I stole somebody else's baby

[LiveLoveWoof]

Name changed as outing.

This was yesterday. In supermarket with DD 3 year old DS and 14 week DD. DH had the pushchair & I had the trolley. We were in a bit of a rush so DH said he'd go get a few bits and we'd meet in the middle. Off he goes and takes the pushchair with him. DS stayed with me. Had a quick look at the baby clothes for DD. Left trolley at end of aisle. Wandered up another couple of aisles then turned round and automatically put my hands on the pushchair that was there. Started walking off and DS pipes up "that's not my sister" I looked down and realised DD was now wearing boys clothes and had aged by about 6 months. I panicked and returned baby to the aisle I stole him from. Thankfully I'd only got to the end of the aisle and turned to go into the next aisle before DS said something. The other mum never even noticed!

Not quite the same but in the 1970's I walked round a shopping precint with a lady who was not my mum., I had wondered off and saw what I thought was my brothers pushchair and grabbed hold of the handle. The lady pushing it looked just like my mum, sheepskin coat and high boots (standard 1970's fashion!!) in those days everyone had the standard striped mclaren pushchair!!. My mum said I was missing for a good 5 mins and the lady whose buggy I was holding onto hadn't even noticed I was there!!!!

When a Dr's receptionist told me there were no appointments left I threatened to leave ds in the foyer in his pram unlsess she found me one...
Sleep deprived and sick as a chip - bless her she did find me one!!

I kissed another child on the head at the christmas fayre last year. Think the qee soul was terrified. He looked nothing like my ds either, I just wasn't paying attention.

when DD was really small, I took her for her into town in her big pram (silivercross, the big one) to go to the bank. Carefully parked her inside - because even then I did not trust leaving her in the line of babies outside - and took care of my business. As I turned to leave, I could see my bus stopping outside, so ran fast to catch it. It was a good five minute ride before I realized what I'd done. I flew down that road (luckily all downhill) and got back to the bank a sweaty, crying mess. She was sleeping like... well, the proverbial. No worse for wear.

I'll never forget these few minutes of utter panic.

@iwantmyownicecreamvan

Mind you this was in the 50s

My Nan took me as a baby (about 4 months) to the shops in a pram. She left the pram outside whilst she went in (people did that then). Then she came out, forgot she had brought the baby with her and just went home.

My Mum thought she had left the sleeping baby in the pram outside the front door (yes, people did that then too, so baby could get fresh air) and said "Goodness she's sleeping well outside today!" Cue a hysterical dash back to the shop for both Mum and Nanna to find a distraught howling baby being passed around by the poor shop assistants.

My mum did that to me twice, once with the dog left under my pram too.

I did this on a playscheme trip to the zoo once. Rounded up my group to leave the Tiger viewing, including chivvying along a straggler with a "come on now, don't get split up". Couple of minutes later did a head count and realised I had an extra. I had chivvied along a random child whose parents hadn't even noticed she had wandered off with us.

Ever since then the kids wear little hi-vis vests on trips. Much easier to spot a wanderer and much harder to pick up an extra!

@ProudAuntie76

My Mum and her friend went to the big supermarket in town to shop together (as one drove and the other didn’t). Returned their trolleys. Got in the car, drove out, nearly all the way home.

Then my Mum remembered a vital fact. That she had a baby. In a pushchair. And she’d never had her own trolley. She’d returned the pushchair instead of a trolley. And with it, baby me. And her friend was as ditzy as hell.

After half an hour since she “returned me to the trolley bay”, she finally found me happily playing with some cans of veg. No one had raised an alarm.

Years later, I found her sitting in a car that wasn’t mine (but looked like mine) with a confused teenager in the back. Some things never change.

Sorry - but that cracks me up

I watched a nurse wheel my baby past me in the delivery ward. Full of morphine and new to motherhood, I said nothing as she headed for another woman. I figured one baby must look like another. When my baby was finally given to me, she was missing one of her identification tags. I can see how with just a few coincidental mistakes, one can bring the wrong baby home. It must happen occasionally. The staff were inundated with women and foyers were being used as interim delivery suites. It was bedlam.

I have done that, come out of a shop, my family were waiting in the car, I got into another parked car, sat down, turned towards my husband, the driver, oops, wrong car! Very embarrassed.

Someone else’s childminder took my reception aged son home from school under the impression it was another boy who had the same name and similar looks.

The teacher me and the nanny had a collective 20 minute freak out but the teacher realised that the other boy was still waiting pick up and put two and two together...

Ds2 quite regularly tries to wander off with any woman who even vaguely looks like me , within about a 20 year age limit either way. Always blonde women because despite the fact I'm now a very obvious redhead , I have been blonde for most of his life and so in his head I still am.

At this point I just call " Stop trying to join another family kid " and he looks around and realises.

Any normal child would run straight back to me

Not ds2

He introduces himself usually with "hello I am ds2 and that's my mum " pointing at me.

At this point the non plussed looks followed by a laugh (he never gets too far away from me) just make us all laugh. Good thing he is cute.

