Husband keeps having accidents with 15mo

[newmumabouttown]

My DS is 15 months old. My DH is incredibly accident prone. I have tried to talk to him calmly, I’ve also more frequently lost my temper. I’ve tried to approach conversations with seriousness, explain repercussions, but I feel he’s just not listening. Monday he closed the dishwasher and didn’t see our son had his fingers in it and trapped them. Just now, he had his wardrobe open with DS under him but was choosing an outfit and didn’t see DS trap his fingers in hinge. It is destroying our relationship as I keep thinking I just need to get him away / out.
I know he cares, as he can be loving, but I feel like he doesn’t care enough to be on alert all the time or make adjustments. I don’t know what to do… feeling lost.
Also, just to add it’s not just with our DS. He’s constantly stepping on my feet. I had an operation recently and when we were in car he accidentally hit where I’d been cut, and then seconds later slipped changing gear and punched my leg. It wasn’t deliverable, but it’s hard not to feel like it is when it’s so frequent.

A therapist is in no position to diagnose, especially anything like dyspraxia. A therapist is there to help you make sense of it and manage your feelings and reactions to it.

You talk about him like he is doing this on purpose. So I think you receiving support in managing your feelings around is probably a good idea.

My dyspraxic 18 yr old always played in goal. It was the one time his ability to fall over without hurting himself (because he was so used to falling over) actually helped him!

This does sound like dyspraxia, esp as his sister is clumsy too. Regardless you both need to work together to prevent DS getting injured. If it is dyspraxia your DS could have it too, in which case will you get rid of him if he starts injuring you?

The thing is, family members are often in closer proximity and in situations where it’s easier to misjudge things. I’m much more likely to accidentally knock DH in bed than when walking down the street, as the mattress has an effect on my coordination. I’m not usually in that situation with colleagues (although I’ve been known to walk into people or accidentally knock them when reaching for something.)

I can’t think of any accidents for himself, it’s not about him hurting himself, it’s the fact I believe he doesn’t pay attention, so allows a baby to hurt themself or doesn’t realise where his limbs are in relation to me.

I do hope that the op answers the pp's question about whether he's hurting himself as well as others , because this looks suspiciously like he's injuring his wife and child frequently which is a huge concern.

Edited to acknowledge that op has answered this question.

I am at work and there have been 10 pages of comments. It will be impossible to read them all until this evening. I have posted a reply to the question on injuries to himself. I haven’t asked other people if this has happened to them.
To be clear to a lot of repeat comments, I am 99.9% certain (absolute certainty is impossible for anything about what someone else does) this is not deliberate. It’s all about awareness and protectiveness.

I had a play pen or travel cot in most rooms i could pop dc into if I needed to do something ( or stop siblings hitting each other). Mine were never allowed in kitchen, we had a gate over half that had appliances

Exactly - we have way less boundaries right so will be closer to each other. He’s unlikely to accidentally knock people at work as he’ll have professional distance from them!

That’s quite strange then, I know dyspraxia and other issues show up in people differently but if he had poor spatial awareness/poor attention I’d expect he would have done things like broken his toe on a stool or walked into a door (don’t even ask!) or fallen off kerbs or dropped plates etc - all of which I’ve done!

Struggling to understand how his accidents only involve other people getting hurt.

Either way, even if I accept thats just the way his accidents presents it’s still concerning his reaction to it.

I may be misunderstanding this- but from what you’ve shared it doesn’t sound as if he’s very sorry or desperate to change Op. I think that’s quite unsettling and even cruel.

Are you worried about his lack of care and empathy?

That can’t be explained by ND.

@newmumabouttown I don't think it really matters why he's doing it op. The fact is that your child isn't safe around him and you were injured by him after surgery. He's doing nothing to improve the situation either. Why is he not doing everything he can to childproof your home and also making a gp appointment for himself?

It's not really relevant though to have an answer to this.

You can have issues with proprioception and that doesn't automatically equate to injuring yourself equally or moreso than causing accidental injuries to others. For some this is how it migut present but not for everyone. It doesn't mean it is an intentional act of violence.

Aside from the occasional bump to my head getting in and out of the car I have never broken one of my own bones, or required hospitalisation. I might have trapped my own finger in something, spilled food down myself, knocked cups or plates over but not caused significant injury to myself.

