toddler being left in car outside house for naps

[tiredfeet]

Not sure what to do about this one. Sil has just been telling me how, because she struggles to get her 20 month old down for naps she will drive somewhere then leave him asleep locked in the car while she gets on with housework. She leaves the door to the house open and it is a quiet side road but I still feel quite uncomfortable that she is doing it.
I don't know whether to say something? I don't like interfering normally in how other people do things, and she has no family in the country so I don't want to upset her too much
He naps well in the pushchair when my mum looks after him, she takes him for a walk and then he sleeps on when they get back. I suggested this to sil but she doesn't seem keen, and to be fair to her she works four long days with a long commute so I think she is just shattered by fridays.

Wwyd?

I do this with my dcs, but usually only at my mum and dad's because it's rare I can park near my house. But my mum and dad's is down a secluded private road, very few cars go up there and we can see the drive from the kitchen.

I used to do this fairly often. Particularly if (say) I'd just got home but needed to go out again for school pick-up 30 minutes later, it just wasn't worth moving the sleeper. Not in a carpark, though.

I would rather mine was in a pram in the garden.

My only worry about a locked car is if their was an electric fault (which I have seen with two cars) and the car catches light and the firebrigad have to put it out - the worry of getting the baby out of the car would be my concern.

I do this all the time too. What on earth is the problem?

This is a good example of how I wish I was a parent in 1979 rather than in 2010. No one would have batted an eyelid back then.

I did this all the time. Several of the mums on our street did too, and we'd all glance at each others cars if we were out playing anyway, or checking on our children. I could see any movement from my kitchen window, so I'd usually just tidy up in there.

When it was just DS1, I bought a buggy just for in the house. It was kept in his bedroom, and I rocked him to sleep for his naps during the day. Worked really well!

As they got older, and took longer to fall asleep (not just the run back from pre-school!), I would drive down to the beach, then have a snooze myself or read whilst they napped.

No problem with what your SIL is doing IMO. :)

My mum left me in a pram at the bottom of the garden, with dog on guard for if anyone came near - must have worked coz I'm alive and well and still love dogs! We lived way out in the middle of nowhere. I'd certainly do this.

My hubby lived in town, and his mum left him out in the pram outside their house with a sunshade and no one batted an eyelid. I'd probably not do this now because it would be too easy for some busybody to report me to social services.

Ditto leaving them alone in the car where someone could report it. As for leaving them in my own driveway - yup, have done and would do happily again, no qualms whatsoever.