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?

You definitely need to speak to the HV about this, if only to get all your concerns documented.

If he's at the stage of needing managing so he doesn't leave a baby alone with a plastic sheet, leave a weaning baby alone while eating and leave a baby alone in the bath, you can't safely leave him alone with under 5s.

I would ask about an accident prevention course and insist he goes.

He's an absolute arsehole. I'd be furious and never trust him. Does he want to be a father?

Basically he has zero risk awareness when it comes to your children - does he have any personal risk awareness or does he blithely wander into traffic trusting he can cross the road or other innately dangerous things?

If his personal risk awareness is OK then he's not an idiot and he needs to really start applying this to his parenting. You can treat him like I do my ASD daughter. Lay out a scenario, ask what could go wrong and what is the best way of dealing with it - to be fair I do this with her for when she needs to do solo stuff that I can't easily help with, not caring for someone else but the principle remains the same. Repeat ad nauseam until it's quite clear he's been drilled to instinctively think "Is this as safe as it can be, if it's not what's the alternative?"

If his personal risk awareness is shit the above might work, but frankly I'd think it unlikely and I'd make a point of him never being in sole charge of the children until they are old enough to risk assess for themselves and speak up.

Thanks for this. To be honest, I do often spell out all the steps and make requests around safety, but he gets annoyed that I'm treating him like an idiot or saying something obvious. I've tried to say our kids safety is more important than his ego being hurt, and also tried to pass it off as 'just for my peace of mind'. I still say things, but have to then suck up when he gets annoyed about it.

(I'm worried in this thread I'm coming across as extremely paranoid and really over-cautious, but I honestly don't think that's what's going on.)

I agree no one is perfect. He would note that I've left boxes of paracetamol out at night that have been there when DS has got up in the morning, which he could have got hold of, which is true and obviously a screw-up on my part. But I'm struggling at this point between what's just a mistake that all humans make, and what's coming from fundamental bad judgement, or lack of care and attention, or just thinking he should be free to do whatever he thinks is appropriate, and not be told... or [any other interpretation here].

I would sit him down and be clear that you have big concerns. Tell him that today's incident was the most dangerous and the last straw but mention all the others:

Pram left on public footpath near woods
Unattended in the bath
Any others
And now the plastic

Explain that you are genuinely not confident that he can be trusted with the children and what does HE suggest happens. This doesn't have to be all on you. He wants to parent his kids, then HE has to take steps to make sure that he is safe.

Do not take 'it won't happen again' for an answer. One mistake is too many and he has made at least three.

That's not necessarily fair, if he was in the middle of a sales call or has his CRM activity tracked then he can't just stop working to help out when WFH.
I used to work in a sales team and people are shown inactive after just 2 minutes of not using their computers and each time they need to give a reason for being so.

I'm sure 'my child was in danger' would count as a valid reason, but 'my wife was on the phone and I needed to put the baby down a cot that was covered in plastic sheets so had to tidy that up first' wouldn't be an acceptable excuse in most places and would end up with WFH being revoked or him being put on a PIP.

Work obviously isn't more important than the safety of your family but it's not always as simple as just stopping for 5 mins.

Still not defending him putting your baby in danger. There is no excuse for that.

I also agree that I would be getting all this documented and by a professional third party
Under the guide of asking for help yes but if you do split up this sort of intervention being required is something the court would take seriously

i’ve been there in terms of not being able to trust my children’s father with the safety not one iota. It was a living nightmare and wrecked my physical health as I became fraught and exhausted. There was no trust or security at all. He was also abusive so doubly hideous and I’ve lost some of what should have been the happiest of my life doing not only all the parenting but enduring hell on earth to keep them safe. Thankfully other factors prevailed and we - most importantly they - are now all safe from him but it has taken an enormous toll on me

i would make sure recent professionals know about this. If it does result in some sort of safeguarding concerns and honestly I think it is that then you have done the right thing.

What you are describing is a man who has completely checked out of parenting and wants nothing to do with it at all. He's doing this and refusing to read the expert advice because he thinks all of this is beneath him, and nobody is going to tell him how to do it either, because his ego is too fragile to handle being taught something.

All the incidents you have described are dangerous. If the worst case scenarios had played out, your H would be charged in each case with criminal neglect. How would he feel if he were trying to explain that random girls feeding horses, whom he presumably didn't speak to, were supposed to mind the baby in his absence? How would he explain the plastic sheeting? The baby left in the bath? 'Officer, surely you're not holding me responsible for any of this? It's women's work'.

I love the way he assuned the alleged girls feeding the horses would take care of the baby left in the pram by the woods. His attitude is clearly 'The females will take care of the babies while I get on with more manly and important work'.

He also complained that your request to take care of the baby while you were in the phone interrupted his important work.

You have a pig headed sexist on your hands I'm afraid.

Can you get his siblings or parents or mates to give him the whopping kick in the ass he so clearly needs?

This sounds like pretty good advice @Qwerty16 .

These are serious and scary incidents and something needs to change. If your partner doesn’t have natural danger awareness perhaps he / you can put some systems / checks in place that help him be safer. Some people just aren’t able to see danger, so need to go through manual safety checks instead.

