AIBU - husband left 3.5yr old home alone for 10 minutes

[somadaboutthis]

I am so upset. I was working today, our nanny was sick and my husband stayed at home to look after our 3.5yr old twins. They had pre-school in the morning which is just at the end of our road. One of our daughters was sick so she couldn't go. I found out tonight ( from my sick daughter) that husband had left her in the bathroom home alone while he dropped other daughter off at pre-school. She said she was ok and that she sang the 'I'm all alone song' to herself while Daddy was gone. My heart broke. Husband is out at moment. I am SO ANGRY. Why would he do this? He knows how strongly I feel about young children being left alone ( although he seems to think this just some hysterical over protectiveness of mine). He told me when they were babies that he thought it was fine to go to the local shops when they were having a nap at home! He thinks the risks of anything happening are quite low. Maybe true but why take that risk? What if she had choked on her vomit, fallen down stairs, tried to get out house to look for him? She was obviously scared. I thought he was a great Dad but now I don't know how I can trust him to look after them. AIBU to be so upset and angry about this?

Now I am fairly laid back about this kind of thing, and would probably leave a sleeping baby in a cot to nip across the road to the shop (3 minutes max) or even a 3 year old glued to Peppa Pig on the sofa. But a ill, vomitting child upstairs in a bathroom to go 10 minutes away? No chance, not at 3.5. Maybe at 7.

The risks of something happening to a baby asleep in a cot is pretty low, but the risks of something happening to a mobile, vomitting child (choking, falling, leaving the house, ingesting something etc etc) are pretty high. I wouldn't leave DS alone in the bathroom while I am out of earshot in the house! And that's without the distress caused to a poorly child.

Stealthpolarbear - I think that most of my friends are pretty laid back people - and have found as their kids get older that most seem to have started leaving their children for 10/20 minutes at around aged 12 or 13 and for half a day or so at around 14/15.

Obviously it massively depends on the kids and the situation - most of these friends live rurally so leaving them involves driving away from the house to a shop 15 minutes away, or popping to town 30 minutes away each way. They have left them in the house to pop into the field next door to feed horses, cows etc for 10 minutes since kids were 9 or 10 or so.

Think it all depends on individual child and situation. However, the one thing that seems to rule is that the child is old enough to get out of house in case of fire, can use a phone to call parent if scared, and is comfortable with situation.

Just read this out to DH who thinks this was idiotic - we have DD who is 3.3 anD he would never do this, it would never even cross his mind to pop out if she was well and definitely not if she were sick!

This would be an instant social services referral if your gp or hv found out about this (I am a gp and have referred to ss for similar in the past). he seriously needs to get a grip of his parental responsibilities.

I regularly leave 10 yo dd in charge of her siblings age 8 and 6 while I pop to the corner shop. Yet I wouldn't leave her home alone if she was vomiting.

As someone else said, what if your dd had been sick and had choked? He should have got someone else to take your other dd or kept her off pre-school.

The trouble is, the list of things that could happen is huge, because most 3 year olds have no sense of safety - I spend much of my time saying to my 4 year old "Please don't climb on the back of the chair like that - if you fall, it will hurt." We have had big discussions about why it would hurt, what other things have hurt her and how she felt, she looks at me all wide eyed and says "Oh yes Mummy, I remember" and then does the same thing half an hour later. Same with wearing a seat belt - she still tries to wriggle out of it on occasion. Because she just doesn't get it yet. Things that have hurt her in the past, she gets and avoids (like if I tell her food is hot, she'll wait and blow on it first because she's learnt that lesson!) but if it hasn't entered her experience yet, she can't be trusted to remember what I've told her.

So you've got all the issues with fire and incidents along those lines, with the child not knowing what to do, plus the fact she's vomiting and could hurt herself (bang her head, say, or choke) or just be scared, plus the fact that she could then be unpredictable - she could be climbing furniture to see where daddy is.

The link below is from family who were in the house when their child climbed her chest of drawers, somehow pulled it over and didn't survive. It's upsetting.

www.meghanshope.org/

You are definitely not over-reacting, and she is far too young to be on her own.

I was in the kitchen when my two year old let herself out of our garden (which I didn't think she could do, or would as she'd never shown any interest in the garden gate up to then), and took herself for a walk along the path by the lake opposite our house. Ten minutes of me cooking her dinner before I realised it was quiet outside and stuck my head out. Ten minutes of me going frantic trying to work out which way she might have gone - round the lake, or up to the main road.... - and cursing myself for not having stuck my head out sooner and for not noticing the odd quiet in the garden sooner and then again for just not having checked every minute at least. You just don't know what they can or will do, and you don't want to be at preschool when they try it at home...

You are totally justified in being upset and angry and you do need to stress to him how important it is that neither child is left at home under any circumstances. Then drop it. You know him best and only you can decide whether to trust him again. It sounds to me like he just made a terrible error of judgement - I bet he was thinking that he needed to get the other one to pre-school and because he'd only be gone for a couple of minutes down the road he thought it would be best not to take the poorly girl out. Yes this was absolutely the wrong decision to make but if he takes on board that this must never happen again and he's not done anything like this before - I think you can lay it to rest. Poor little dd - some people just can't see the world from their child's point of view - being left on your own at that age and being poorly must have been scarey bless her.

Leaving a sick 3.6 year old is ridiculous, but I've left a poorly 6 year old at home for 30 minutes to drop 4 year old at nursery.

