partner gave our 10 month old gone off food

[Cherrybalm]

hi,

hoping someone can reassure me and dampen my irritation too. our 10 month old often has one of those ella kitchen smoothies as a pudding after her dinner. DH does very little of the childcare anyway, today I asked him if he could finish our babies dinner whilst I jumped in the shower quick before he goes to the gym. he is always on his phone - today was no different. I showed him the pouch for our baby, specifically said the orange one. he had his head in his phone as per and glanced up and nodded.

I get out the shower and he has given her an old PURPLE one that has been in there weeks and weeks that is open. first of all, I am worried now as these things have a message that say they can be kept in the fridge up to 48 hours only. is she likely to get sick? secondly, this just highlights his lack of parenting and how much time he spends on his phone

it was in date but I couldnt even tell you how long it has been at the back of the fridge, long forgotten. so furious

I used to find half pouches of ellas kitchen in the fridge all the time. No idea where they came from/went I've decided there is a fridge fairy who moves them to the back never to be seen again!
However I am also a believer that mistakes happen, I'm sure your other half didn't mean to give the wrong one.
Have a breather/let it out then move on. My baby has a thing for wires (in the form of laptop chargers) and manages to sniff them out a mile off quite often we turn round and he has one in his mouth. Babies are crafty like that

the fact I mentioned in my OP that the phone use was a problem and that because of this he had given our child gone off food really does make that entire speech redundant. no it wasnt fair enough though was it because most of you zoned in on the fact I hadn't thrown it away rather than his lack of parenting and excessive phone use, so rather than give me any solidarity whatsoever and be in any way reassuring I got a bollocking about the food. soooo helpful

Well, no, because you'll see I did mention that you'd said he was a bit of a screen addict.

Started off with the man accidentally feeding his kid the wrong pouch, which is something I can imagine either myself or DH doing, and being a bit of a screen addict (I'm guilty of this myself)

See? But tbh, being a bit of a screen addict doesn't to me shout out that you're automatically an abysmal parent. I think most of my generation are screen addicts. It doesn't impact on my response.

Also, be careful with relationship advice on here- I've observed over my years here that you'll get a lot of people who are very eager to encourage OPs to end their relationships, always lay any blame immediately at the door of the partner and will dramatise how awful an OP's partner has been in their comments. Which, while soothing to ruffled feathers, can lead to some unnecessary breakups. Hence, my response to your OP, before name calling or anything was mentioned, was to cut him some slack as everyone makes mistakes. Even you.

the issue I have is how many of you went in on the food being there as opposed to any reassurance. tbh I dont think its acceptable to be a "screen addict" and allow your child to consistently end up in less than desirable situations. its pathetic and draining on the parent who has to consistently pick up the slack and do everything (me). can you imagine how little those initial comments helped? this is what this site is primarily intended for. sadly, it has gone downhill because everyone thinks every section is akin to AIBU and wants a chance to stick their boot in

I hear you cherry but what can we do about it?
If your dp isn't a great father, not very interested in his baby - that's not likely to change.
If you want someone better then you'll have to split up from him, but he'll demand contact time take the baby round his mums to look after he sounds really lazy and boring, I feel for you.

I initially went in with reassurance and, at the end, reiterated the point made about not keeping gone off food in the fridge. Unfortunately, MN does not have a like button, so in order to agree with someone upthread you have to physically say it.

I think it's pretty helpful actually to recognise where errors have been made in order to examine one's own part in them. Lots of people get into the habit of blaming their partners for the entirety of a bad situation and ignore their own hand in it- I think having your own involvement pointed out by an objective outsider can be very helpful. Later down the thread you said you didn't even know the purple one was in there, which is fair enough (though you must have a bigger fridge than me to manage that!) but at the time it seemed likely that you knew the purple one was there, lending you some culpability in the matter.

Ultimately, you'll get a range of opinions on a forum (that's the beauty of them). If you don't like the advice given, scroll on by or argue the toss, but my comments have all been genuine. I did not comment in order to 'pile on' or be rude.

I can't believe that anyone is still talking about the food in the fridge. Just incredible. The very first post clearly stated he was on his phone and was going to the gym - she was having a shower not out drinking cocktails.

OP I don't know what's going on in this thread. There seem to be a few people determined to be difficult and to lay the blame at your feet for daring to do something we all do every morning - a shower. And for not having your fridge cleaned out at all times despite purple most definitely not being orange.

By the way plastic I have a small fridge and there's all manner of shit hidden at the back. Ridiculous comment.

