Husband didn’t wake up for toddler while I was on a work trip. Had to call for help.

44 comments

1. This requires more conversation with him and setting clear boundaries. He’s a parent now, not a single man who can just oversleep. If he can’t be responsible when you’re not around, it’s almost like having another child.

   I would set boundaries and expectations and let him know what to expect if things don’t change.

2. This requires a Come to Jesus talk.

   Personally, I would ask him to think through what could have happened if you didn’t have someone to call to wake him up…

3. Does he have a drinking problem? Does he understand that he should not be drinking when he’s solely in charge of the child? Is he going to do better in the future?

4. Oh, boy. Maybe he needs a “no drinking when responsible for a child” rule.
   Frat bro nights are over and he was crazy irresponsible. I’m sorry.

5. I travel a lot for work and my husband is a stay at home dad but he has a terrible habit of turning down the baby monitor like it’s an alarm clock. Even when he’s awake he’s not typically around his phone if I need to get ahold of him. So I have several Alexa devices around the house that we ask for the weather or play music, and if I need his attention I can ‘drop in’ to the closest one to him and call for him. Works every time.

6. Guess he won’t be drinking for a while after this one.

   Don’t divorce over this. But make it so he knows that this pathetic display won’t be happening again and he will just have to sit around watching Netflix by himself if you’re out of town and he’s got the baby home with him.

7. I agree this isn’t a divorce divorce divorce talk but whatever talk you do have with him it should be the only one. It’s his come to Jesus moment.

8. If it makes you feel any better I have four kids and my husband still drops the ball and doesn’t meet their needs immediately. We have cameras set up all over the house. I taught my kids how to answer and call me from the iPad if their dad wasn’t making food or fell asleep and didn’t wake for them. Ending the marriage won’t fix anything because then he will have 50/50 and you won’t have access to monitor his parenting. Have a candid conversation but I wouldn’t plan on ending it until the kid is old enough to wipe his own ass if things don’t improve. Don’t have anymore kids.

9. >I know my husband and how things go down with these hangouts (drink too much) and I told him well before “you better set several alarms now make sure you don’t have the loud AC on in your room so you can hear our son wake up.” “Yeah duh I got it“

   So, he was fully aware of his actions. You have been aware of his actions enough to remind him before leaving, and he still did it!

   Something awful could have happened, and there was no responsible parent there. Nothing happened, but any parent knows things can go pear-shaped in a matter of seconds. I wouldn’t be able to look at my husband the same way if it were me.
   I don’t think you’re overreacting.

10. If he can’t wake up when drinking then he can’t drink when he has to get up with him, period

11. He literally drank so much. He probably had no idea if your child was OK that night. He neglected your child so badly you had to call a random friend to come help you. If you don’t put in divorce papers, you’re just as bad as he is because you’re not protecting your child.

12. I would have called the police to scare him a little bit.

    I would also tell him that you will call the cop’s evry time you can’t get a hold of him in the mornings when he is alone with your child and youre away on work…. till he show you can trust him.

    Next time he will probably not drink when you are on work trip.

13. If only one parent is home and in charge, they can’t drink. Period. What if there was an accident and your son needed to be taken to the hospital? He couldn’t drive him. It’s more than just not waking up in the morning. It’s being a responsible parent.
    This is not divorce worthy by any means but you need to sit down and discuss this with him. Your child comes first, always.

14. What if there was some reason he needed to drive for an emergency?! He should never ever incapacitate the only driver/adult in the house.

15. He definitely should not be drinking AT ALL while being the solo responsible parent of a toddler. This is proof.

16. Honestly I mostly gave up drinking when my kids were under 3 because I didn’t want to sleep through anything or be inebriated when I was putting them to bed (or back to bed). Your husband is going to have to save his guy nights for when you’re home and able to take care of the kid.

17. Look, just to contrast: My mom (63) is dying of cancer.

    She has to FIGHT with my dad (65) to get him to take the meds he’s needed to take for years to sleep. Because he is freaking petrified that she will need him to get her a heating pad, pain meds, or just a glass of water and he won’t hear her when she calls. Mind, she is at this point still totally mobile; he just doesn’t want her to have to get out of bed to come get him.

    That’s not even responsibility for a baby. That’s just responsibility to each other.

18. He did something that was very irresponsible, and could potentially have harmed your child due to his lack of thinking that maybe he shouldn’t have drank so much knowing he has a child to tend to. I would be rethinking things myself. He’s gotta act like an adult.

19. I’m not trying to sound like a bitch but he’s been a father FOR THREE YEARS!!! If he hasn’t decided to man the fuck up by now it ain’t gonna happen. What if your child had a fever or figured out how to get out of his crib? What if the house caught fire or something really bad happened? You can’t trust the father of your child to be a Dad. I’m pretty sure you know what you need to do.

