AIBU to change daughter’s antibiotics schedule and sleep separately after insult?

[IcyRubyHiker]

Daughter (5) is poorly with tonsillitis. She has antibiotics that she can either take 4 times a day 2.5ml or twice, 5ml.

She hates the taste so wants to take it 4 times with a smaller dose each time. My husband was at home today and made the decision she should take it twice, as it’s more convenient with school etc.

Cue a lot of upset this evening with her taking it.. so I negotiate the 4 times smaller dose which she’s much happier with.

Husband is seemingly raging that I’ve changed the plan and stormed down the stairs calling me a retard… I was so shocked!! (Daughter didn’t hear as he said it half way down the stairs)

I know getting a young child to take medicine is stressful but I don’t think the ‘retard’ insult was warranted, plus it’s just such an offensive word. He has also had to take the last 2 days off work to look after our daughter so he’s probably annoyed about that too…

I’m considering sleeping in the spare room
tonight as I feel pretty disrespected, I just don’t want to talk to him or be near him to be honest. We’ve been unhappy in marriage for a while, and I had to bite my tongue so hard not to just tell him to where to go, but obviously our daughter was there so I just ignored it and carried on with the bedtime routine.

What are peoples thoughts?

@BigBruisedFruit I’m really surprised too. Different styles of parenting I guess.. I teach my daughter she has a choice in things which are to do with her body. Don’t get me wrong if it was a non negotiable dosage then I would just have to bribe the hell out of the situation and get it done somehow 😂 but she had literally been given the choice by a doctor.

Particularly difficult when my husband just wants to tell our daughter what to do with her getting no say ☹️

Oops sorry I meant to tag you in my last comment about how I’m surprised by the stance too! I always try to give my daughter a choice when the decision is to do with her body.

Slighy off topic but hopefully will hopefully will help with the medicine...

DS had to take antibiotics which tasted foul 4 times a day. He was really difficult but the ladies in the office at school were amazing (they will give the 4 x a day medication). They gave him a glass of water with ice to drink straight after which apparently takes the taste away. No idea if this is true or placebo effect but we did it at home too and made everything so much calmer. Still needed a bit of encouragement but mug of ice water in hand did the trick

I don't understand the logic of giving 4x a day over 2x if she hates the taste?! Surely you can explain to her it's better to do 2 larger doses and get it over and done with instead of having to have it an extra 2 times in a day.

Misses point of thread

Surely there’s a middle ground though, your husband has been caring for her and doing medication in a way that makes sense with her school schedule. Rather than undermine him I’d want to talk to him about it before “negotiating” with a 5 year old.

His response was appalling, but you didn’t cover yourself in glory either.

My daughter would need to do the small doses too. Or she’d spit it out. I understand

Children need to be given age and stage appropriate choices about their bodies. They don't get a choice about whether or not to take medicine they need for their body to not be sick, fgs. The medicine routine ideally needs to work with the child's routine, where there's a choice. I'm guessing you undermine him like this quite a lot, being a wet blanket and giving when he's tried to hold a boundary and deciding you know best. When it happens on repeat, it's bloody frustrating. It teaches children they can play you off and you're not a team.

Nonetheless, he shouldn't have even uttered the r word, let alone called his wife it. Ableist slurs are disgraceful and he should be ashamed of using it.

Both of you are unreasonable and need to grow up and change your behaviour if you want your marriage and family to work long term.

Brilliantly articulated!

When DS was 3 he had to have the most vile antibiotic, 4 times a day for 6 weeks, and I always made sure I had a cup of magic milk ready for him to gulp straight afterwards. It was milk with food colouring, to make it pink. Seemed to do the trick! As they kids got older and wiser, I resorted to a post-medicine chocolate button.

Everything else aside, is it okay to change the dosage like that? It might not work as intended.

How fucking dare he? He. Does. Not. Get. To. Do. This. Ever.

It absolutely DOES NOT MATTER what the issue is. He. Does. Not. Get. To. Do. This. Ever.

