Would anyone else leave a sleeping baby home alone - or am I overreacting?

adouglasmhor

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

I have to say I have never heard of leaving a dog locked in a car as being illegal either.

Now leaving a dog in a car in extreme heat causing it distress is another matter altogether, and I have heard of people being prosecuted for that.

And rightly so, if I leave my dog in the car in anything but the coldest or wettest weather windows are open slightly and he has an old ice cream tub of drinking water, and I am never far away.

fabforty

sulkisu wrote: »

c) I work full-time and study part-time, OH works long shifts, my 11 month old (bless him) is a handful and I'm pregnant with twins (which at 45 is a blessing, but no walk in the park).

Nothing to do with the topic of the thread, but an 11 month old baby AND pregnant with twins at 45!!! Wow. So there's still hope for the rest of us oldies !!!

meds12_2

Unacceptable to leave your house with child inside for the length of time the OP stated.

I have however, always locked my children in the car when paying for petrol. I have actually spent time weighing up the risks and decided at the beginning that it was safer to leave the child - in full view of me - in a locked car than it would be to drag them across a forecourt. This is because:

i) cars are more visible than children so are less likely to be hit- even though they would be with me it only takes a slip of a hand and a couple of seconds running away for a child to be vulnerable to being hit.

ii). Child inside a tonne of steel being hit by a slow-moving vehicle is safer than flesh and bones being hit by tonne of steel. I believe that approx 25% of all deaths happen in urban areas - the vast, vast majority are pedestrians due to low speeds in these areas. Bumped cars at low speeds are pretty resilient.

iii) lack of pavements at forecourt. You actually HAVE to walk on a surface used by cars to leave the garage, and many drivers will be opening crisps, sipping coffees, programming SATNAVs etc.

iv) The relative chances of locked car being deliberately stolen whilst being filmed on forcourt CCTV for 2 mins while I am in shop versus someone accidentally hitting my child whilst walking. A previous poster managed to find maybe one such incidence, although it wasn't printed whether car was locked or not. How many pedestrians are killed per year - 500? 1000 maybe? And last year was a particularly safe year. So how many children have been taken, by strangers, from a locked forecourt car, and then killed in the past, say 25 years? None? One? How many pedestrian children killed by cars in the last 25 years? 15 000 maybe? More?

I understand the reasons why people might take their children inside - but the above is my reasoning and I will quite happily stand by it.

sulkisu

fabforty wrote: »

Nothing to do with the topic of the thread, but an 11 month old baby AND pregnant with twins at 45!!! Wow. So there's still hope for the rest of us oldies !!!

There is definitely hope. Especially as I conceived naturally both times, years after being told that I would never have children (after having cancer in my late 20's/early 30's).

POPPYOSCAR

sulkisu wrote: »

There is definitely hope. Especially as I conceived naturally both times, years after being told that I would never have children (after having cancer in my late 20's/early 30's).

How wonderful!

I bet the twins came as a bit of a shock!

inkie

In response to the OP . The woman clearly has no idea of the risks involved. Disaster waiting to happen if you ask me. She is out of order.

Shazaaym

I was a single parent, and there's no way i would have left my daughter alone in the house, at any age! No matter how difficult it was, where i went, she went.

Hootie19

I spoke to one of the social workers in our department today about this subject, on a "what do you think our department would do in this scenario" basis. She said that the OP should wait until she knows that the baby has been left on it's own and to call the police and report it at the time.

The SW said that if a referral was made that the baby had been left on it's own, even if the referrer gave specific times and dates, all the mother has to do is deny it, and really there's nothing anyone can do. If, however, the police attend the property and catch her red-handed, so to speak, then action could be taken.

This, of course, was only an off-the-cuff conversation with a newly qualified social worker, and not with the departmental manager, who may have given a different answer and, if the situation was presented to our department for real, take different actions to those suggested by the SW.

The SW said that the department, based on the information that historically a baby had been left alone, may have written to the mother emphasising that it is unacceptable to leave a young child alone and reminding of the dangers, or given the mother a telephone call. But as has been said, if the mother denies it, there is little anyone can do to prove it, and take action.

AdmiralX

sulkisu wrote: »

I think that I already know the answer to this, but I have had mixed responses from friends and colleagues, so would I appreciate objective views from strangers.

You must never leave a babe alone in the house and go away.

AdmiralX

fabforty wrote: »

Nothing to do with the topic of the thread, but an 11 month old baby AND pregnant with twins at 45!!! Wow. So there's still hope for the rest of us oldies !!!

Had mine at 46! there is no age limit for mom, some do it later and many after 40.:)