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?

So you undermined your husband who has been looking after the child for 2 days and taken time of work to do it.

You change the routine he's established with her because she's whined at you.

And you're shocked he's pissed off?

I don’t agree with forcing either, but at the same time if she has been having 2 doses then you continue to try and keep this up, you don’t complicate it by suggesting 4 doses! You find fun ways of giving it - we made up a song and prepared a squash to sip right after. 10 days of it so I know it’s really hard!!

Thank you for your reply.

I find it so hard to navigate because 99% of the time he is a really good man.. then sometimes he just really surprises me with how he can just fling out a horrible insult. I do think we need to have a serious chat but I just can’t really face it. I know it won’t go well.

How does she even know there are options? You just tell her it's medicine time when she needs to take it (twice a day).

Also I know its "offensive" but my partner's pet name for me is retard amongst others.

Team DH. She's 5.

Your husband is a dickhead

Signed, a proud SEN mum.

And he didn't just say a disrespectful word. He stormed downstairs calling her a retard and was too "wound up" to remain in the room.

Let's face it, he was shouting at her and calling her a foul name - and that is what she is admitting to here.

Separate beds until he grovellingly apologises.

I am sorry about this. He may have issues with being over reactive in anger, but that cannot and should not be your problem. If this is ongoing you should seek family therapy. Your daughter is being subjected to this too, even if he is not currently aiming it at her.

You sound afraid to bring it up with him because you are afraid of his reaction. This is not ok. Your daughter sees this, feels it and will grow up thinking this is normal. Please do start relationship counselling at least, even if yo uhave to by yourself to begin with.

Just on the medicine, measure out the dose, put into a tiny cup, add a healthy dose of sugar syrup, mix well, then give it to her. Mary Poppins was right. Our family have been there with vile medicine and this makes everything more bearable.

You can make sugar syrup by gently warming a small amount of water in a pan and then adding sugar and stirring and adding and adding until it's all thick.

Twice a day might sound more logical but children are not logical. You’ve given her a choice on how she wants to take the doses. You support her choice and do what she’s happiest with. Having a child refuses their medication is so stressful for everyone. You want her to know you’re on her side and can tackle tricky things as a team.
You husband sound a total prick.

I agree. Much better to listen to the child than force a bigger dose into their mouth against their will that they might end up spitting out or choking on. 4 doses is still the full amount. It's not like OP is letting the child not take the meds, just giving it in a way that they are more likely to swallow it

Because they are not old enough to have autonomy over whether or not they take medicine they need. The choice your average 5 year old would make is no horrid medicine!

Messing around with the dose and frequency is just giving the child the illusion of autonomy when they don't really have any - they still have to take the medicine. Then the next time they need medicine but there's no flexibility with the dose or frequency, they're more likely to be upset at not having a choice and not understand why this medicine is different to the other medicine.

Taking medicine to school is also introducing another potential point of failure - it gets misplaced, or forgotten, DD gets upset about taking it and staff can't get it down her, or there's an emergency with another child and the staff member doesn't have time at lunchtime, etc. Reducing potential complications where you can is easier on everyone. It's not always just about the child's want.

I think the other thing with twice or four times is, will she actually take it easily taking it four times? Because she may say that, but then it's actually a struggle every time anyway? So letting her choose that might not actually make it easier for anyone.

You are not being unreasonable. He is. Retard is an archaic and perjoritive term for someone with learning disabilities. That says a lot about him that he would use this word to insult his wife. Your daughter made it clear how she wants to take her medication. He is probably pissed off because he is being kept from his important ' 'Man work' , looking after his sick child. I would consider whether I would want to spend my life with this man. Have a long , hard think in the spare room tonight.

I’ve put you’re unreasonable as I can’t stand all this pussy footing around kids and taking medicines. You’re the adult, you know they need it. I always just started off being strict with my kids when they needed to take medicines and they just knew it was non negotiable. Of course given the choice no child is going to take it!

Can't help with the dickish husband but might be worth asking if there's an alternative available. We battled through a 10 day course of hideous tasting antibiotics with a very reluctant 4yo (I tried it, it was truly vile) . Day 9 we ran out and got given a second bottle. Same pharmacy, same antibiotic name but this one was flavoured and he liked the taste.

Medication is not the right area to give them autonomy. I say this for two reasons:

• There are LOTS of other areas where you can give them autonomy, but they also need to understand what “mandatory” means. Would you give them autonomy over crossing the street? How about vaccinations? Because I guarantee, every child would agree they promise not to cry if only you do all their vaccinations separately… but if they need five vaccinations, you as a parent know that means 5 doctors visits, 5 rounds of feeling shitty after vaccination, 5 rounds of “sore arm,” 5 rounds of them being upset about the needle every time, etc. When your child is not old enough to make the logical choice when it matters most, that’s what being a parent is. I think a lot of parents give their children too many choices ant the wrong times out of a fear the child won’t like them. Trust me, I’ve never seen a child grow up and hate their parents for forcing them to have antibiotics when they needed them.

