight in the evening near a public footpath and kept repeating various excuses eg it was only 90 seconds (it wasn't, it takes that long to get down there let alone up, back, and packing the fridge) and there were some girls feeding some horses nearby (they weren't there when I got down, and also so what). To my mind, she could have been abducted or attacked by a fox or anything. I don't think I'm a hugely over cautious person but this feels objectively beyond the line of okay.

I'm just fed up of disagreeing about what's safe and not safe. I can't get the image of our baby struggling to breathe wrapped up in plastic and crying out of my head. I can't stop thinking she could be dead right now because he was f*cking careless. He's 37, he should know that you can't leave a load of plastic sheeting next to a cot. I'm trying to resist melodrama, but I feel like I can't trust him to keep our children safe. I feel like I can't trust his judgement. I don't know if he's just stupid which results in him misjudging things so badly, or just sloppy and careless, or if he just thinks other things are more important in the moment. AIBU to think this?

We've only spoken briefly as it only just happened. I've told him I think it was his fault that he wasn't careful enough. He keeps asking "what do you want me to say?" He says he feels terrible but I just don't think this is a brush it off, oh well never mind type event. Maybe I'm being unfair.

What should I do?

How on earth can you feel attracted to or love for someone so utterly inept and useless with the most precious things in your life?
He would have to go. Thats more than careless.

I would insist he goes on a parenting course and a baby first aid course
The HV can refer for a parenting course
It's terrifying that a parent lacks awareness and common sense

I know, daft fuckers. They deserve to find their babies wrapped in plastic, eh? Can't believe they didn't even have the good sense to consult their crystal ball like the rest of us, then they would have known exactly how their partner would be as a parent.

I wouldn’t want him anywhere near my children, he clearly has zero common sense and is quite honestly dangerous.
It really sounds as if he courage less about the safety of your children and I wouldn’t hang around long enough to see what idiotic trick he tries next.
He clearly thinks he knows better than you.

TBH, it sounds like you need to have a really frank conversation with him about stuff and don't beat around the bush. Use the examples you've given here and ask him outright if he a) understands your concerns, b) does any research on childcare himself. If not, why not? c) is he reading and understanding the information you are sending him. If not, why not?

I remember when DH was having a whinge at me that I was refusing to turn DS's car seat around at 1.5 years old and when I asked him to send me any research that said it was safe, he actually looked into it and ended up agreeing with me.

You hear about horrifying, avoidable accidents all the time and it scares me shitless because some of the time I can easily see how it can happen. Such as the dad who forgot to drop off a sleeping baby at nursery and the baby sadly died from being left in the back of a car all day while the dad was at work. It's utterly terrifying but we are human and mistakes can happen.

If he is prone to being a bit thoughtless, then he needs to start doing broader research on dangers to children to hopefully prompt him to think about things.

leaving the baby in the bath (that you mentioned as an old incident) is a much bigger worry in my book.

the options are

• never trust him again. you have to do 100% of childcare and watching out and he gets away with not much work


• he has to take serious action to regain your trust - take the courses / read the books etc.


• or what?

the bigger problems is, if he is lazy, then he is incentivized to to (1) and not (2). And it is going to take a big change in his attitude to get him to (2).

Is he like this with other things? Completely preoccupied or lacking in attention to detail or common sense?

I don’t think you’re being unfair. I think he sounds really careless and it would make me very, very worried.

I’d have a very serious chat using the examples you have shared and any others and ask him what he would do in your shoes? I’d be worried he’d leave them unsupervised in a bath 😟

Did he want children? Does he enjoy having them in his life?

If your partner is not careful enough for your liking, then you may need to have a talk with them about your expectations. It is possible that they are not aware of your expectations, so it is important to communicate with them. If they are aware of your expectations but are not meeting them, then you may need to consider finding a new partner. mamc

Is there some way of getting those three examples of how he has put his DC at risk on record? Maybe speaking to your HV and asking her to record them all, so that if you do split you have some evidence to request that he is never allowed unsupervised contact, at least when they are so young.

I think you need a calm sit down chat with him where you explain that you will not continue to keep your children in living in a house where risks are taken with their lives. Obviously he just thinks the chances of anything going wrong are really small, probably a touch of "never did me any harm" etc. But he is wrong, he needs to show he's reading the things you send - read one with him. He needs to prove he's a safe parent because right now some of this amounts to neglect I'd think if it's part of a pattern.

Yeah I've seen a lot of this too, but that is definitely not our dynamic. He's really hands on, wants to be a very active partner and do his share, neither of us takes the 'woman knows best by default' mentality. At the same time, I've explained to him that if I'm the one reading the books and gaining the knowledge on topic X (because he doesn't have time, or for whatever reason), he then needs to listen to what I'm saying. I don't expect him to read as much as me when he's working more hours than me (although I read way more than him when we were both working full time), but TBH time and again I just get the feeling he can't be arsed to read anything about parenting. It's a real struggle.

