To be furious with DH (toddler accident)

[user63696369]

I am probably ABU, but I'm so angry at DH for what happened last night. NC as I've posted about this elsewhere!

Yesterday evening I asked DH to watch 15 m/o DD while I did a few jobs after her dinner. I was in the utility room when I heard him swear, and came running out into the hallway just in time to see my DD bouncing down a flight of six solid mahogany stairs. She cried straightaway, but seemed okay, although obviously I took her to be checked out (which resulted in a very late night for all of us and I have an absolute tonne of work to do today and I could really do without being completely knackered). I did call 111 first but they didn't call back until around midnight and I didn't want to put her to bed without taking advice, so we were already at the hospital.

I know kids have accidents, but this was completely preventable. He'd left some stuff on the floor she shouldn't have been able to get hold of and in the course of taking it off her and putting it back where it was, she'd run straight out into the hallway and gone flying down the stairs. I never leave doors open when I am watching her for this very reason - I also would have picked her up and relocated the items elsewhere while holding her. I'm always on at him about safety issues and I feel like he never takes me seriously. Well now I am left with the image of her bouncing down the stairs like a ragdoll and I am fucking fuming. She could have been killed or seriously injured.

AIBU to still be absolutely furious at him? He had a 9am meeting this morning but I let DD lie in as she was knackered and told him he could do the nursery drop, fill in the accident form and explain what happened - and if he was late for his meeting, that was his problem.

So as not to drip feed, I have diagnosed PTSD that arises from DD's health.

I actually really love this reply, thank you 💗 validating, not condescending but still gently letting me know iabu!

I’m so glad that you took my comment for how I meant it. I was a bit worried as I am a (diplomatic) tell it how it is person and trust me I really do feel you with your ptsd.
I hope one day you heal from your trauma ✨🫶🏻❤️🙏🏻
you can get in touch with me anytime you want to if you ever want somewhere to release and not be savagely judged 🙂

Not a story I like to brag about but I was putting washing away and hadn’t closed the stair gate properly (thought I did) 8 month old daughter crawled and went top to bottom. Accidents happen and can confirm they are big learning curves.

As long as your child is ok and he doesn’t continuously do stuff like this there is no point holding it against him…I’m sure he probably already feels bad

Yanbu. But get stair gates or teach her how to climb backwards down stairs. Accidents do happen but it sounds like he doesn't understand how she's still a baby has zero sense of danger and has to be watched at all times.

At 15 months mine were already climbing and coming down stairs safely . But you need stairgates. Accidents hapien, alls well thwt ends well.

YABU. Children have accidents, even those you deem "preventable". No one is the perfect parent, no matter how much you may think they should be. My daughter, in my care, at age 13m, fell off the sofa and broke her collar bone. My GD, at a similar age, fell off a bench and broke her wrist. Both were technically"preventable", but neither were caused by neglect either, and both caused massive guilt. I'm sure your DH is dealing with his own guilt and needlessly raging at him isn't going to help the situation in any way. Stair gates were always the first thing to be installed in any house we lived in, when our children were young, and there's no need to wait for your DH to fit them. Do it yourself, it's not difficult. Also, it's entirely possible to carpet open tread stairs. I've done it in several houses because of my (then) small children. In case they fell, it would be a softer landing, and it also helped prevent slips on the smooth steps. No one likes seeing their child injured, it's a horrible feeling, but taking it out on your DH will get you nowhere, except possibly the divorce courts if you carry on like this....

I thought I would be safe putting my toddler son in his play pen so I could go upstairs to get dressed . I made the mistake of putting the play pen beside the big heavy TV ( long time ago) . When I came down discovered he had pulled the TV down , thankfully not on top himself .
Kids look for inventive ways to injure themselves , they really do .
The other son couldn't be bothered to open the garden gate to put his skateboard away so thought he would throw it over the fence 🙄,came back down and smashed him in the face . So prepare yourself for accidents and have a good first aid kit , put it together yourself . The ones you buy already put together are rubbish .

Bizarre behaviour to take a child with no apparent injuries to hospital. Kids fall up stairs, down stairs, off things and over things all the time. Your parental instincts will tell you if there is anything seriously amiss. If your PTSD means you cannot trust your own judgement in such matters then you need to let someone else make the decision for now.