OP, I have read the first page and this page. I understand (unfortunately all too well) about being upset that your child's father did something a bit irresponsible with your child, and you are worried about the immediate effect it's going to have on your DD's health, but the real problem seems to be your DH, and his useless parenting long term. You've got a choice: a future in which you are always having to be the sole responsible parent, and have to post this kind of thing endlessly until your daughter reaches adulthood, or you sort out your partnership, and tell your DH he needs to either step up as a parent, or fuck off.

I can't believe that anyone is still talking about the food in the fridge. Just incredible. The very first post clearly stated he was on his phone and was going to the gym - she was having a shower not out drinking cocktails.

Well, OP asked for the first commenters to defend what they said and so I did. To be fair, I also took the 'he was on his phone' thing with a pinch of salt in the initial reading- my reason being that she was in the shower, she doesn't know what he was doing at the time. Unless he said, 'I was on the phone so wasn't paying attention'. I agree the conversation has moved on somewhat, but she asked so I answered. Also, there's nothing wrong with going out and drinking cocktails provided that the child is being looked after by someone else.

plastic, you've completely misread my OP. the reason he missed what food he was supposed to give her was because he was too busy on his phone when I was telling him so of course I knew that's why. the fact I said as per also suggests this is a common occurrence.

I feel like I'm going round in circles again though now, doing what I did at the beginning and having to defend myself. you don't think there was anything wrong with the responses I got on my post, myself and several others think a lot of them were unnecessary, unhelpful and out of line. that's really all there is to it.

I can't comment on the comments of others- I've no idea what their intent was. But i still stand by the ones I made. I've no interest in arguing the toss further, unless you'd like to (I only came back on because I spotted that you seemed to want the early posters to return). Good luck with your family going forward.

Argh! I, not i. Why it wouldn't autocorrect to I I don't know. It usually does.

I would say it was the fault of the person leaving it in the fridge!

Quite frankly plastic you are just behaving childishly. You misread the post, missed half of what was said then tried to justify it.

She doesn't need to 'examine her own part in it' (Jesus that is condescending and PA) because a) having a shower is a right not a luxury b) it's his kid not some random child and c) it isn't her job to keep every single item in the fridge up to date and if he was told orange at the front and chose purple at the back it's not her fault.

It's not her fault he couldn't be arsed and was going to the gym AGAIN. Anyone with half a brain could read the first post and see that although there was a question about will her child be ok there was also very clearly a lazy apathetic checked out and selfish husband. If you think going to the gym every night and scorching yourself wife to do 100% of the housework and child care is ok good for you. Most of mumsnet doesn't. Not that you would know it on this thread.

Quite frankly plastic you are just behaving childishly. You misread the post, missed half of what was said then tried to justify it.

I read what was said and replied fairly enough to the posts that had been made up to that point, in my opinion. As for the rest of your post, it was reasonable to assume from the original post/s that OP knew the purple one was in there and instructed her DP to use the orange rather than just remove the purple. If this had been the case, yes, OP would've needed to examine her own part in it. Fair enough, she didn't know, or says she didn't, but that wasn't said until after I'd posted my responses. Would I give the same responses now that the thread has moved on? No. But I'm not a mind-reader and could only go on the information I had at the time. I then left the thread because it moved on and I don't tend to revisit once there's a decent number of posts to catch up on unless it's particularly interesting. I came back because on the 'I'm on' section, I happened to see reference to earlier posters and popped on to defend the initial posts as OP indicated she'd like the previous posters to do. 🤷

DH does very little of the childcare anyway, today I asked him if he could finish our babies dinner whilst I jumped in the shower quick before he goes to the gym. he is always on his phone - today was no different. I showed him the pouch for our baby, specifically said the orange one. he had his head in his phone as per and glanced up and nodded.

She even showed him the pouch! And he does very little anyway.

I get out the shower and he has given her an old PURPLE one despite being shown the packet.

secondly, this just highlights his lack of parenting and how much time he spends on his phone

Yep. Pretty clear to me. TBF it's not just you. I was shocked at the 'why don't you keep the fridge updated at all times and let's pretend it's ok to not parent your own child and d SD lend all your free time at the gym' pile on that followed.

Literally comment after comment about why did she have out of date food in the fridge because of course we can't expect the poor Menz to do menial stuff like clearing out fridges. Not when they have Very Important Bodybuilding to do.

Because if a woman spent this much time in pursuit of the perfect body and the rest of the time ignoring her child you would all have plenty to say. Judging by how much of a crime it appears to be to not throw away out of date food 🙄

You live and learn.

@MarriedtoDaveGrohl

1. I got that he does very little anyway, but so did my DH when baby was 10 months old because he was either working or commuting for 14 hours of the day and I breastfed overnight so he couldn't do much there either. Thus, it was not a red flag for me.