I have however broken other peoples toes by simply walking, bumped into people, thrown things too hard, tripped people up, accidentally hit when I've stretched, and turned into other people because it's not just about the inability to process space between yourself and your limbs but between your limbs and other objects or people.

It also isn't on other peoples radar how often these issues affect me as an individual. Nobody would blink if I spilled tea down me, or opened a cupboard door into my face. It just wouldn't register unless they were ever present and it's not something that needs announcing either to make other people aware.

OP has said hes always been clumsy and his sister is exactly the same.

There's no malicious intent here.

Strange, that. Almost like he's benefiting from plausible deniability 'My hand slipped', 'It's not my fault the toddler stuck his hands in the way', 'It's his fault for being there', 'I've had to look after the kid for three days and then pick you up from lazing around in bed like a princess, of course my hand turned into a fist, slipped and landed with the speed and force of a punch into your wound site, why are you always picking on me?'.

ETA: DP definitely struggles with knowing where his body is in space. He has scars on his arms from getting food out of the oven, he's broken his foot by dropping his phone on it (in a heavy duty case because he drops them), he's terminated several small electrical appliances from accidents, there's a burn in the kitchen flooring across from a tear and there are a lot of odd plates/none of our cups or glasses match - other than those made of plastic or metal. Not one injury to me, cats or children.

Yes, this!
Been driving manual cars for 40 years now… have never punched anyone ever whilst changing gear! As PP said, the layout of cars makes sure this doesn’t happen, and the majority of cars are bigger now than when I had my first tiny Mini back in my early days of driving.
I wouldn’t be happy with this at all… I keep thinking of a scenario of a jealous older child hating a new baby and “things keep happening” to the baby…

Just to be clear I wasn’t injured. It mildly hurt my arm and leg but was more a shock kinda thing than pain.

As another lady has said, it is possible to slip by accident when changing gear. Hitting my arm was him trying to take his jacket off before driving off.

Oh boy, someone's being watching too much Miss Marple. Don't be utterly ridiculous 🙄

Moms with curly haired kids, what do u do with their hair?
My 4 year old Jensen has very curly hair. I try different ways everyday, but none of them work. His hair always ends up tangled. What do u do if your kid has curls?

Please quote where it implies he’s doing it on purpose? I don’t believe I’ve said that but would like to understand how I could be misinterpreted.
I have also never once said I wanted any kind of ND diagnosis, this came as a suggestion from others. The therapist would be to 1) Help me with how I react to situations (what I use them for now) 2) Help my husband and I communicate better so we understand each other’s point of view

I have dyspraxia regularly hurt myslef walk into stuff misjudge distances and it's worse when I'm tired but my kids were never injured by me while in my care.

DS got injured once in DH care around a door - and few times in IL - door and burn on their wood bruner - as they just didn't do supervison and care like I did.

Only other reason I know are eye sight going and person not being aware - but if he had regular check up not that.

I'm not sure you can make someone pay attention - I've tried with IL - what tends to happen is you have to supervise young kids round them and be alert always- and teach kids the dangers to avoid over time.

LOL collecting me from hospital. Surgery was weeks ago and we were off on a fun outing. This thread is getting a bit crazy.

A skip changing gear is one thing but punching you is a whole different ballgame!!

To punch you his hand would need to be clenched and it it VERY difficult to change gear like that - also, who changed gear either that much force??

Either you are lying about what had happened or you are minimising his behaviour.

Because everything you describe is not normal

I don’t know why people are determined to read malicious intent into occurrences that OP has been very clear were accidents?

Okay people need to stop over analysing the friggin gear knob. To hold a gear knob you have have your fingers curved, which to me looks like a fist, so I described as a punch, rather than a slap which is open palmed. If you try to move quickly, it’s possible your hand will slip while your fingers are still loosely wrapped. Therefore a hand going into someone with fingers curved I call a punch. He did NOT go all Mike Tyson in the car.
It was a slip / accident. No more car comments please.

I don’t think this has any scientific research behind it but I think people with severe myopia never kind of ‘catch up’ visually and spatially even when they get glasses. It’s like the period that they were babies and toddlers with bad, undiagnosed eyesight affects them even after the vision is corrected. That’s my hunch anyhow.