Husband left his friends who I don’t know alone in our house with our 6 month old

[28loloie]

So I’m not sure if I’m over reacting.

DD is 6 months old, I haven’t left her alone with anyone properly yet, I’ve left her with DH while I go a walk but the longest I’ve been away from her until yesterday was maybe an hour.

Yesterday I went to brunch without DD for a few hours, it was my friends birthday and I really wanted to go. DH said he would have DD and invited a few of his friends who I don’t know super well (they live in the city so we don’t meet them often) to keep him company.

I got back yesterday afternoon, his friends were still there. I asked how everything had gone and DH told me he had to nip out for an hour as his little sister needed dropped to A&E, so he left DD with his friends. Apparently she was fine. 1 of his friends is female, 2 were male. He reckons he was gone for just over an hour and his friends said that they gave her a bottle but other than that she was happy just getting cuddled.

We have never left DD with someone who wasn’t me or DH before. I always figured our parents would be the first people we left DD with. I don’t know these friends and while I’m sure it was fine, I can’t feel certain that they are good people. DH thinks I’m over reacting, she was perfectly safe. I feel he made a unilateral decision which could have been easily avoided if he just took DD with him.

AIBU to feel he shouldn’t have done this.

Broken arm and collar bone is pretty awful. I guess the alternative would be take baby with but that's far from ideal.
Did the female friend have kids? Did any of them?

It sounds like an exceptional circumstance where his decision making was under a lot of pressure.

Honestly some of the responses here just make me realise what a crisis of trust and community we are in at the moment.

This is a nice example of a functional society: a mother, a son, and three friends he has known since he was a child have been able to rally around and get an 11 year old who has had a nasty accident to hospital and care safely for a six month old baby.

Would rather live in this world than the world that some people on this thread live in where they wouldn't leave their baby with a friend because they are worried about child sexual abuse or shaken babies, or would let their young sister wait in pain for goodness knows how long for the over-stretched NHS to find an ambulance.

this.

OP I do understand why you’re concerned and I think in a normal situation he would have been unreasonable.
but in this emergency situation, sounds like he did the right thing. Baby is statistically safer at home than in the car, especially in a stressful situation.

I understand it's all been a bit new and unsettling for you, but that context makes it even more correct that he handled the situation without spoiling your rare treat.

Honestly, you're allowed to be unsettled by it, but he sounds like one if the good guys to me.

I am team DH here. Now I know that MN is primarily mums. There will always be slant towards our fellow mum. Bias is maybe a strong word, just a fraction off centre. But here we've gone full Fox News on the bias stakes.

I am not quoting one poster in particular, but in summary:

DH had friends around while parenting. Would we honestly tell a woman off for this? No, we call it "staying connected" or "using my support network".

Question DH judgement over suitability of friends, but would we distrust a mothers judgement, in the absence of any suggestion that we shouldn't? A man would be called controlling and told that given he was out of the picture he had no right to comment.

The guy should mess about calling for permission? The euphemism is "discuss" but we really mean permission, meanwhile the girl is screaming in agony. "Just wait dear, with your shoulder bone sticking out, while I make sure the wife is happy. Oh, no signal, she's not answering, maybe we should wait until mum gets home" Don't think so. Or maybe a poster would say that he should deal with it himself and allow OP to have her once in a blue moon coffee afternoon in peace.

Maybe we should be patting this guy on the back for using the tools he was given in a crisis. If there is drip feed that DH and his mates are all thieves/ druggies/low life bums then perhaps OP is right to call in to question his wisdom. But otherwise? Sounds like a good guy.

Honestly OP, on a website full of (what seems like) useless fathers and husbands, you sound like you have a really good one.

Please just listen to those of us saying he did the best for everyone in the circumstances, he presumably knows his friends well enough to trust them, didn't want to disturb you on your day out (this in itself makes him a green flag!) and everything and everyone was fine in the end.

I see so many threads on here of men/male partners not taking initiative, ringing the child’s mother when she’s out and always leaving the woman to be the default parent. Then this man comes up with a reasonable solution to a difficult problem, and he’s done wrong. He probably thought you deserved to have your first day out childfree in peace and didn’t want to ruin it. Ultimately you feel how you feel; and if you’d rather he’d always ring you in a situation like this you simply communicate that with kindness because he hasn’t actually done anything wrong, you’d just rather be looped in in future.