1. Lots of people are always on their phone, again, not a red flag for me.

1. I left before the gym was mentioned.

1. In my opinion, if you know there's out of date baby food in the fridge, you clean it out. You can't expect the person who isn't in the house very much to know when it was opened and dispose of it accordingly. Now again, OP later said she didn't know the pouch was in the fridge, but that was after my comments were made.

In short, my comments were, in my opinion, fair and justified based on the information that had been given at the point I made them. Now, I'm off to get on with my morning. If you like, feel free to have the last word.

I’ve definitely been guilty of leaving out of date food in the fridge for too long. Luckily I’m a single parent so there’s a much lower risk of someone else using it.

The worst fail along these lines was when staying with my parents for a few weeks. I took a bottle of 6 day old expressed milk out of the fridge to throw away but didn’t get around to pouring it away. Hours later, after it had been sitting in a 20+ degree kitchen, my mum gave it to baby DD. We were horrified but luckily no ill effects.

I’ve taken three things from this thread:

1. those pouches of baby food must be safe for at least 4-5 days given that you can’t even remember when you opened it.

2. Some Mumsnetters are perfect. Perfect parents who would never leave anything past it in their pristine fridge. Ugh

3. This is the tip of the iceberg and you need to seriously consider whether your partnership (because parenting should be a partnership) is worth fighting for. If it is, then the half arsed parenting efforts of your DP need addressing.

@AlwaysLatte please join your friends at the beginning of the thread, very boring.

thanks for those who have responded in a helpful and supportive way. as I said, this really was just the cherry on top, so frustrating that even after showing him this happend. I'm over the food situation but yes going to have to reassess going forward particularly with me returning to work as this wont be sustainable

@FourPlasticRings

The gym was mentioned in the first post. And again in my repost. You hadn't 'left'.

Lots of people are always on their phone. But everyone spends hours cleaning out their fridges. Which is it? You mean men are always on their phone and women are always clearing out fridges I think. Or was it 'the one that's mostly home' 😂😂

Your husband worked or commuted for 14 hours a day and you breastfed. Have a medal 🏅 the OPs baby is weaned though. Eating solids. And her husband isn't working he's going to the gym every night.

You may want to be housewife of the year. Good for you. The OP however has worked and will do again and does not wish to be responsible for 100% of the child care and domestic work. In 2020 many don't.

I think the reason I find you so annoying is because you have zero empathy for her, you just keep saying my comments were fair and reasonable based on what she said, and talking about it being a drip feed.

But that's not true because she said about the gym in the first post. There was no drip feed. It's all in your head - you just decided that you didn't like the fact that she hadn't cleaned her fridge out. Why did you and those like you even bother replying if you feel like that? Most people just avoid threads if they think they have nothing in common with the OP or can't relate. You and the others came on here specifically to judge.

Hope on back to the 1950s and post about quilting or whatever it is you like won't you?

@Cherrybalm you definitely have a DP problem. You need to get to the bottom of what's going on. He called you a cunt fgs. That's enough to make many people leave. I know there's probably more youve not said thanks to the judgy brigade but if you're feeling brave pop over to relationships where you won't get this shit and give a little more info on him, and the dynamic between the two of you.

Try and avoid the LTB by being balanced about your part in it (if any) but it doesn't sound good. He sounds resentful and preoccupied and tbh it could even be an affair. He's certainly an indifferent father and an unloving husband and though it's unlikely you'll get the truth you do have to see what you can get him to tell you.

Obviously he'll be worried about losing half of 'his' money and having to pay for two households plus it suits him to have a domestic servant you at home so he's not going to just say "yeah I hate this and don't find the child interesting and just want to be shagging hot women which is why I'm going to the gym, do I can pull Sharon from accounts who's 22 and has a banging body."

So you need to look at his actions too. But if he's willing to talk and change then great. But you can't be 'making him' stay home or be with you because that's shit for you, who wants that?

What kind of guy can't be bothered to feed their own child properly - he didn't even care enough to pay attention! And wants to spend all his free time away from you both? What's he getting his perfect body for anyway? Himself? Do me a favour.

I know it has been years but I wanted to say you're absolutely correct!!!!!! You have the right to be upset over this! I hate careless parents. My husband made our son a sandwich today with turkey that expired six days ago and his response was, why was it in the fridge?? Just like all of these ridiculous comments. Life happens! You get busy! It's not difficult to check a date before using something and make sure your child is consuming a safe product. In your case the pouch was already opened so wouldn't he use just a little common sense to realize it wasn't fresh?
I hate that everyone is blaming you for not throwing it away instead of blaming the person who didn't use common sense or their ears.