If you’ve ever seen a baby sleep, you know that there’s truly nothing so peaceful. When baby naps, it’s the perfect time to get stuff done around the house. Load the dishwasher, dust the mantle, clean the windows, or, you know, take a nap yourself.
The only thing you can’t really do during nap time is anything that involves leaving the house Well, unless you want to wake that sleeping baby and load him or her into the car. (We didn’t think so!).
Some moms, however, think that when their baby sleeps, they can leave them be in their crib—even if it means leaving the house. What’s the worst that could happen?
Not everyone has (or should have) that mentality though. When one dad found out that his wife left their sleeping not-even-one-year-old baby at home to go on a run, he was, in a word, furious. But the thing is, when he confronted her about it, his wife just got mad at HIM.
He shared the full story on Reddit’s Am I the A**hole forum.
“I came home from work and my wife was just getting back from a run, at which point I noticed our son was in the back room sleeping,” he explained. “When I asked her about it, she got defensive and said, ‘it was only a mile, and I never got far away from the house.’”
He continued to explain that he got mad at his wife because he didn’t feel this was a safe move—but then she got angry with him. “[She] thinks I’m being a judgmental a**, and doesn’t want to talk,” he wrote. “She thinks it’s no different than being outside in the backyard while he’s napping. So what’s the deal?”
Needless to say, the comments were unanimous in their responses. Everyone was absolutely appalled by the wife’s behavior and couldn’t believe a mom could leave their baby home alone at that age.
“I’m sorry… your wife did what now?” one person wrote. “There is indeed a difference between hanging in the backyard and going out for a run. That difference has roughly a mile radius.”
“What if your son fell off the bed and got hurt? Or had a bad dream and woke up to find that nobody was there to comfort him? What if his airways got blocked and he choked?” someone else remarked. “I get needing time to yourself and exercise being important, but she was 100% being a bad parent here.”
The dad eventually gave an update saying that he finally got his wife to understand his side of things. “She broke down and cried for quite a while, and apologized for trying to blame me,” he explained. “It seems this was a one-off thing. She explained to me that she was excited to try some new running shoes and didn’t think about how dangerous it all was since he was napping.
We love a happy ending and are glad she isn’t going to attempt something like this again! What are your thoughts on leaving a baby napping at home?