If it’s of help: Had to teach my toddler to go bum down backwards on steps and stairs as we had a lot of them and not possible to gate them all, especially out to garden. He picked it up quickly.
Please don’t be too hard on your husband. One backward look is all it takes for toddlers, and older, to do something scary. Have many tales. But we are resilient, as young children. Wishing you and your family well. 😍

She didn't just slip down the stairs, she ran at them at speed, slipped and bounced off at least 3 steps that I saw, flipping over and smashing her head off the treads. And I didn't see all of the fall. She had a large, red mark on her forehead just above her eye and was very upset. What I think is odd is that you think it's strange to just put a non-verbal toddler to bed straight after such a fall, when they can't tell you if they feel odd, are in pain, etc. She has several bruises all over her body, though obviously I couldn't tell at the time what she'd actually hurt apart from obviously her head. I really don't think it's the biggest crime to take a child who has had a not insignificant fall, to be checked out. Had 111 been able to call back sooner than 6 hours after the accident, and they had advised a watch and wait approach on hearing all of the circumstances, of course I would have taken their advice. Based on the experience of another parent in a very similar situation with the same age child (111 called an ambulance who arrived within 8 minutes - no more serious injury than my DD) and on consulting with other parents who do not have PTSD, the vast majority suggested getting her checked out. Due to my PTSD the hospital is the last place I want to be, but I thought it was in my child's best interest and I don't really GAF if you don't agree 🤷‍♀️

That's very kind, thank you 💗 you have a way with words that was appreciated!

what if your baby's not called Dan ?

Kindly, OP, of course you're being unreasonable. He didn't chuck his DD (not just yours) down the stairs deliberately. Accidents happen, and the whole nature of accidents is that the vast majority of them were ultimately preventable. I imagine he felt terrible about it when it happened, but your DD has been checked out and is clearly fine so it's time to move on. What do you stand to gain by continuously telling him it's his fault and you're furious at him for hurting her? And why are there only stairgates being installed if he does them? Can't you pull out a measuring tape and read an instruction booklet? I think you need to think about how you'll feel when your DD has an accident on your watch (which she will, she's a child, she will have many more accidents and unless you plan on having her on your hip 24/7 for the rest of her life, some of those accidents will be on your watch too). Would it make you feel better or worse if your DH was standing there telling you how shit you are for allowing this to happen and continuing to be angry that you hurt her well after the event? Cut him some slack, have a family cuddle tonight when you've both finished work, and get the stairgates installed

Well done OP. I've read all of your messages and I can understand why you were upset and also struggling to work out what to do, but it sounds like you've dealt with it really well. Always better to rage about things separately before speaking to someone, so that we can be more calm and understanding with the person in question.

Just a short suggestion on the husband and picking up a share of the responsibility for childcare thing you mentioned. Maybe he'd be willing to be responsible for her alone more if you have a chat with him about that. I'd start there, rather than with the mental load stuff. Having some extra time would help you a lot. I know my husband felt I wasn't leaving him to get on with looking after our daughter without interfering, which was undermining his ability and confidence in looking after her (okay, I still do this a bit!). I sent him some parenting articles and discussed parenting approaches, then I stepped back. He does brilliantly now, although I obviously think I do better! 😉

From reading between the lines it sounds like you don’t feel heard by your husband and that’s the real crux of it. I’m imagining a scenario where you say something like ‘make sure you shut the doors’ and him being like ‘she’ll be fine, I’m her dad, I know what I’m doing’……. And the next things you know she’s falling……. If I’m right with my imaginings then that is so frustrating and I think would really piss me off as well. Not the accident bit because accidents happen but the blatant ignoring me because I’m so uptight - you can probably tell I’ve felt similar 😂

im sorry im not here for this at all stop making it like the dad cant be at fault he has 1 job to look after his child! your not overreacting at all!! these people are dad sympathisers im sorry theyr not little children they are full grown adults if it was you all the mums would be tearing you to shreds he needs to get a grip that baby could have been seriously hurt i wouldnt be posting on here try reddit they actually have brains

My wife and I went through this same issue when our daughter fell down the stairs on my watch. Soon after our son went down the stairs on her watch when our daughter opened the door to the basement, life happens.

@kms93 - having raised three boys, I know that it is simply not possible to watch your children all the time, or to prevent every trip, stumble, fall or accident. And a parent whose child has an accident is not some terrible, negligent monster, but may be just a fallible human being.

Sometimes parents are negligent - but I suspect that all parents have lapses of concentration or judgement, but most of the time, these don’t lead to an accident, so we don’t castigate the parent for their lapse.

This is why I am not joining in with the posters who want to paint the OP’s husband as an utter failure as a parent.