20. Congratulations, you’ve married a man child and you’re just enabling his behaviour. I’m sorry for your situation.

21. Honestly, the fact that this was predictable, that you KNEW this would happen, that he dismissed your reminder, and then did it anyway when ya know, your toddler needed to be tended to, is what really makes me pause here. I HATE when I can predict a problem due to a pattern of behaviors and it becomes a problem anyway.

    I think you need to call him on the phone and basically say

    “That was unacceptable. You dismissed my reminders about it and you went and did it anyway. I predicted this would happen due to your patterns of behavior. I knew to check on our child because you’re unreliable. Is that the kind of partner that you want to be? The kind of father? Because it’s not the kind of partner that I want to have.
    I’m going to set a clear boundary with you that this type of behavior won’t be tolerated. Our child needs to be the priority. If this ever happens again there will be consequences. I don’t know for sure what the consequences will be, but it could include things like you sleeping on the couch for a while, us separating, and if it’s egregious enough even divorce.”

    You can’t get any clearer than that. If he says he’s not sure he has control over it then you tell him he needs to seek professional help from doctors and counselors/therapists and that so long as he is going and putting the effort in, you’ll wait to see if things improve.

22. Jesus fucking Christ you have two kids instead of one. I am so sorry you have to put up with this. This is not a man this is a child.

23. Firstly OP, you’re a great mom. You’re working to provide for your child and you are doing all you can. The problem is there is one adult in your relationship and one manchild.

    As a father of 3 sons and a grandfather of 8 I can speak on this subject with some authority. I realised a long time ago that our children came first, then my wife, then me. I was the breadwinner but she provided everything our kids needed, mother, nurse, cook, carer and much more.

    When I met her I was 18. She already had two boys and we had a third. I understood that my life had changed and I couldn’t act like an overgrown teenager. I shared the night feeds for our son, stripped beds and bathed the kids if they were sick and made sure they ate and got to school. We shared all the responsibilities.

    If you can’t trust your husband then how can you work without worrying.

    I know you don’t want divorce, divorce, divorce but your mind is already going there. Do you have the time to wait for your husband to grow up? It isn’t easy as a single parent but you are almost that now.

    Have a mature man talk to him, a parent. See if anyone can make him understand. If he refuses to grow up then you need to know because you can’t risk an accident when you aren’t there.

    I hope he realises he is now a man before he loses his family.

24. What happens if kid needs help during the night? He wouldn’t have been available. Not trying to knock the crib at 3 but when you’re out of town if he has a hard time waking up maybe they should sleep in the same room and daddy should grow up and stop drinking.

25. The slip ups that end marriages, aren’t a 1 off type of thing. They are repetitive, constant, dangerous slip ups that impact other people.

    The fact that you knew this could happen, reminded him, he blew you off and proceeded to do it anyway is what’s, most likely, upsetting you.
    Your child didn’t ask to be born and can’t take care of himself, you had a plan in place to make sure he was taken care of.
    Your plan (your husband) let you down after dismissing your concerns.
    If you decide you want to fix the relationship, you can try putting set parameters and boundaries in place. If he can and does follow through, great but at a certain point, it will end up feeling like being a parent to a toddler and an uninterested teenager who thinks they know best if he doesn’t.

26. Yikes. Personally, this feels like a nail in the coffin to me. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want to co-parent with him either, though. Maybe he needs the threat of divorce to come to his senses? Because that is unacceptable, DANGEROUS behavior. Don’t let him gaslight you because the baby was ok this time. And don’t let there be a next time.

27. You are underreacting. If your toddler sat there for so long that they got impatient and tried to climb out of their crib and then FELL, how long would they be laying on the ground with a broken bone? Or head injury? Or big bloody wound? They could be screaming their head off… and nobody would hear.

    This is neglect. You SHOULD be considering divorce. It’s your job to protect your child. And your child obviously needs to be protected from their neglectful and incredibly selfish and childish dad. So sad.

28. Sorry this guy is a loser. He put your son at risk and left him to fend for himself while he was passed out drunk no normal responsible parent would do this.

29. No drinking when mom is gone on overnight trips and he’ll need to stick to that.

    He’s a father and a husband now, if he wanted to live the extended frat life then he should have chose that.

30. This was not an honest mistake, he was warned, your gut knew.

    I wouldn’t be able to look at my husband the same, and would honestly divorce over this because I would never be able to trust him fully again.

    You warned him. He knew. He willfully allowed this to happen and didn’t care about what could happen to your child. If he cared, he would not have put himself in this situation to begin with ESPECIALLY AFTER YOU WARNED HIM!