Obviously you know your own dc, but waiting til they're 9/10/11 to leave them for 10 minutes seems absurd to me. I doubt our parents would have been this paranoid.

What a horrible thing to do to a vomiting child

Oh my ! I wouldn't allow him to be in charge of the kids for 5 seconds!

Bloody hell, no YANBU. You need to have a serious word with him about it!

What is the I'm all alone song? Is it from Shrek?

Your DH did (or at least we think he did, better check before killing him)
something really really stupid, even if he did it without thinking iyswim...

It isn't just what could have happened to her...it is the fact that ten minutes is an eternity to a toddler with zero idea of time.

If he had had a heart attack etc she would have been locked in and stranded.

I am pretty horizontal laid back but I don't even leave my ten year old as she burned toast, set the alarms off and had the fire brigade out WHEN WE WERE IN THE SODDING HOUSE WITH HER

Your DH needs to understand this - it isn't rocket science - and
should be awsre that social services would take a dim view of it.

Losenotloose - I think it depends on the child. You are obviously fortunate in having independent, confident children who are happy to be left (or you are doing a brilliant job of bringing them up to be strong, secure and independent). I don't personally know any 6 year olds that would be happy to be left for longer than 5 minutes if they thought parent was actually going off out of immediate area but I should imagine there are loads.

I am not saying that any age is right or wrong (although I do strongly believe that 3 is too young) - it all depends on the child. My dc are all still young - I had children late in life and all my friends and family have young or old teens so I can only go by what they have done. No idea when I will start leaving my children but think it will be led by them.

No way. And she was vomiting - the little thing needs someone with her constantly just for reassurance, let alone for safety reasons.

Disclaimer - I'm quite laid back and have left my supersensible 6yo on her own for 5 mins while I took my 3.5 yo to school. She was poorly (not vomiting) but I knew she'd be safe, briefed her what to do in case of problems/fire/whatever, and commanded her not to move from the sofa for the duration. A six year old can follow these instructions. A 3.5 yo cannot, especially a vomiting 3.5 yo.

Bloody hell.

Poor wee girl being alone and potentially puking up alone... let alone any other risks.

I would be looking at DH completely differently if he did something like that. It is inconceivable that he would.

YADNBU. I get a bit concerned at leaving my 3.3 yr old downstairs when I nip upstairs to dry my hair in the morning and keep having to turn off the hairdryer to call out to her! They can get up to mischief/in danger so quickly, and that's not even accounting for the fact that your little over was ill too. I'd be seriously upset.

Sergeantsnarky - my 7 year old accidentally called the police and they arrived at the door when we were in the house!!!. She was playing schools and pressed 999 accidentally (she knows that should only be called in emergencies). She has also nearly set the house on fire by turning the cooker on while resting toys on top!

YANBU op. That was very foolish of him and ssd would take a very dim view of it. 3.5 is far too long to be left in the house alone. Ten minutes may not seem like a long time, but a lot can happen in that time.

I do leave DS alone to go to the postbox but I don't have to cross any roads and it takes 3 mins. Also he is 6. There is no way I would have left him when he was 3. And I still wouldn't leave him if he'd been being sick. Hell, I probably wouldn't leave him if he were 10 and being sick.

I remember the first time I was left alone.
My dad was obviously nervous leaving me (looking back) and told me over and over not to go into the kitchen,not to answer the door,to just sit,and watch my programme....he was gone for 14mins and 34 seconds (he timed himself and told me later)
I pretended I was fine,but I was actually terrified.time seemed to go On forever and I was worried about when he would come back,I thought about going after him...

I was 9.

I cannot imagine how a sick 3 yr old must have felt.

If your DH can't understand that this is serious,I wouldn't be able to leave him alone with them again.if it were me.

Just to add to the chorus - I would never ever have done this. I think leaving a vomiting child is particularly irresponsible.

Reading babybythesea's post about furniture tipping over - just recently my DDs (4.9 yrs and almost 2 yrs) had two small friends over and one of them managed to pull all of the drawers out of her tall, wide, heavy chest of drawers, and then (we presume) swing or pull on the top draw and it fell over. Amazingly none of them were standing underneath. I was shaking with shock when I ran upstairs to see it had fallen over with them all in the room. We immediately secured it to the wall with a bracket. DD1 has had frequent lectures about not pulling the drawers out. I think one of them could have done it by themselves. Read babybythesea's link about a child who died this way.

I just read back and realised that he left her in the bathroom because she was still feeling sick. I cannot stress enough what an utterly stupid thing this was for him to do. As a social worker I would be seriously questioning his judgement and his parenting skills. I would consider cancelling that trip if I were you, or getting someone in to look after the kids instead. Please impress upon him how utterly stupid that was. This is basic stuff. Hope you are ok op.

Didn't mean to sound arrogant. If ds1 didn't want to be left or showed any distress, I wouldn't have left him.

Don't think it's anything to do with my parenting, he just likes to feel grown up. I know others who have done the same.

This is awful, anything could have happened.

Poor thing being left alone vomiting :(

You need a real serious discussion about this, thing is, even if she wasnt ill she shouldnt have been left alone, what if your DP dropped your other DD off at school then got ran over on the way home? Nobody would have even known that DD was at home on her own

Just awful

Losenotloose - you didn't sound arrogant. I think having children that are secure and confident is great. One day I may achieve it!!!