Having said all that, surely he's read 'don't leave a baby unattended in a bath', plus I've calmly and very clearly explained you can't leave a baby unattended in a bath, and yet he's still done that ("it was only for a moment"). So maybe unwillingness to read isn't the problem.

All of this is really scary and it doesn't sound like he is learning from any of it. Lots of these things would count as neglect and are a huge safeguarding issue - as the kids get older you could well find nursery / school safeguarding teams getting involved if the kids mention anything to them (imagine older child sees baby sibling unattended in the bath and mentions it to nursery teacher "I helped give my sister a bath because daddy wasn't there" or any number of unsafe incidents that kids mention innocently.) This could get escalated hugely. I don't know what the answer is OP but he needs something to wake him the fuck up, maybe your HV or local children and family centre can advise.

I have complete sympathy OP. My DH was utterly useless in seeing danger (hot cups of tea near the edge of tables babies were cruising around, leaving toddler playing in front garden while they were inside doing something else). He couldn't risk assess for himself, let alone the children! However I had no intention of leaving my husband, for a start I love him hugely but also I would still have been stuck looking after two children by myself if I moved out so it wasn't going to make much difference. My DH was at least willing to learn and contrite when dangers were pointed out to him which I realise your DP hasn't been. However I had to mitigate the risk by:

1. Baby-proofing(and DH-proofing) the house thoroughly. E.g. all dangerous things had to be kept in the kitchen including all hot drinks and scissors - even present wrapping was done in the kitchen.

1. Thinking through everything I asked DH to do. E.g. "please get out the marble run for DS but put the baby gate up so DD can't put the marbles in her mouth, also make sure no marbles go near the baby gate in case she reaches through." I never assumed DH would make the safest choice.

Yes it was exhausting, and irritating, and sometimes I would get really cross that he didn't just do this stuff automatically. It did sometimes feel like I had an extra child. But he did learn and now that they are older (8 and 6) he is great and I completely trust him with most activities. He takes them out for the day, takes them swimming, goes cycling on the roads with them. However if he took them somewhere new by himself e.g. the beach, I would still give him instructions and warnings - but I wonder if that's now for my own peace of mind, rather than really needing to. I also think of all the things he has to put up with in being married to me. We both feel that our partnership is about making us into better people. We didn't arrive in our relationship fully formed. This is just one of the things I have had to make allowances for.

You can never ever ever leave your children in his care again. Never. Ever ever. Not even for a minute.

please do not doubt yourself. One of your children will end up dead if you leave him looking after them. You are lucky they have made it this far. Especially after leaving one in the bath already.

he is just not capable. You cannot trust him. I’m sorry.

Plastic decorating sheets are absolutely huge. I'm really amazed that a baby has the strength and dexterity to pull several feet of one through the bars and spread it out enough so it wraps around her body/head. I don't think it would have occurred to me that a baby might do something like this, I would probably have done the same as him.

But they are his children too and she can't prevent him from caring for them. He has equal rights to unsupervised contact with his children as much as OP does. Despite him clearly being a risk to them, OP can't do this without a court order.

Why is a snuzpod not safe?

Yes seek legal advice

OP, you can never trust your Dh again with your children. I know, my DF was like this and my DSis (2) pulled a boiling hot pot of tea on top of herself because he left it too close to her. She was severely scalded and had weeks of hospital visits.

Then years later he tickled my baby DC1 for fun causing him to bang his face on the floor. He didn't mean either of them to happen and was truly gutted about it.

I don't know what it is, I think people like this just don't think things through; they NEVER change.

The ones from wilkos and other similar places are nothing stronger than cheap sandwich bag material so very light and pliable and not necessarily that big. They can catch on anything and gather easily in seconds. Trust me, DH bought these when we were decorating and I hate them with a passion. Would be very easy for a baby to pull this through the bars of a cot and get wrapped up

It was very large yes, but extremely light - lighter than a typical plastic shopping bag and very flexible, so really easy to grab and pull. Not much thicker than clingfilm.

Tbh it might not have occurred to me that they would/could have pulled the plastic through the bars.

But I would have just thrown it away or put it in a cupboard if it needed saving.

If she was crying is there a reason that he hadn't checked her knowing that you were busy on a call?

I am not sure I could trust him again after such stupidity even if i did love him

Aside from the plastic

The fact he wasn't prepared to stop working so he could help you, even for 5 mins is a massive red flag for the future. His work takes precedent to you and his children. It will always be so. As they get older the safety won't be such a problem. But his support will be. He sounds like a tool.