I don't know how to talk to my husband and get him to take baby/child safety issues seriously.
He is very laid back. Very very laid back. We have two children - 3.2 and 6 months, and I am always picking up potentially lethal things that my husband keeps leaving around in the children's reach - bleach and other chemicals, various power tools, plastic bags etc. I have asked him again and again to please put them higher up so our oldest can't reach it (they are ususally out of reach of the baby) but it just doesn't seem to sink in and I am feeling like a nag.
Tonight though I feel like I am completely through with it. We live in a house which has ceiling to floor windows upstairs. Christ you know where this is going already don't you. We have recently moved our son from a cot to a proper bed and he is still in the stage of getting out of his bed a lot and wandering around upstairs. I have asked my husband many times if we can get some made to measure stair gates to put up inside against them, or bars which go outside. He has always said it's not necessary because the windows (which open inwards) have a child-proof saftey catch on them which means you can open them a bit and no further and the children can't move them (sound a bit weird, but I live overseas and I've never seen any windows like this in the UK). All very well and good, except I come upstairs this evening (after our son was in bed) to find our ceiling-to-floor bedroom window wide open. Our son could so easily have gone on one of his wanderings and fallen out and ended up, christ I can't even think about it.
I have told him that I'm absolutely furious with him and he is to order bars for the windows tonight, which he is trying to do. I'm just at my wits end though, because he just doesn't seem to think about things like this, and I don't think I can make him do so because his personality is just so very laid back and forgetful. I know he wouldn't ever want to deliberately put the children in harms way but tonight could have ended in a tragedy because he just doesn't think. I know he is contrite and he will try not to do it again, but I just don't know that that won't happen and in all honesty I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing by potentially exposing the kids to this kind of danger. What on earth can I do? He is otherwise a good father and husband, but this part of him seems incompatible with family life.