Head injury while at Dad's House - AIBU

[NC457]

Background:
DS (20 months) had skull surgery a year ago, and I'm always very cautious about any hits to the head as the bone is still thickening where they opened it up.

My exDP was very abusive during the relationship and I ended it - we have very limited contact but after building up contact with DS I began allowing overnight stays - 1 night and day a week (plus 2x 2 hr visits with his dad during the week). I keep all communication limited to anything relevant to sons care, and so not respond to the rest, as he still uses every opportunity he can to control. But despite this, I make sure he always knows important information.

I arrived at our pick up location at 7pm (half an hour before sons bedtime), to his dad saying he had hit his head badly at the site of the operation a few hours earlier. He had swelling, and an abrasion on his head and under his eye and nose. I asked if he had contacted out of hours (no) if he had given any pain relief (no) and how he was after the injury (holding his head a lot). I called the local nurse and went straight to out of hours. Everything was OK luckily, but my frustration lies in the fact he didn't contact out of hours or tell me at the time - just a casual mention at pick up close to bed time, leaving me scrambling to do the responsible thing before I get him home.

I then messaged and gave him the update from the appt, and asked if this happened in future if he could please let me know at the time of the injury, or call NHS out of hours/GP for advice.

The reply:

"It's not for you to tell me what I should do if he gets hurt while he's in my care that's entirely down to my judgement and discretion."

My view is the judgement is off, and i don't understand why he wouldn't just agree to tell me about a head injury at the time it happened, so we could decide the best course of action.

This is one of those occasions where I absolutely think a check by the nurse was the right call given his medical history, and it fills me with doubt that he can't just agree to do this or at least contact me in future. I worry I've made the wrong decision with the amount of time I'm letting him spend there.

AIBU?

In my position, if he was due to look after him that night, I would have let him know before handover, not at handover, and I would have already sought medical advice most likely, not left it in his hands at bed time to deal with.

I don't think the OP would expect to be told if the ex had shown he could deal with this situation responsibly. The fact that he didn't even make a phone call to seek medical advice when his child banged the site of where his skull has been opened, and is holding his head well after the bang happened. along with swelling and prefers to then play games withholding information from mum is horrendous imo. And what's to be gained by not telling her when the child last ate/had milk when he's coming home crying?
The poor child at the v least probably had a headache afterwards and didn't even get any pain relief

I agree that he should have followed the advice re the head injury.
However his girlfriend driving them isn’t irresponsible IMO - why do you think it is OP?
I also wouldn’t have called the dr for just a high temp, particularly if it reduced with medicine, but it depend what other symptoms there were.
My point being that perhaps you are a bit over protective but you ex is too lax.

I don't think the GF driving is irresponsible, it was just very much part of a pattern of trying to create conflict at handover. For example the week before he turned up 20 minutes early and I asked him to come back after DS had finished dinner and return at the arranged handover time, and he went into my garden and sat in the shed rather than go to his car. Not his house or garden by the way. We broke up a few months ago and every opportunity he can he uses seeing his son to create some sort of conflict. I'm just trying to demonstrate a pattern, I don't care that his ex gf is in the picture but it very much felt like the usual pattern of using handover to get a reaction in some way. Which he never gets, by the way. And boundaries I have in place now are reducing this.

I think the problem here is you still have an issue with your ex. He's not particularly doing anything wrong.

Sounds like usual run of the mill accident
the problem is everyone’s idea of what to do is different not necessarily wrong

ultimately his judgement was correct as proved by your actions it was fine

So if it weren't for your child's medical history he acted reasonably - the injury doesn't meet the NHS's own criteria for medical attention after a bump on the head.

Nonsense. No idea what you're talking about.
All head injuries with swelling, especially in babies, need medical attention asap.

I would not be allowing unsupervised access going forward. Sounds like he's not feeding him properly either. These are basic care needs and he's not meeting them. Not seeking medical attention when required is neglect at best.

Sitting on your premises rather than his car does seem to be about trying to create more tension.

I’m not sure how you react to these things but hopefully he’ll be bored by these games if you don’t show any reaction.

To me, these things are irrelevant, it’s how he is caring for your shared child that is the issue. I don’t agree with a PP that your ex made the right decision to not seek medical attention because it turned out fine. You don’t know if someone is ok until it is checked out. Head injuries can be bad & with your child’s history it’s important to get that checked out.

My advice would be to sit back and work out what is and isn’t important and try to ignore the things that are unimportant. If you still have feelings for your ex try to focus on how he’s not a nice person and you are best off without him. His new gf is welcome to him so why should it bother you if she’s in the car. Instead focus your attention on how to look after your child best & how you can improve your relationship with your ex (although given his nature I do realise this may be impossible)

Head injuries don’t all need attention straight away! There are guidelines on nhs website which tells you when, usually only if accompanied by other things such as inability to stay awake, or blurred vision, etc !

the ops ex does sound like a dick but op also sounds inflexible and expecting things her way. This combo will mean 18 years of strife for both them and importantly child caught in the middle

this - if you have choice use it

Btw I’m not saying in this case the injury shouldnt have at least warranted a phone call to medics due to history ,was saying in general cases

Did you miss the part where OP says the child had surgery on his skull a year ago and she's been advised by his doctors to get any head injury checked? She's not being inflexible, she's being a responsible mother!

