Stranded wife and pukey baby - what should he have done?

[HenriettaSmalltrousers]

NC for this as I'd like to get opinions on this situation at face value, without any other details I may have posted in the past influencing opinions.

DH self employed but does very regular shifts for an organisation about an hours drive from home.
Im also self employed but I pretty much look after our DD and the house singlehandedly as he works usually 6/7 days a week.

So when this incident happened I'd been on my own with DD (14 mths) at home. A client called with an urgent problem. I felt like I had no choice but to put DD, who was in her pyjamas and about to go to bed, in the car with her blankets and drive to deliver something to a town about 40 mins from home and 40 mins from where DH was working.

All went fine until after the delivery was made and we had set off for home when DD woke up and started vommiting. I cleaned her up as best I could, changed her and when I thought she'd stopped being sick, i set off again trying to get back as quickly as I could.

But then she started again. I've never seen so much vomit and she was in such a state. I called a friend who lived in the town who put a romantic meal with her boyfriend on hold to help. She went for nappies and a new babygro while the boyfriend helped me run a bath etc.

I called DH to tell him what had happened. DD was still poorly and upset, my car was swimming in puke and i was covered in it. I didnt feel like I could put her back in the back of the car on her own. I was upset too by this point. It had been a tough couple of weeks and I'd had eniugh, I just wanted some support. He said he'd come when he finished in 3 hours but he wouldnt ask to finish early as it wasn't a proper emergency and it would look bad. He was genuinely surprised I expected him to and thought it was asking too much. I felt he'd been working with these people long enough to explain we were stranded and DD ill and ask if he could go for a couple of hours.

In the end, friend drove me and DD home while her boyfriend drove my car behind. I text DH and told him what was happening and asked again if he would try and come. TBH, although friend and BF were lovely I felt we were inconveniencing them a lot and got the distinct impression they felt he should be the one helping us.

What do you think? Should he have come? Is it something I should be able to ask him to do or was I putting him in a difficult compromising position?

Well aren't MN mums wonderful. You could all manage.👏

Of course the father of the child should have helped. It was the responsibility of the baby's father to help not the friends. The person whose sperm made the baby should step up.

NO some random woman can cancel her plans. God forbid a man should leave his important job.

The point is not could you cope, the point is the mother of his baby needed help and support. She manages on her own 90% of the time and when she asked for support he refused.

Even if the OP did panic and flap isn't it then when your partner steps up to help you. When things go wrong and you are not coping and you are making silly decisions isn't that exactly the time you need support?

You don't need help when you are coping you need help when you aren't.

I think you were unreasonable to expect him to come home however it sounds like he needs to support you more and you’re pissed off generally which is understandable.

You weren’t stranded, you had means to get home.
If you were a single parent you’d have had to get home yourself. I appreciate you’ not a single parent and it is reasonable to have the other parent there in an emergency but this is not an emergency situation.

That's not an emergency situation. Your friends were amazingly tolerant to come and help you, and you really don't want to be pulling your dp out of work for that, or when there really is an emergency he'll not want to come.

I remember travelling in a train. Dd2 suddenly started being sick. She was sick every 5 minutes between Coventry and Leeds. The train staff were amazingly kind about it, as were my fellow travellers, but it really was for me to deal with. I was offered water and free biscuits.

Unless she was losing consciousness, the best thing to do would have been to rush back home (40 minutes isn't far) and bath her (on your own, you don't need help). You could have left the car to be cleared out later.

You'll have more of this sort of situation as she grows. You don't really want to have run out of friends that will come and help when it is a genuine emergency.

I think you owe your friends to at least pay for another romantic meal. Dealing with your own child's vomit is bad enough. Dealing with someone else's is far worse.

Once a car (and baby) is covered in vomit, it's covered in vomit, I would have just cleaned the baby up as best I could, and continued home. Even if she was upset on the rest of the drive, she would have been home as soon as possible then. I don't honestly see how your DH could have helped much if he had left work, as it would have been a case of getting in, shoving everything in the washing machine, and you and the baby getting in the bath to clean off.

However from the way it is written, this is clearly the tip of the iceberg, and there are deeper issues with your DH. If everything else was perfect I don't think you would have written this post.

Was this last night? I would also question why a client would consider something so urgent that you were expected to drive over to them immediately. What if he hadn't been able to contact you, or if you had been drinking and hadn't been able to drive?

I hope your DD is recovered from the vomiting and you are able to have a more peaceful day.

HRTFT but I don't understand why you took your baby and drove 40 minutes at night to deliver something that wasn't connected to your work. Well, you won't be doing that again! 😀

I also don't understand why you didn't just drive home. If you hadn't gone rushing off in the first place none of this would have happened.

NO some random woman can cancel her plans. God forbid a man should leave his important job.
It's nothing to do with that. If I'd been out shopping or out with friends, I wouldn't have expected (or would he) dh to phone me and ask for help.

...if I was your friend the friendship would wither on the vine.

Quartz has it.

As a one off of course you could have managed, though it's not unreasonable to worry about a vomitting baby choking if alone fastened into a car seat behind you while you drive, especially on roads where there aren't many stopping places.

However if your DH just works and you work and do all the hands on work of parenting your mutual child and running a house he's a dick and no wonder you resent him. You need to have a serious conversation.