Separate beds until he grovellingly apologises and seeks help for his rage issues.

And talk to a counsellor as obviously this is not the first time he has behaved like a rage filled arsehole.

I disagree with his use of that word, it's obviously unacceptable and he's overreacted but I can see why he's annoyed if he's been managing caring for her the last 2 days and he's right that twice is more logical, it will still taste just as bad. I get giving children choices but if he's the one who's been battling to get her to actually take it I can see why having to deal with it 4x rather than twice is annoying, and he is feeling undermined because he's been managing and now you've changed it.
Re sleeping separately, it seems another overreaction to a minor disagreement but it depends whether you want to repair your relationship.

@IcyRubyHiker so yes id sleep in the other room. Moving forward are you going to address your marriage issues.,? Or will your child grow up on pins with his anger issues and making everyone miserable.

He stormed down the stairs calling her a retard. He did not casually say it as a passing insult while leaving the room. He then left the room as he was "getting too wound up"

All of which sounds like he behaved like an aggressive, bullying arsehole.

He does not get to do this. Ever. Not for any reason.

I think it’s bonkers to prolong the suffering to 4 times a day when your daughter will hate 2.5ml just as much as 5ml. We have just finished a 10 day course with a 4 year old, so I feel your pain…. 5ml spoonful with a squash chaser twice a day is so much easier with school etc.

BUT no matter how undermined he felt the name calling is not ok.

And storming downstairs and getting "too wound up" to stay in the room. It wasn't just a casual name calling. He does not get to do that, at all, ever, for any reason.

I can just tell your that parent

Hey, and parenting is fucking hard!!! You’re doing the best you can, I get that.

The issue is just that the person you SHOULD have discussed changing her medication schedule with was your husband, not your daughter - she has to learn that unfortunately, medicine is very important and she has to take it even if she doesn’t like it, and she’ll feel much worse if she doesn’t. It sounds like your marriage maybe isn’t where you’d like it to be, which could be why you didn’t discuss it with your husband. Just think about it for the future - whether this happens a lot, whether he gets frustrated too much, whether you often disagree about DD or whether you disagree about a lot of other things, if you’d both be happier/less stressed divorced or whether you’d be more stressed by joint custody. It’s a lot to consider. But like almost all things in life, it’s never actually about the “little things” that happen; it’s what those little things say about the bigger things.

This - I would have been raging if I’d looked after my kid for two days and managed to do the two doses only to be undermined by my partner the next day and for what reason, it makes it even worse for the child 😅

I wouldn’t have ever uttered such a disgusting insult though.

My dad used to hold my nose for me and put the spoon in my mouth. Stops it tasting bad and weirdly a found memory!

Ha. Perhaps 🤷🏻‍♀️ thanks for the input.

With things like giving medicine, it is not about the child’s choice unfortunately - what if they don’t want the injection, or the x-Ray or anything else they need for their health?

You are the parent and you obviously do it in the best way possible and keeping their comfort in mind - but if your DH had a certain way of doing it, you should have discussed any change to the plan with him.

Regardless, if she hates 2.5ml anyway, it’s actually worse for her doing 4x doses anyway, sometimes kids don’t realise things like that, so we do need to guide them!!!

plus I think your meant to maintain consistent doses so starting with 2x means it’s best to stick with that no?

not condoning the insult btw. But your behaviour was way off too.

Giving a child choice is good parenting. You can't force medicine down her.

Saying disrespectful words to a partner is not on at all. I think staying away from him for a bit is a good move. I hope you can both find a way forward.

Also it's a real pain in the arse for a member of school staff (who must be first aid trained) to have to leave their usual work to give a child antibiotics, so if you can avoid a lunchtime dose, please do.

Nope and I don’t see anywhere in my post that I condoned that?! Doesn’t mean I can’t comment on the other part of the post. I don’t think it’s beneficial at all to change the dose from 2x to 4x.