• You never know what the future holds, unfortunately. If your child needs to have a medical procedure or more medical care for some reason, they are often incandescent with small child rage or inconsolable (I’ve seen this happen from ages 5 to 16) to discover there’s finally something they DON’T have ANY autonomy over (being sick, getting treatment), and it might really fucking hurt so they WANT autonomy more than ever. There are few people I actively dislike in the moment more than parents who blame it on “the mean nurse” or “the mean doctor” so their kid still likes them (until what? Two hours later when their kid thinks they’re Hitler because their sandwich isn’t in triangles?). This hurts everyone, especially the child’s opinion of how helpful or harmful medical personnel are, and nurses and doctors, who don’t particularly love being treated like ogres when they just want to help children.

I think autonomy is important; I think it’s great to let children make choices. Just not in every situation. If they could be trusted to make ALL their own choices, there would be no such thing as parental responsibility.

Same. Mine are ND and it was hard enough without introducing a choice of 2x or 4x per day, they'd have made just as much fuss no matter how you did it. It was just the doctor says you need to take this, this is why. They got jelly beans after a dose because the GP surgery used to give them when they had jags, so medicine = jelly beans. It's awful having to make a child take medicine that tastes horrible and I remember how much I hated it as a child too and fought my mum over it.

A lot of parents these days seem to think kids should never have to do anything uncomfortable and as a parent if you cause them to be upset temporarily it's a terrible trauma. But kids are really not going to therapy as adults because their parents made them take vile tasting fake banana medicine for a week when they had tonsillitis when they were five. They might be, however, if their parents neglected to treat their tonsillitis and they got extremely ill.

Yabu for changing the the antibiotics schedule without speaking to him and making that decision unilaterally. However the way he has spoken to you and called you names is unacceptable so yanbu to not want to be near him for a while and to want to sleep seperately.

Giving her choice is not undermining his parenting! Undermining his parenting would be telling her she didn’t have to take it. This would not in any circumstances be a hill I would die on. Ultimately she took the medication which is a win.
He sounds like a bully and a man who thinks he has a right to dictate what a woman does with her body. The insult would be the end for me. No man would ever speak to me that way and remain my partner.

I would 100% have done what you did.

Poor little mite being ill, and then having her dad not listening to her feelings on top. Seems very straight forward just to give the child the option (a perfectly valid option) that they will take willingly rather than causing a battle of wills with a sick child.

Then when she goes back to school she can take it x 2 but surely she won’t be back till Monday anyway? So could be a moot point.

His insult on top of it all is totally unacceptable.

But honestly, I have no time for men doing ridiculous things and then claiming they were “undermined”. In fact I’m very suspicious of that word as it tends to only get rolled out by men when their wives (rightly) won’t go along with bullying behaviour.

His comment wasn't OK.

But you're actually telling me you trust him to do 3x full days of parenting a poorly child and then you unilaterally decided how to medicate her how you saw fit without treating him like an equal?

His storming downstairs callng her a retard and being too "wound up" to remain in the room was far worse than a "comment" or "not ok".

Minimising is not ok.

He doesn't get to do this. Not ever.

You also apparently read and ignored this "I find so hard to navigate because 99% of the time he is a really good man.. then sometimes he just really surprises me with how he can just fling out a horrible insult. I do think we need to have a serious chat but I just can’t really face it. I know it won’t go well."

She sounds actually afraid to raise his horrible behaviour with him as she knows it won't go well.

Giving the child medicine differently is not actually relevant. Shame the OP mentioned it in fact. The kid is getting her medicine they could have had a discussion.

But instead, the father behaved like a horrible prick. And it's not the first time.

Retard is one of those offensive words that’s not ok to use, even in jest imo. It’s deeply, deeply offensive.

It’s right up there with racist or homophobic slurs.

I wouldn’t be ok with a partner directing this kind of deeply offensive language at me, regardless of how angry they were. Swearing I could brush off but this kind of derogatory language tells you something about who they are and their values.

As for the medicine dose, it would have been better if you’d agreed on it together. However if he stormed out of the room, he left you little choice. OP, it sounds as if your DD was aware of the choice in dosage because she heard it from the doctor - is that correct?

If you can stop something being a battle, then I think it’s a smart approach. If your DD thinks it’s better to take a small dose four times a day and that approach stops her grumbling, then it’s a no-brainer, surely?

His lack of self-regulation is quite something. Perhaps he’s like that with the children too - you sound a lot calmer and more reasonable. It’s ok to make accommodations for children and treat them respectfully. That’s how they can learn to treat others too. You say he sometimes over-reacts and says hurtful things. Does he have to be in control a lot? Does he think he needs to make most of the decisions?