You sound exhausted and at the end of your tether. No, normally you should not expect your dh to come home for that. However, you clearly need to have a conversation with your dh about the imbalance in your home and work lives, as occasionally helping to deal with a sick child is hugely preferable to dumping all the responsibility onto your dw until she breaks down and needs months to recover, instead of a few hours of your time...

Sorry op but most people have had that happen to them and gotten on with it themselves. The only times I've asked for help is when wife been really ill myself. Your friends sound amazing but it would have been much better to drive straight home and get everything sorted then.

Regarding him working and you doing all childcare and housework as well as working you have to discuss that and may be looking at making sure he's home on certain days to allow you to do your work and for him to do his fair share. If that would be tricky then look at paying for a cleaner or some childcare.

I've not wife

Well aren't MN mums wonderful. You could all manage.👏

It's not really about that though, is it? It's about whether it's a legitimate reason for the other parent too leave work, which it isn't.

There wasn't another child that needed looking after, for example. OP wasn't injured/unwell and incapable of looking after her DD. It was just one of those unfortunate situations where, yes, if he was at home he could have come and helped. but he couldn't really leave work to do so.

It happens. It's not ideal but OP managed just fine.

It does sound like a nightmare and in the same situation I probably would have rung dh too and asked him to come....but i would have (eventually) understood if he said he had to stay at work. It wasn’t really a full on emergency, you weren’t that far from home and could have got home with pukey kid in pukey car if needed.

But you did have friends to help and tbh that’s what friends are for too, to help out when things go wrong - me and my friends rely on each other in these situations. I’m sure you’d be happy help to help if a friend nearby rang you in similar situation. Just because your dh is the baby’s father doesn’t mean he has to come running every time there’s a problem, he’d probably have no job if he did that. That should be saved for real emergencies.

However from the way it is written, this is clearly the tip of the iceberg, and there are deeper issues with your DH.

Maybe, maybe not. There could be deeper issues with the OP rather than her DH. We're talking about a puking baby. Regardless of the venue or distance from home, it is not an issue that merits getting friends to cancel a night out or partners to leave work.

Not read it all but I think your daughter has travel sickness.

I think you should take friends flowers and wine to say thank you.

I wouldn't have expected DH to come out, as it was a long drive away and by the time he got there I'd have sorted it anyway. I would however expect him to help with the valet of the car when he did get home.

There's clearly a back story here so I'm guessing there is more to it than this though.

If her dad is working 6 or 7 days a week and you are juggling your child and work alone but are not happy about this you need to talk to him about improving his work life balance.

This is not an emergency. Once the DC and car are covered then they are covered. Just drive on and get home. Bath, clean PJ's and snuggles! With a big bucket nearby.

DS has had many seizures where we've been bluelighted into hospital. There is nothing DH can do, I'm with DS and medical professionals. He'll come to visit once work has finished.

We are hospital regulars though....
Hope she's feeling better today !?

...if I was your friend the friendship would wither on the vine.

This. I would have been horrified to have been put in that situation - bad enough with own kids. If I had caught the bug I would have never spoken to you again.

Oh fuck off mouse! The guy was at work,not out on the piss.

Leaving work to go and help clean up a vomiting child is completely unreasonable whether it was the dad working or the mum. I'm loving the double standard here...so the posters work is so important she had to drag her child who was about to go to bed out to deliver somthing BUT the dads job is so unimportant he can piss of to mop up sick?

Such a bloody dramatic title stranded wife ffs ?

The face the guy is getting shit for working such long hours is quite unfair, perhaps he needs to do things, there are not many people who would chose to work6-7 days a week unless they have to.

I don't understand why you bothered your friend? If you were at most 40 mins away from home why not keep driving and just sort it all out at home?

If you got the distinct impression your friend felt DH should he helping then she was probably pissed off at having her evening ruined but something so trivial as a vomiting child.

You owe her a massive apology and a present.

I don’t know if the train example is relevant. That’s completely different to driving , keeping one eye on the road while panicking about your small child choking etc because you’re stressed and upset, and unable to hold them.

What you say you've excluded in your post speaks volumes. You've obviously been in this kind of situation before. You've obviously had arguments with him before about who does what and been upset enough to post about it on MN. Why were you out with DD anyway to deliver the item? Why wasn't he getting it?

On the face of it, I wouldn't have bothered telling DH until he got home. But this is obviously something in a long line or problems and disagreements about things where you're not getting the support from him you want.

The OP does the vast majority of childcare and is struggling after "a tough couple of weeks". She wanted help and support.

All things being equal she could have managed. All things being equal she would just get on with it. But it is quite clear from the tone of the email she had reached the end of her tether and reached out for support and none was there.

I can remember when my D.C. were young having a melt down about something trivial because it all got too much. I phoned my DP and he came home because for whatever reason I wasn't coping.

All you posters who cope all the time in every situation and never need help can you just try and empathise with those of us who sometimes need a little help. Applying logic to human emotions especially when babies are involved is always going to be a bad plan.

I hope none of you ever breakdown over a seemingly small issue and have people tell you it's no big deal get on with it.

Hopefully OP is delivering a bottle of wine and dinner hamper to her friend to make up for cancelling their date. What great friends!