Head injuries don’t all need attention straight away! There are guidelines on nhs website which tells you when, usually only if accompanied by other things such as inability to stay awake, or blurred vision, etc !

I didn't say they did. We're not talking about an adult who can tell you how they're feeling are we? We're talking about a 1 yr old with previous brain surgery and the NHS guidelines clearly state in their criteria that medical attention should be sought in that case. A large swelling is also reason enough to seek medical attention. Guidelines aren't life you know, sometimes it's ok to use your common sense.
OP 's ex failed in his duty of care and I'm not sure why your defending an abusive man.

@Endofyear yes thanks I’ve read the thread. Which is why I said in this case I can understand op wanting to be informed And why I also clarified on the message below it.

there’s nothing on here to show abuse ( aside from op saying he was), hence I’ve stated that if there are real
issues and genuine safeguarding ones op needs to stop contact, if there are not ( and on here there aren’t) op will need to accept contact and that ex doesn’t always do things her way

I feel I should mention as well we live 1 hour away from the nearest hospital, very rural. So if there had been any issues, we'd have been a long way from emergency care. So for a few of the commenter who are saying I'm over protective etc, I was simply using common sense that getting it checked by the local out of hours nurse was the sensible option before his bedtime given his medical history, and my frustration stemmed from the fact this could have been done hours before by his dad, without me having to keep him up past his bedtime.

Yes, we clearly have different ways of doing things, but I would argue better safe than sorry and I haven't had a go at him about this either, just politely asked if he'd consider either letting me know a bit earlier or calling nhs out of hours to double check.

Yes, I was abused, and yes this has obviously caused me to view my DS's dad in a certain light (we only broke up a few months not years ago for context!), but it has been me encouraging the relationship, and suggesting visits with DS, not the other way round, hence my second guessing and asking for advice via this post about whether I've been too hasty increasing contact.

@Longtermuser im
perfectly capable of using common sense thank you.

everyone rushing to tell op to stop contact and do this or that are sending op down a path of conflict and misery unless there is way more to it than what’s on this thread.

her ex can make decisions about care/routines/when to seek medical help etc/when to inform op etc. op doesn’t have to like it but that’s how it is unless ex is a danger and authorities agree that . If so op needs to stop all contact ( as I already said ) but can’t simply say he’s safe during the day or at weekends but not other times. And if he fights that he will get contact unless genuine safeguarding concerns upheld by authorities

op herself says she doesn’t want to stop it

Technically he is responsible during his hours but he has shown VERY poor decision-making here.

An injury on a surgical site that is still healing? I’m quite chilled but I would be straight to A&E.

I would be considering going to court to roll back on unsupervised visits.

Op I can understand why you’re concerned. It’s hard to have your young child away from you in the care of someone else, especially if you don’t trust them.

Ok so based on your last post, if you don’t push contact will your ex? If he’s not bothered and doesn’t push it perhaps neither do you. He’ll either start doing do or will not which will be up to him

Thank you. I agree with what you are saying about how refusing contact would lead to even more conflict, and so I would never do that, but it is making me second guess how much contact I have suggested, especially since it was all my idea, and then things like this happen. Not much I can do now though I guess.

We have a routine in place now on a shared calendar to reduce he and I having to speak unless it's essential due to the past abuse, which Women's Aid suggested, but he does cancel a lot. During his overtime weeks I do go to a lot of effort to make sure he can still see DS between his working hours but he has never asked for this so if I didn't offer he likely wouldn't be fussed.

I wouldn't push contact if he doesn't ask for it.
I'm confused why a 20 month old gets milk when he's hungry?

He has his dinner at 5pm, and I get him home from his dad at 7pm - and he says "Mil" "Mil" and cries a lot when he is thirsty - despite the fact his dad is saying he has had a drink. He doesn't do this unless he is very very thirsty, he typically is a very happy wee boy, hence my concern he's not getting fed as much or being given anything to drink before coming home. It's behaviour that doesn't happen when he is with me, only when I get him home from there. Nothing that would stop me allowing contact just something I'm keeping a note of. He gets a snack and milk now when he gets home because of this, before he goes to bed.

I'd go the same route as you do when naturally stopping breast feeding..
"Don't offer but don't refuse"
But when agreeing contact make sure it works for all of you, don't go cancelling premade plans to fit him in. Have a couple of days/times you always keep available and anything outside of that as extras and to fit around his work is at your discretion.

Keep any communication to the bare minimum, contact dates via the calendar, communicate about medicine and food information only, no chit chat. You really need to draw a clear and consistent boundary. Once that's in place and have been for a while then you can allow more flexibility in but that initial boundary is important.

Who brings him home? If it's you just give him a drink in the car before you leave. Pick him up, drive down the road for a bit so you aren't Infront of ex's house, have a cuddle, story and a snack in the back of the car and then do your hour home.

The problem for the child is that their parents are in conflict. Won’t really matter in the long term who started it or over what.

A child, and even an adult, will have a lot of head bumps over the course of their life. Even with this child’s history there isn’t going to be a need to immediately seek medical attention for ever and amen when there is a head bump. However there could be a period of greater risk and both parents need to have objective and expert advice on that. The focus needs to be on how they manage that in a way that is safe for the child.

The child had a bump. Neither parents response put the child at harm. They were just different responses. A court will conclude the same thing. Going to court will result in an outcome neither of them can predict. For the OP it is a risk that the court will give her less discretion to “allow” access.