Don’t trust hubby with son

[LydiaAmbrose1]

So today I asked my husband to watch our 19 month old son for two minutes while I popped upstairs. He said he would. When I was upstairs I heard what I thought were my sons footsteps on the stairs. Then I hear tears and hubby asking my son if he’d tumbled. By the sounds of things, he’d got to the third or fourth stair and then fell down them! I was so annoyed because I’d literally just asked him to watch him for two minutes and that happens! I dare say hubby was messing about with his phone or not paying attention. We can’t put a stair gate up because of a curved staircase. I’m self employed and I’m supposed to be starting working for a few hours during the evenings soon and now I’m worried about leaving my son with my hubby who just doesn’t seem to have the same awareness of danger as me. I’m forever having to hide small items from my son that my husband has carelessly left lying around. My husband says I worry too much, but it just seems like common sense to me! Does anyone else have a husband like this?

Did your husband seem remorseful at all?

It's really hard when you're the primary carer not to be anxious about your partner getting things wrong, or doing things differently - and I'm assuming this is your first child? But part of parenting is making mistakes and developing confidence, and you need to let your DH do that. By 19mths, toddlers are learning to manage stairs - it's fair enough that your DH let him try. It sounds as if he was on hand.

If you decide this one incident means you can't trust your DH, that's up to you, but be careful you're not excluding your DH from being a parent - which we all do differently - or creating a situation you'll end up resenting. There are plenty of 'My DH leaves everything to me' threads...

It's hard to come down on one side or the other without knowing more - but I would say that all parents make mistakes. It's a steep learning curve. So unless he is routinely placing your child in harm's way and being blase about injuries etc, cut him a bit of slack and initiate conversations about safety so you can decide together how to make your home safe for ds. My dh wouldn't have taken kindly to being patronised or treated like the secondary parent.

You are being ridiculous. He hasn't hurt himself and you are making an assumption.

As for the stairs, out a stair gate up, you can buy flexible ones so your excuse is crap

If he was on his phone and ignoring his child that is not on.

If he was on his phone and ignoring his child that is not on. well, no probably not but plenty of people do it and the child hasn’t come to any harm. If they talk about it and come up with a plan to teach DS how to use the stairs that’s fair enough. None of us are perfect.

Well you need to give him the chance to learn his own lessons. Does he never get hurt on your watch? My two sure do.

Your DHs confidence won't improve unless he gets the chance to watch him himself

When my DD was about 2 she went from the top of the stairs to the bottom head over heels. Three adults in the house! It was an accident & all three of us felt like shit, but she wasn't hurt & it was a learning curve. Talk to him & explain your worries, but be wary of holding him to a higher standard than yourself; everyone slips up & at some point something will happen on your watch too

He needs to get some experience watching his son! Do you do everything normally?

Now you’ve said that Bernard I can remember my DD going from top to bottoms st 3 years old and I was right at the top with her!

OP do you ever encourage DH to take DS out and do their own thing?

Don’t worry about working, just make it plain that you’re working and he’s in charge. My DH used to have ours for one or two days a week whilst I worked and they loved it. You just have to realise that they do things differently and that’s ok.

Wheresthel1ght your tone is ridiculous. There’s a way of speaking to people and that isn’t it. Thank you to everyone else for your valid comments. I encourage my husband to spend time with my son and to play with him, but the truth is I think he finds it a bit boring and would always rather be doing something else (ie sit on computer or do something on phone). It’s not just the issue with the stairs, it’s common awareness of hazards... not leaving small bits around the house that my son puts in his mouth, not let son wander off into another room and let him play in there unattended while you remain sat in another room, not let son near sources of danger in the kitchen (ie kettle and things on the hob). The number of times things have happened when I’ve left him to it. I’m not saying nothing ever happens on my watch, but I do learn from it and I’m more careful next time. My husband however doesn’t seem to see that he might need to be more careful. He was remorseful after what happened, but I just know it will happen again. I could turn my back completely and let him get on with it, but at what cost. I honestly just don’t think a lot of men have the same awareness or attitude towards danger as women. Bit of a generalisation yes I know, but it would appear to be true

What sort of things does DH leave lying around? If it was his stuff I’d be tempted to bin it