AIBU to have argued with DH about this?

[Mel2023]

DH works late shift, so he has DS (nearly 2) 3 mornings a week. They leave the house around 1pm and he takes DS to nursery before going to work himself. DS goes to nursery full time the other 2 days to give DH time to himself and to catch up on his sleep if needed. I wfh and we have a home office in our garden summer house. It’s on the other side of the garden separate from the house so I can go in there and am not interrupted by DS, although I always pop my head in on them if I come in to make a cuppa or use the loo. I also try to take my lunch break with them but it’s not always possible.

My concern is how lax DH has been recently regarding DS safety at home. Today was one of those days where I was taking a later lunch because of meetings. I’d just come out a meeting when there was a little knock on the summer house door and a “mama”. My DS was stood there, in his socks (it was raining quite heavily) carrying his lunch plate of food. He’d come all the way across the garden to find me carrying his lunch. I got him in and sat him at my desk to eat his lunch and dried him off.

Called DH (thinking maybe he’d sent DS to me) and he was upstairs having a shower and rushing around getting ready to go to work (this was 12:45 and they leave at 1). He said he’d lost track of time and didn’t have time to wait for DS to finish his lunch or he wouldn’t have been able to get ready for work on time. He had no idea DS had come to find me. He’d left him downstairs, alone, to eat his lunch of pasta and sausages. He’s not even 2 and does still struggle with certain foods, so he could have choked and DH would have had no idea. He was also left alone in the kitchen which isn’t child proofed, and we have a gate on the door so he can’t get in there unsupervised, but of course that had been left open - as had the back door, hence DS coming to find me. DH was showering and shaving so he hadn’t just nipped to the loo for a couple of minutes.

Separate incident - we were at my mums last weekend DH was in the house alone with DS. Mum and I came back from a walk and heard DS chattering away upstairs. She has really steep stairs but no baby gate as we don’t go often enough, we just keep an eye on him when we’re there. DS appears at the top of the stairs and started trying to get down them himself - we do let him do this when we’re watching him so he learns. The stairs curve round and he always gets stuck, he’s almost slipped a few times but we’ve been with him so have righted him and tried to help him with the corner. He got stuck again this time so I went up and helped him. I shouted up to DH, saying DS was with me and coming downstairs. I expected he was upstairs. Nope. He comes out of the downstairs loo. He had no idea that DS had gone upstairs, he’d just left him, wasn’t watching him, in a house that wasn’t childproofed.

AIBU to be upset by this? I tried to talk to DH about it but it turned into an argument and him disagreeing saying DS was totally fine.

Not quite 2 is still pretty little with not much sense of danger. I think I'd be having a word too.

Leaving him eating alone is definitely the most risky one. Like you say he could choke silently.

I would be livid. So would DH if I was so irresponsible with ours.

Very careless. He is too little to be left alone.

Wow.
Leaving a young child alone while eating is shocking.

Yes, that was the one I was most upset about. I don’t think DH sees the dangers, and he won’t until something happens. Whereas I’m there thinking of what could happen and trying to prevent it. I’ve said to him plenty of times that you can have all the childproofing in the world but none of it matters if you don’t use it properly. The stairs one, if it had been at our house I’d have been fine (well maybe not quite as annoyed) as DS navigates them daily with our supervision, it’s just because the stairs at my mums are steep and he knows DS struggles with them - and as you said, they have no sense of danger at this age!

Leaving a 1 year old eating alone whilst he showers is shockingly poor judgement and dangerous. You must feel like you can't trust him. What a prat.

I would be unimpressed too.

I think that leaving a 2 year old alone so that he can have a shower is awful. He should've brought DS to the bathroom with him if he realised he was running late.

Can't be mad about the stairs. He was on the toilet so presumably baby nipped up the stairs quickly.

Yes I would be angry too! Find a video of a child choking and send it to him! He needs a scare to see what could happen. I used to hate every meal time with my son even when supervised as it just panicked me! He’s 5 and I still don’t leave him alone eating for long, if upstairs I shout down regularly to make sure he’s ok!!

I'd be livid - those scenarios are extremely serious IMO and if he's not taking them seriously then I'd be putting DS in nursery for those full days

Toddlers choke so easily. They need to be constantly supervised at this age. I'd be livid if this was my dp.

I would be livid!

We are. He’s starting a new nursery in a few weeks and he’s going full time and I’m pleased we’re doing that now!

Send him this thread and a video of how easy a child can choke. Very very careless behaviour and arguing with you about it when your trying to flag this makes him sound even more idiotic.

Nursery isn’t the answer though, you need to be able to trust your DH to look after your child properly. If you let this go now, he will never learn.

Of course you can.

Do you just nip to the loo in a shopping centre leaving a nearly 2 yo alone? No, it's not safe. You take your child with you. Same in a house with ungated stairs. You take the child to the loo.

OP he's a shit father. Is there anyone he would listen to?

I'd be upset in those scenarios too OP.
They're so dependent when they're young! They're vulnerable and don't understand what's going on, have no sense of danger and things can happen so quickly. Your husband is being too relaxed.

Too young. I’d hit the roof.

SO irresponsible and simply not at all, not one bit, good enough

Read him the riot act. He is being dangerously neglectful

I have seen a couple of bath/pool based anecdotes on SM recently where small children were said to have been left alone for "only a minute", with disastrous consequences.

One minute in this context is actually an incredibly long time to leave an infant. Similarly a "quick" toilet trip/shower is not just that when you are supposed to be caring for a baby/kid. Who fucks off for a whole grooming routine leaving a toddler eating sausages? That is terribly neglectful.

I’ve spoken to him about it this morning and actually did compare it to leaving a toddler alone in the bath - he looked horrified and said he’d never do that. I said that leaving DS to eat alone, or even just leaving him unsupervised especially in a house that hasn’t been fully childproofed (or not using the childproofing), is the same thing. How would he have felt if he’d come downstairs and DS had choked while he’d not been with him?! He’s well and truly been read the riot act. He hated it when I called him neglectful and I literally said he was gambling with his child’s life yesterday. I think he gets it now and he’s sworn it won’t happen again, especially when I said I’m having doubts over him being on his own with DS (think he realised how serious I was then). But I will be keeping a closer eye on him when he’s with DS and make sure things don’t start to slip. I may mention it to his mum and see what she says, he’d absolutely hate that.

He need to step up and sort his shit out. He is bang out of order.