    If I were in this situation, I would have to remove my daughter from the house, because the banshee rage screeching that would come from me would even deafen the neighbors.

    Because again- he willingly put your son in a potentially dangerous situation.

31. Plenty of people are commenting on the behavior and poor choices made here, so I’m not going to pile on. But as a practical solution, to a heavy sleeper problem: if you are comfortable with smart devices, we use Amazon Alexa devices for immediate contact in our house.

    If my husband or kids don’t respond to me and I need to contact them, I can drop in from my phone. If you were to put a device in your room, you can also control the volume from your phone ( they’re quite loud), you could turn the volume to max and drop into it to ensure you get a response.

    ( even when my kids are gaming with headphones on, I can send an announcement or drop in to tell them what they need to know)

32. So I got my the 4-year-old a Google alarm clock. So he could say OK Google call my dad, or call my mom. Or call the police, you never know.

    Also, why is your 3-year-old in a crib? Like I don’t mean to be very judgy but your three year old should be able to get out and walk around. He could at least find your bedroom and wake up his dad.

33. This was my life. I rarely left my son with my then husband after too many of these incidents. Fast forward 15 years we are divorced and he is a raging alcoholic who abandoned his son. OP I think there may be more going on that even you may not be aware of. I didn’t see it until it was too late to salvage our marriage.

34. Almost the same scenario happened with my husband about 3 years ago when my oldest son was a baby. It was one of the things that pushed my husband to realize he had a problem with alcohol, and he got help. I had a visceral reaction to this post because I remember that fear I felt, watching the baby crying in his crib and unable to wake my husband to get him. Please have an honest and frank discussion with him about the baby’s safety and your boundaries. It doesn’t necessarily have to be over but you need to make it clear it can’t happen again.

35. You don’t give ages but he’s acting like a 20 year old with no responsibilities in the world. You just can’t do that when you’re responsible for a 3 year old first thing in the morning. This was not an honest mistake, this was absolutely childish and foolish behavior. The 3 year old has more sense!

36. OP, you’re married to an alcoholic. I don’t see a way through this unless he admits that he’s got a problem and you each go to individual counseling then later on marriage counseling.

37. Why is your son still in a crib?

38. Kids die like this. If he is on his own he needs to be the adult. Otherwise an honest mistake turns into a tragedy

39. Why is he getting drunk or drinking any alcohol whatsoever when responsible for a little kid? I’m childfree so I don’t know all of the ins and outs, but that sounds insane to me. Anything could have happened and he’s passed out drunk, sleeping. You should have a very, very serious talk with him. He’s a negligent parent. Does he normally choose alcohol and football over your kid??

40. >Unfortunately, two out of the three friends are unmarried and all are childless. You’ll see why I think this is important.

    I don’t think you elaborated as to why this piece of information was included.

41. Honestly, this would be a deal breaker for me. I’d never be able to trust my partner again alone with the child.

    This isn’t an “Honest” mistake. It’s negligence. Honestly, if a student told me this happened I’d have called CPS.

42. A few things here concern me. The first being that you felt the need to check the baby monitors for the night before and the morning. And that your gut feelings were right when it came to the wake-up.

    If I was working away from home, I would not feel the need to check on my husband via the baby monitor. I would probably do a phone call check-in with him at some point, but I certainly wouldn’t have my eyes on the cameras like that. The fact that you felt the need to check is a huge red flag that you already know he can’t be trusted to parent independently.

    This sounds like a dramatic question to ask yourself, but it really isn’t:

    What would happen if you died?

    Does that thoughts fill you with fear for your 3 year old and his future, or do you feel confident that your husband would meet his needs both physically and emotionally?

43. How is “neglecting your kid after your wife had the forethought to warn you that your actions could result in you neglecting your kid” an honest mistake?

    He needs to take responsibility for his actions and apologise, not just excuse them, and a genuine apology means a change in behaviour.

    If he can’t see how much he fucked up, it’s definitely therapy time.

    And if he can see how badly he fucked up, he needs to tell you and then show you how he will ensure it doesn’t happen again. And I don’t mean a “I won’t do it again” platitude, I mean a commitment to specific behaviour changes so that it actually won’t happen again, like committing to not inviting friends over when he’s minding your kid solo if he can’t control his drinking with them.

44. This is how babies die.

    I’m so sorry, this is absolutely reprehensible. Everyone has thoroughly discussed your husband’s irresponsibility, but I wanted to touch on yours as well.

    You knew that these men were going to get drunk and you left your helpless child with them anyways. Under no circumstances is this ok. No one can safely care for a child while intoxicated. Do not, I repeat DO NOT, make this mistake again.