Child left in car in 35 degree heat

I guess I was wrong all these years in thinking Home Alone was far fetched. How could Kevin's parents not, at the very least, check their own kids were present and accounted for in the taxis/airport? It's ok though they were tired from the early start, in a rush and on autopilot!

My brain has gone into autopilot thousands of times. Never once has it gone into autopilot to the extent I forgot my basic parenting responsibilities.

No parents aren't infallible. We've all seen our DC take the odd tumble etc and chastised ourselves for not anticipating it. Doesn't make us bad parents.

However, that's worlds apart from forgetting you have a DC with you and leaving them unattended in a car for a prolonged period. That is bad parenting and shouldn't be excused or brushed off as 'it happens, she/he was on autpilot'. Stop making excuses for shit parenting.

It was an accident, the parent will be forever tormented, but nonetheless careless and shit parenting.

i do a quick train seat check too. Didnt help me this very morning when I was unusually carrying a large item which I placed on the overhead shelves. Which I repeatedly thought “must remember” during the journey. And I still managed to go onto auto-pilot and forget the damn thing when I left the train didnt I? My automatic check the seat reflex didnt extend to the shelves because I almost never put anything on the shelf.

(fortunately I was at the terminus so managed to run back and retrieve it)

Sorry most of these cases the parent has forgotten to drop the child off, the nursery place needs to be paid regardless if the child is there or not. Change of routine and autopilot.

Nobody would deliberately leave a young child in a car all day, no food, no water, no nappy changing and thats before you consider the heat to try and save money.

It’s superior to truly believe that you couldn’t possibly (and have never) had your brain go into autopilot.

Perhaps you’d like to offer yourself up to the neuroscience community so they can study your superior brain that has evolved past the normal human brain? You could save lives!

It's hardly superior parenting to remember you have a child in your care that you're responsible for? It's the absolute baseline minimum of what is expected.

Hard to imagine.

I wish nurseries would text/call a parent to confirm why their DC hasn't arrived in nursery today, on hot days. Maybe some do but it's not standard practise.

Even if you don't think it could happen to you, if you get into the habit of always checking, you won't make the mistake.

It's like when I get off a train I always check the seat I was occupying to make sure I've not left anything there, even though I "know" I haven't. A quick check might mean avoiding a load of hassle - or a tragedy. When my son first got old enough to go into changing rooms on his own I told him to always check the area around where he was changing before he left so he wouldn't leave a shoe behind or similar.

I always check my car to make sure nothing valuable is on show even though I know it isn't too. And I double check it's locked.

Get into the habit. It take seconds.

I have a Hyundai Kona. It doesn't matter whether you have a grandchild in the back, or just a carrier bag on the seat, when you switch off the engine it flashes up a warning triangle ,'bings' and the screen says " check the back seats". Very useful.

I lived in Australia for a few years .
I had dropped all my 3 children off at their schools and kindy and was having an early morning coffee at a cafe sat outdoors ( mid winter is fairly mild weather there but often sunny ) I noticed that there was a car parked right outside on the street and I looked again and saw a small toddler in there asleep and the windows were closed .
i thought that perhaps the mum / dad / carer / relative had dashed in for a take out coffee so i went inside the cafe and asked whose car it was and that there was a small child inside .
No one knew so one of the staff members and I went into each shop in the very small mall ( had a few stores ) and loudly asked whose car and child this was and that we would need to take action.
The child’s mother was shopping for clothes claimed she had only been 10 minutes ( not true ) and hadn’t wanted to wake him as he’d fallen asleep in the car !!!!!! the cafe staff were absolutely furious 😡 as was I .
She started off on a “ well what would you all know you don’t have children , you can’t go shopping with them “

It’s mostly dumb ass dads. Sorry to say but they are less vigilant

according to some posters here, this is not possible and you simply wanted to get rid of your baby. I mean really. At least should have left them at Waitrose..

Oh well done you for your superior parenting.

Despite having the set up you described, often singing to the baby in the car, not infrequently actually stopping the car so I can lean over and verify the baby is still breathing if they fell asleep unexpectedly….i can still absolute imagine circumstances in which this could happen, or that I could do it myself. It only takes one lapse.

I left my 6 day old baby at Asda checkouts. Totally forgot in my sleep deprived state I even had a baby at that point.
Also forgot to pick my kids up from school. Distracted by a task at home and the time slipped away. Easily done

Honestly anyone ‘not buying it’ needs to read the article.

In fact as well as the backseat checking routine I said about above on Monday (peak of the heatwave here) my husband who doesn't usually do drop offs had to take our youngest to a new childcare setting and I asked him to send me a photo of her out of the car once he got to the childcare setting so I would know she was safe. I don't doubtvhis parenting but I know humans go into autopilot and make mistakes. We didn't know to do these checks with our first but we had a very standard routine where I did every drop-off and pick-up atvthe same place so the risk was lower. These stories don't leave you once you read them. That Washington Post article is absolutely heartbreaking.

They must do. They must believe that the recordings of parents on discovering this has happened are the world's best actors in their utter despair and self loathing. They must believe that there are dozens of people round the world every year thinking that the best way to rid themselves of a child is to slowly and agonisingly cook them in a car. That these people are such utter psychopaths that they are able to go and sit in their office doing a day's work while knowing the suffering their child is enduring.

So all the people on this thread telling their stories about how they forgot a child (or dog), are actually just evil and wanted to mistreat their child?

Only difference is that their stories didn't have a tragic outcome.

If you go back a generation people often had their baby in the pram, left it outside a shop and then forgot and walked home.

Ask your older relatives.

You so get into habits and do things on auto pilot whether that is the drive to work or locking your front door or whatever.

There are numerous stories of astronauts being handed a drink or food that they then just let go because they expect it to just float.

I can totally see how it happens. I once drove to work, I was giving my dad a lift so we were chatting, dd1 quiet as a mouse in the back seat, completely forgot to drop her at nursery. I realised once I got to work but I was completely on autopilot

Of course parents never treat their children badly, whether through malice or stupidity.

Oh, wait a minute, yes they do.

This is why everything I arrive at work I get out my car and then open the back door and check the back seats. It is so automatic now but in the early days of implementing this routine I would go back to the car to check if I hadn't. I started this after I read about some of the tragic cases in the hotter parts of the US. We've had complicated drop-off and pick-up schedule that change and I can absolutely see how this could happen. I can feel nothing but absolute sympathy for the parents in this case until there is any information that there was intentional neglect. It is just horrifying that this happens and I do with cars had alarms to prevent it.

and if we say it can never be an accident, what about all the parents who have done it, but realised sooner, or the day wasn't as hot? We are saying they planned to murder their children but changed their mind? Makes no sense.

Yes I'm wondering this too. 3 options really:

• mistake
• murder
• parent left child in the car for several hours on purpose because they couldn't be arsed to drop them to childcare and thought the baby will be fine in a hot car while they are at work for the entire day.

Very easy to insist you dont accept the explanation but another poster on here told a story where a child was unharmed after dad had got confused with his journey. The truth be told i think it can happen, and if the child dies then we immediately decide it was on purpose but if the child is unharmed we are more likely to accept it wasn't intentional. Especially as you have started the thread think carefully about what your saying about someone who has lost their child and you dont even know them nor do you have the facts.