DP & safety issues

[ibis17]

Just wondering if anyone else has been through this and what you did…

DP is generally lovely and a very hands on, loving dad. He WFH and does a lot around the house and with the children (don’t get me wrong, we argue a lot about who does more domestic chores, but for the context of my question here, he is fairly involved in day to day home life)

we have two children age 3 & 4 months.

My issue is that he is a bit ditzy by nature and this is really starting to impact his safety awareness with the children. Recent events have included me hearing our 3yo calling repeatedly for him, and coming into the house to find her alone at the top of the stairs with the stair gate open (v v steep steps), the baby alone in the living room and the partner outside the house - he’d ‘just popped out quickly to do something urgent’. Another time he forgot the baby was in the car. Another time he left the then two year old alone on the toilet (our bathroom is also at the top of steep steps and at that point we hadn’t finished locking away medicines).

I have discussed this with him in every way I can think of. I am a teacher and so probably more on edge about child safety and risk assessment. However I can’t seem to get him to take it seriously and he becomes quite moody and teenage when I bring it up to the point where recently I’ve felt I’m parenting 3 children with my partner as a moody adolescent boy.

this is obviously one side of our relationship and the other is he us very caring, does all cooking, nursery pick up and a lot of the early mornings, so he’s not a monster or anything.

thoughts?!

When he’d popped out quickly… do you mean to the shops? Or to put the bins out?

Another time he forgot the baby was in the car. Another time he left the then two year old alone on the toilet (our bathroom is also at the top of steep steps and at that point we hadn’t finished locking away medicines).

how did he forget? What actually happened

and neither of had locked away medicene. That is the biggest potential fuck up. And it’s on both of you. And it takes all of ten seconds

Left the baby in the car, how long for? Is he aware children have died from this?

You need to sit down with him and explain how dangerous his actions are OP.

Lp Left the baby in the car while he was taking the shopping in or while he went into the shops?

Popped out to grab something from the car or to go to the shop?

A 3 year old should be able to safely manage stairs.

sorry, to fill in the details:

She’s just turned 3 - last week - and we don’t leave her to manage the stairs alone as it’s an incredibly old building and they are steep, winding and uncarpeted. We have a stair gate at top and bottom.

medicines usually are locked away, and you are right, it was on both of us that on this occasion there was some out on a shelf - my rule in general is no unattended toddler in the bathroom as it’s at the top of the stairs unprotected by the stair gate (hard to explain, but for structural reasons the bathroom can’t be protected by the stair gate)

He’d popped out to put something in the bin then had a phone call he felt was urgent and strolled a little way up the street to get better reception. I had popped to the shop leaving baby and toddker with him.

TBH it’s not the finer details of these particular incidents that worry me, it’s a general relaxed attitude to safety on his part.

As I’ve said, I have spoken to him about this many, many times in as many ways as I can think of. My parents and his parents have also spoken with him.

i was just curious if anyone else had found a way through a situation like this and what they had done.

does anyone know of videos or training courses that might help?

Should add that we live in a busy part of London so leaving the children alone in the house really isn’t something that’s ok in our neighbourhood even just for 5 minutes

You can ask your HV for access to parenting courses, if you tell her what you've told us I have no doubt she/he would be disturbed and find something to help.

It's not OK period, infact it's beyond a competent parents comprehension.

Well exactly.

I was just responding to some of the above messages where I was asked if he’d just popped out briefly. Leaving the children alone is not something I ever do - I’m the sort who won’t even pop to the loo if it means they are in a room alone.

My approach would be to send him links to articles where children have died after being left in similar situations.

DP once left our 5mo in the bath while he went to the next room to grab a towel. It was all of three seconds but I absolutely hit the roof