However, the many outraged knee jerky posters saying leave him / never leave your kids alone with him / you shouldn’t have had a second kid with him are being very unrealistic and unhelpful. Firstly, OP has said her partner is good and hands on in some ways. Secondly, she probably loves him and wants to be with him and in every relationship you have to make compromises and work to improve skills that the other partner is better at or divide and conquer. Thirdly, if she leaves him over this she is stuck looking after two kids alone or splitting custody and probably with less money, space and support than before. Fourthly, they are also his kids, and he also has a right and a responsibility to see and parent them.

So by all means do something OP and read your partner the riot act, and then if nothing changes consider other options. But don’t listen to the keyboard warriors on here unless you
actually do want to leave him / take sole charge of your kids. It’s very easy to type “leave the lazy oaf”, much harder to leave someone you’ve built a life with and go through all the trauma, loneliness, financial hardship and custody battles that ensue.

I know it's easy to type but i mean it. He is dangerous and could kill her children

Re queries about WFH and him not helping.

For context, my exact request was "When you're next free could you lift baby into cot for nap please? Will try her new cot. Still on to BUPA. She's screaming."

I was asking for two reasons: one that I was on the call, and two that I've done something to my back and lifting her is quite painful today. He came soon after I asked, which I appreciated.

I do know it's annoying to be disturbed when working, but he wouldn't have come if he was on a call or doing something that couldn't be interrupted. He has quite a lot of flexibility.

@BlingLoving

Firstly I agree this poster needs to be quiet. I'm so sick of disrespectful MN users. I've seen some horrendous attitudes the last few weeks. I was nervous putting up my own post today but I'm glad I did and only had one poster who told me to start behaving like an adult.

Secondly I'm so sorry this has happened, I have a 3 month old and older children and I would be very shook up if this had happened.

You're within your rights to feel how you do, it's natural to do everything to protect your child. As it has only just happened, maybe wait for the shock to subside before you decide what to do (and that may be just talk it through with him how careless he's being).

I really hope this improves for your sake and the sake of your baby

I’m very careful who I allow look after my children. If someone put their life at risk, several times, I would not let them look after the children again until they are much older. No way.

Sorry I didn't mean you @BlingLoving but the person who you commented that needed to go away! 😬

TBH time and again I just get the feeling he can't be arsed to read anything about parenting

99% of good parenting is common sense. No books needed. In my view the only exception to that is weaning. I didn’t need to read a book to know not to leave my baby alone somewhere the general public could get to them without me seeing, or to know not to leave plastic sheeting within grabbing distance.

Ok, he needs a parenting course, but only thing I can think of is a child first aid course. There are specific child ones. You could insist he did one of those.
Both his actions were stupid. It’s as if he could only think of himself, what he was doing and couldn’t extend that to see danger.

Wel I’ve been through all of that and I can honestly tell you that years of being terrified he will do something that kills one of your children whilst being under the same roof is worse that the inevitable court battle And everything else.
With men like this once you’ve gone you realise you were doing all the parenting single handed anyway

I think this bit from your description of his actions is telling OP.

("it was only for a moment")

This needs to be addressed, and addressed strongly.
He's not seeing any danger in leaving a small child unattended for just a "moment" when that's exactly the thing that should be uppermost in his mind.

He needs to learn.
Dont let him off by doing it yourself
Train him as you would an employee
Send him on first aid course
Equally dont interrupt when he wfh

Your son has made it to 2.5 years and he's presumably ok, so I assume your DH hasn't always been like this? Why is he making careless judgements with your second child?

Christ the plastic one is bad enough but the fact he will leave them in the bath unattended is terrifying.

He needs to be bollocked. He needs it drilling in to him, that it is NOT ok and saying sorry isn’t good enough.

Have an honest chat. Say it's really getting to you. Would he do a day RoSPA child safety in the home course? It takes 1 day and costs £99? Then you could stop arguing about it.

www.rospa.com/safety-training/home/child-safety

The trouble is that he is not in the mindset where he is scanning and anticipating issues.

Could it possibly be 'intentional incompetence' whereby he does this shit so you'll stop asking for his help? It's not terribly uncommon, but intentionally putting your child in a hazardous situation is taking it to a whole other level!

If you've spoken to him about this sort of thing multiple times, if you've noticed he does this shit in other areas of home life then maybe you need to take a look at the totality of your marriage.

BTW, I don't mean things he does differently from you or not in your preferred 'method' but the end result is fine (ie loads the dishwasher 'wrong' but the dishes still come out clean), I mean things he totally fucks up (usually repeatedly) to the point where you just stop asking him to do them.

I'd be mightily pissed off that he gets defensive when you attempt to discuss it with him. He's supposed to be an adult. You shouldn't be massaging his ego when the DC's safety is at risk.

That is.. extremely worrying. And I am not a worrier. Try and let it rest for a day or two, you have both had a shock. Talk to your HV, see if there is a useful single sheet dos and don’ts guide that they use for parents who may need basic support. I think he’s more likely to read than an involved article.

Then I would sit him down and say - look she’s nearly ended up wrapped in plastic, been left on a path for several minutes and you’ve given her chunks of veg. You are not a stupid man, but you are snoozing on the job and you can’t do that, because I’m not here to clear up after you. So read this basic guide and get it into your head that it’s really fucking easy to kill babies and toddlers by drowning, choking or anything that allows them access to dangerous stuff, - so get it together. Now.

I’d be least worried about the path, because you’d have needed a nutter to turn up, which is vanishingly unlikely. I take your point re a big dog though.