DH left gas stove on overnight

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was your baby sleeping next to the stove? Do you live in a studio? I wouldn’t be concerned about this but do call your pediatrician for reassurance. I have 4 kids and I’ve never thought to wait until the faucet is off to put my baby in the tub.

Pp here. Especially for an 11-month-old baby in the tub. I do think you might be a bit too anxious. I think it hurts husbands when we are so critical of how they care for babies, they end up losing confidence and not wanting to be involved for fear of being criticized.

+1. I’ve been to marriage counseling and come out the other side and this was one of the issues that came up. When my kids were little (they were also very close in age) I was so stressed out and my anxiety manifested in my critical view of my husband. He kept trying to help and I just harped on everything he was going wrong. He eventually stopped helping and I was so mad that I was “the only one driving the bus”.
Ultimately you have to chill out. You can’t have it both ways. Unless he is egregiously endangering the child (which IMO based on your descriptions of his actions he is not) you need to let go of some control issues. And if you really don’t think he’s smart enough to not scald the kid in the bath then you have some larger issues at hand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not ideal, but nothing happened. I’d be much more concerned if there was a pattern of carelessness. One time let it go. You’re fine. The baby is fine.

The other day, he filled the tub as the baby sat in the tub. I’ve told him not to do that before because there is a risk of scalding baby. He says it’s fine because he’s already tested the water before putting baby in- well guess what happened? When he reached to turn off the faucet, his hands weren’t supporting baby and baby fell backwards in the tub.

He’s super careful and never makes mistakes at work, and I feel like he doesn’t take the same care at home at all. He says I am too careful and over vigilant.

Huh? Do you expect him to support the nearly 1 yr old throughout the entire bath? You are being unreasonable. I’d be mad about the gas thing too but what do you want him to do? He said sorry.

[Anonymous]

My husband left the freezer door ajar last night and the entire contents melted. Annoying and careless, less, but he's at the store now restocking. People make mistakes, op, and your baby is fine.

[Anonymous]

Your risk was of a giant explosion. There was no carbon monoxide poisoning. Not that one is much better than the other.

[Anonymous]

Your carbon monoxide detector did not go off because natural gas is not carbon monoxide. It really is nbd, except for the risk of an explosion. And if you didn’t smell it, then that risk was pretty low.

Stuff happens.

[Anonymous]

That stuff happens. Keep the windows open for a few hours and you should be fine.

[Anonymous]

Op I hear you but, keep it up and you will end up divorced.

[Anonymous]

If there was a lot of gas you would have noticed the smell.

The tub thing is no big deal either. The key is that he was there to retrieve the fallen baby before she drowned, and that she fell from sitting and wasn’t being allowed to stand in the tub. She’s not going to hurt herself falling backwards from sitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not ideal, but nothing happened. I’d be much more concerned if there was a pattern of carelessness. One time let it go. You’re fine. The baby is fine.

The other day, he filled the tub as the baby sat in the tub. I’ve told him not to do that before because there is a risk of scalding baby. He says it’s fine because he’s already tested the water before putting baby in- well guess what happened? When he reached to turn off the faucet, his hands weren’t supporting baby and baby fell backwards in the tub.

He’s super careful and never makes mistakes at work, and I feel like he doesn’t take the same care at home at all. He says I am too careful and over vigilant.

I have never waited for the tub to fill before putting in the kid. I would expect an 11 month old to be reasonably good at sitting up. I assume he immediate righted the baby afterwards? I agree that you sound anxious and hypercritical.

Wait, people fill up the tub BEFORE putting the kid in?? We make sure the water is warm and then put the kid in. People sit around and wait for it to fill up?? I also open the drain and let the soap/dirty water drain and then fill it up with clean water for splashing.

I usually start it filling and then I go undress the baby, but I am fine with it finishing once she is in there.

[Anonymous]

Rare DCUM consensus here, OP.

[Anonymous]

You’re insane.

Unless your baby sleeps face first on the stove burner, there’s no way she inhaled any amount of gas worth worrying about.

Didn’t you small it? Maybe this is your fault too?

And natural gas isn’t carbon monoxide.

What do you want from your husband? He said he was sorry, do you need him to inflict self-harm?

[Anonymous]

OP I get where you are coming from. I think you are most upset not that he screwed up but by the fact that he doesn’t seem to recognize the seriousness of what he did which makes you wary of trusting him in the future. It is absolutely logical. Yes everyone has a story about how they almost killed their baby. Everyone is also generally horrified at the fact that they almost killed their baby. And this whole sexist idea that big strong men cannot possibly be able to accept any criticism and will naturally and understandably quit doing things if the wife is anything but “you’re the best dad ever.” That’s total BS.

[Anonymous]

OP calm down,

DH and I have both left our gas stove on overnight in the past year. Not ideal, of course, but the real threat was fire. Now it's part of our evening check before we go to bed.

[Anonymous]

At some point your kid is going to get a goose egg bump, shiner, scrape etc on your watch. How harshly do you want to be judged once something actually happens?

[Anonymous]

OP, I had a similar dynamic with DH. I did not trust him to make good decisions - and I had good reasons for that - but it became a cycle of him screwing up more the more I criticized. Marriage counseling was extremely helpful to us. I wasn't wrong, and he did need to step up, but my actions weren't helpful.