Your dh was the one in charge of dc so he had to make the call and did what he thought was right. He left dc with friends he has known all his life. He has as much say in these sort of decisions as you do and your rules/plans/thoughts don’t trump his or automatically come before his - this can be a hard thing to accept especially with a baby as young as 6 months. He didn’t put her in danger (the fact his lifelong friends don’t have their own dc is neither here nor there) - he actually did the right thing. Who knows if he might have been needed at the hospital with his dsis - and nobody takes their baby to a & e unless absolutely necessary.

Maybe you and your dh need to have a chat about how you deal with things in the future where you don’t necessarily agree. But on this occasion he has done nothing wrong - though he should have updated you as soon as possible just so you knew.

It's called emergency babysitters . Think your DH did the only thing he could do . Didnt stay at A&E and came right back . How long was he gone ? Plus he knew you were due back . Baby was fine , not a newborn. Don't make an argument about it . It's done now.

The op has told you to stop. So maybe listen eh

Given the choice of leaving my baby with 3 of my lifelong friends in the comfort of my own house for an hour or so or taking him/her to a germ ridden cesspit that is A&E to sit amongst the great unwashed for hours whilst i waited for a collerbone and broken arm to be dealt with........well its not even close for me. He made a reasonable choice. It may not have been your choice but it is completely understandable, it worked out fine and showed he can cope in a difficult circumstance.

Is part of the issue that he actually coped without needing your help?

oh please. His car runs on free petrol?

but if that’s the case I can see why your husband felt that was an only option. If you scraped money for this brunch then it explains why he didn’t call you - he didn’t want to ruin your only treat by either having to leave early or worrying about the baby.

Yes because his sister was having a medical emergency. I know that I am my DHs "priority" (and he is mine), however if MIL or another family member needed taking to hospital then they become the priority.

He didn't just leave the baby at home to fend for itself FFS.

maybe mind your own business?

I would have expected him to take baby too.

Hahaha rich 🤣

I do think you need to step away. There's a world of difference between the cost of petrol for (say) a 30 minute drive and the cost of an Uber for the same trip.

Absolutely this. I said it further up the thread but if the OP had posted that she was on a rare day out after having a baby and her husband rung asking her what he should do, he would be absolutely torn to shreds!

I've read your updates OP.
I think as he knows these friends VERY well, it was fine for him to make this decision.
It's fine for the parent caring at the time, to make a call like this. You did not need to be disturbed/consulted.
I'm glad everything is fine.

No of course it’s not free petrol, he has an electric car he got through work that we charge at home. We budget for this and it doesn’t have to be paid when we use it but with our bills more generally.
Taxis are unexpected costs, hard to get around here (we are rural no reliable uber coverage) and cost more than the electric would.

You mention there's country they are from has a more family-oriented culture and your DH lived there most of his life. So I think you have to consider the cultural difference that he's probably approaching it more from an "it takes a village" perspective and that it probably seems more natural for him to a) drop everything to help his mum and sister and b) be comfortable to rely on the help of friends to look after your baby.

The baby is 50% his, he trusted the friends, nothing bad happened and his sister had broken multiple bones and so clearly needed urgent help.

It's not optimal, but it sounds like he did what he had to.

And I understand that it makes you uncomfortable - it would me - but I wouldn't blame my dh for the decision he made.

All of them had different needs and by doing what he did ALL their needs were met.. he's not prioritising one by doing the other, that's just ridiculous.

His sister - needed A&E urgently, very serious emergency, no money for taxis, taxi may not have even taken someone bleeding/being sick etc, ambulance not an option.

His wife - happily out enjoying herself for once - he made the right choice not to involve her in something she could do nothing about.

His child - happily left in the company of 3 people he has known his whole life.

He did good if you ask me, it's not ideal that OP doesn't really know these friends, but it was an emergency, he didn't fob the baby off to go to the pub.

I really don't see the issue. Husband left his child with friends over that he has known his whole life, knows them and trusts them. Sure he could have taken the baby with him, but if I was in hia shoes and I had my trusted friends available and willing, I would leave the baby.