Ha ha! One time my DH dropped me in Tesco car park so that I could run in and grab one item. He said he'd pick me up at the drop off point. When I rushed out of Tesco I dived straight into the car and sat down. As I was fastening my seat belt I looked round - to see a complete stranger (the driver) staring at me in astonishment! 'Oh sorry, wrong husband,' I muttered as I scrambled out. I now check our car very carefully before getting in!

Hahaha, I can just imagine a dog picking up puppies, cute. Took me ages to work out GSD was thinking ... stepdaughter.... grandparents....read the whole post and realises oh German shepherd!

When DD was about 5 months our dog had puppies.

We had a family come round to meet their puppy, mum and three kids about 10 - 16.

I passed DD to the mum and started handing out puppies to the kids so they could all hold one.

About 10 minutes later I had that dawning realisation that I was supposed to have a baby. And started looking round frantically to see where she'd gone.

The mum, obviously wiser in these matters than me, says 'I've got her!'. The look on my face must have been a picture.

I also 'lost' DD a lot in my bed, thinking I'd buried her under the covers when she was actually safely in her crib.

@iwantmyownicecreamvan

Mind you this was in the 50s

My Nan took me as a baby (about 4 months) to the shops in a pram. She left the pram outside whilst she went in (people did that then). Then she came out, forgot she had brought the baby with her and just went home.

My Mum thought she had left the sleeping baby in the pram outside the front door (yes, people did that then too, so baby could get fresh air) and said "Goodness she's sleeping well outside today!" Cue a hysterical dash back to the shop for both Mum and Nanna to find a distraught howling baby being passed around by the poor shop assistants.

When I was about 4 my mother left me outside a shop with my brother's pram, when she came out he was there but I wasn't! She found me sitting in the office of a very bemused Infant school Headmistress, I'd wandered in asking to put my name down.

Total opposite but as a pre teen I used to find it hilarious to just wander the aisles of Asda on a Saturday morning shouting ‘mum’ and watching 99% of the aisle turn to look.

Many hadn’t even brought their children. Mums answer universally, regardless of where they are or what they’re doing!

the sun is still shining - all the others are funny, yours is heart-wrenching, tho.it's a long time to be forgotten in a strange country
when you couldn't communicate.

@notacooldad

EatPrayYoga I hope you disinfected the pushchair handle before giving it back!

I took this as a joke not a someone having a go

So did I!!.

So did I - funnily enough the ! was a huge giveaway.

Some pretty nasty people on this quite funny thread.

• I’m a mum now and I totally get it. The one time you don’t look and it WAS your child and they’ve just pulled down a chocolate display on themselves and unsuspecting nearby shoppers

Reminds me of the time at the butchers when DH put a joint of beef in the pushchair (he was carrying DS - who was about 6 months at the time). I was wondering along chatting to the beef for quite some time before I noticed the substitution

Once in a park my eldest dd and my goddaughter stopped a man picking up his kid because they though she was my youngest. They were around 3 or 4 as my youngest was toddling around next to me but the other kid was wearing the same coat.
The girls were really shouting at this poor dad and the little girl was crying - they were standing between him and her and I had to go over with the youngest to reassure them.

Some pretty nasty people on this quite funny thread
I agree the thread us funny.

My contribution is when Ds was maybe two weeks old me and DH called round to see mIL. Dh was driving.
We got to her house got out of the car and walked and started chatting. MIL asked who was looking after the baby. He was still in his car seat in the car. We clearly hadn't broken the habit of getting out of a car and walking away without a second glance!
Another time Ds was still a couple if weeks old and someone asked if I had children. I said no. Why I have no idea! I started to back track and realised how ridiculous i sounded.
Dh thought it was hilarious and I put it down to baby brain!!!

I'm yet someone else who was left in my pram outside the post office, back in the day 1960's when no one turned a hair about leaving their babies unattended. Not least probably because the great huge prams of the day wouldn't have fitted into most shops. Furthermore my mum also left the dog tied to the pram.

My mum managed to walk home, about five minutes away, and make herself a coffee before realising with a sickening lurch what she'd done and obviously hot footing it back.

Only to find quite a kerfuffle going on because eventually when someone realised I appeared to have been 'abandoned', they approached the pram to try and comfort a now crying me only to have got bitten on the leg by our over protective (and usually mild mannered) dog!

I've never stolen a child but I once grabbed the hand of a teenage boy and made him walk nicely across a busy road. I don't know which of us was more surprised. I can't understand why I did it, because my DS (who was safely at home with his dad at the time) was 2, so not even easily confused with the 5'9" lad I accosted and manhandled to safety. Absolutely mortifying.

Small children are always following me/grabbing hold of my hand or leg. Maybe I just look like an archetypal mother (tired, stressed?)
I once almost got into trouble for kidnapping my own child at an airport. He has a different last name to me, so they asked him directly “is that mummy” or something along those lines. He said “no that’s flop” (he was going through a phase). We had to go and sit in a special room of the side of passport control while they sorted it out.