My Wife is about to join the National Gaurd and today we had an incedent at our househo where I started thinking about her being gone for 10 week and went to do somehting to show her my support, While doing so I left my children in a room that was gated off for atmost two minutes alone, durring that time my youngest daughter found a bottle of childrens tylonal and oppend it she dumpped most of it on the floor but I was concerend and tried to make her vomit and called my wife. Now she is madat me and says she can not trust me with the kids, This was my first attempt at the stay at home dad thing and really messed up, I want to be a great father and supportive husband but I know I need help in learning the tactics of others on how to focus even when you find your thoughts drifting, Pleas ehelp me with this I want my wife to have this oppertunity in her life and want her to not have to worry while she is gone.
I Hope I am Ready
That is a really unfortunate day of bad luck. If it helps your wife, you can tell her that I have allowed the same thing to happen in my house after being a veteran at-home dad. Fortunately for you, and me, Children's Tylenol is fairly harmless unless they drink several bottles of it.
The mistake you made was that you panicked. Not panicking will only come with experience. You made your daughter vomit (I assume syrup of Ipicac?) and called your wife, probably sounding as if you were not in control of the situation. What I did was calmly call Poison Control, take the action that they recommended (which was to have them drink a lot of water I think) and then told my wife about it when she came home.
My point is two-fold. First, for this to work, you have to handle these situations without your wife's help as calmly as possible; your wife stationed wherever is not going to be able to help you and it will only make her worry if you call her in hysteria. Second, your wife needs to trust you no matter how hard that is. I was not an excellent at-home dad on day one and my wife hated leaving me alone with our daughter but if this arrangement, which was the best for our family, was going to work, she had to trust me that I would figure it out. And I have (mostly).
Obviously you have learned a valuable lesson that you cannot leave your kids alone for more than a couple minutes and that meds need to be somewhere they can never reach. Learn from your mistakes. Trust that you can succeed even if you don't think you can right now. Lean on other at-home dads in your area and on this board for advice.
You will make it my friend.
Al Watts President, Daddyshome, Inc. - The National At-Home Dad Network www.daddyshome.org
It is hard but if the wife cannot help don't call her. I want to call her several times a day about frustrations, cool stuff that happens, etc... But the fact is that it is better to let them focus on work.
Thank you for the sacrifice your family is looking to make with her joining the National Guard. You also might already know this but 10 weeks is just the beginning. Is is VERY likely that she will be deployed for up to 18 months at a time. The National Guard and our Coast Guard are VERY actively involved in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Al P.
Al is right. Just stay calm and do what needs to be done. And don't let your wife's anger or "mistrust" get to you. Most likely she's going through the same kind of emotions my wife had. My sweetheart thought that her lack of desire to be a stay at home mom and her strong desire to pursue her career meant she was a failure as a mother and a woman. It took a little while for her to realize that, regardless of what society tells us we should be, I'm a nurturer and she's a researcher and that's that. Now she enjoys her career and shows off the photos I send her through the day and revels in the "fact" that the babies love Mommy so much they only have "firsts" when she's home. Bless her heart, she still thinks my son's first word was "Mama". I'll never tell her that it was "puppy" or that "mama" took me two months of coaching and him saying it a dozen times before she actually got to hear it!
Just focus on taking care of your family and soon enough your wife will see it and be able to come to terms with the new roles in your family. Oh, and make sure to baby-proof the house. These little rugrats can move a whole lot faster than you ever imagined. And make sure the news from home is always positive.
As a mom, I can understand your wifes feelings. But as a reasonable woman, I also understand that no matter how many precautions we take, something could easily go wrong. They could have tried to get out of the barricade and twisted an arm; they could have been playing too rough and one could have pushed the other head first into the wall. So much could happen that's beyond our control. Me personally, I'm an anal mom. I'd like to go jogging with my son but I keep seeing this image of me slipping and then his stroller goes flying down the street. I don't let him play with anything that LOOKS like it'll dig out his eye from any angle. He's just starting to crawl and when he's turning over, instead of letting him be and do it himself, I do it for him cuz it just looks like he'll break his neck!!! I can go on and on my friend. Even now as I type this, he's eating his foot and I'm thinking "I need to file down his nails just in case he choke on any piece of toenail". So Kingofd20, don't beat yourself up too much because alots gonna happen. Now, my son is 7 months but I take safety serious and safety can also mean using safer products. Thank God it was only Tylenol(which contains acetaminophen and can cause liver problems), what if it had been clorox or Lysol? Did you know that theyre both registered pesticides? I found a company that makes chemical free versions of the products we buy on a daily basis. I found them because I found out that a popular baby brand uses formaldehyde in their soaps and shampoos and I refuse to knowingly use harmful chemicals on my child. So I replaced everything! His products, cleaning products, shampoo, toothpaste, CHAPSTICK(my favorite thing in the world) vitamins...everything! Now, not only am I saving money buying these products(cost way less than shopping at walmart), but I'm using better quality products that ate 100% safe on our skin, in our bodies and the environment, AND if my son should ever get ahold of a bottle of cleaning product, it won't harm him! Best decision I ever made. I'd like to share it with you guys if you're interested in me sharing where you can find them, but I'm afraid to get kicked off the site. So I won't post it here. If you want to know you'll have to message me. Good luck! I know you can do it and remind your wife that she's human too!
WAHM who respects and appreciates SAHDs!
Joined: 2011-08-16
Dad Points: 5