To forget I have a baby for five (ten max) minutes in Sainsbury's

[Oscalito]

I was racing around Sainsbury's with my buggy, got to checkout, unloaded basket, raced off and got a few more things to reach £30 so I could use a money-off voucher they'd sent me, when I looked down and realised I'd somehow misplaced my buggy.

Sprinted around shop fearing the worst and was confronted in fruit and veg by a woman employee who told me very loudly they were just about to call social services and the police (and still might) and 'I should be very ?'

... at which point I interrupted and said 'I haven't slept in five months'. Slight exaggeration but definitely didn't get much sleep last night and DH has been around so have gotten used to having someone else looking out for baby over the last few days.

She said 'Don't speak to me like that madame' and I said 'I already feel bad enough' and left (this time with baby, obviously). A small crowd had gathered at this point. It could have turned quite nasty - she was ferocious - but I got out of there ASAP.

Was this a bit of an overreaction on her part? Or am I just too blase? I was panicking and fearing the worst as I ran around the shop, but when I saw the baby was OK I was just relieved. I am usually really careful, just slipped up once (won't do it again). Surely I'm not the first....?

Yes but my tummy hurts now. [holds sides]

Op. Hope you are feeling better. :)

children are being put in social situations which they cannot handle. they shouldnt' be there at all until they can

Right, because that's how they'll learn to handle different social situations locking them up inside for four years

You really are bonkers.

My kids LOVE going food shopping-strange children that they are .

Ladymystikai, you are on to something there. I forget I have a child for five minutes and get threatened with social services and the police. Some single parents have partners who've forgotten they have children for entire decades and no one sets the police on them.

Obviously in an ideal world I would send 'the help' out to do the shopping.

The supermarket is my 8 month old's favorite place. Happily sits in trolley gazing at shelves and enjoying attention from all the old ladies shopping would be a crime to deprive him of such an inappropriate plce?!

what i find funny is why was it always woolworths mothers left their prams outside? every story from my older generation it was always woolworths the left their babies!

People without children would send the help out to do the shopping if they could My friend with 5 kids would definitely send the help if she had the choice!!

the children are being put into social situations which they cannot handle. they shouldnt' be there at all until they can.

You're the same person, aren't you?

Good god. Since the last time we spoke, I've done so much, and meanwhile, you still haven't learnt anything about social development!

Isn't there a new novel about a child being kept in one room until they were 4? Called Room ? Haven't read it, of course; too busy not being selfish!

Sleep deprivation depletes the best of us and most Mums have been there at some point or another. Should you have done it - no. Did you leave baby intentionally - no.
You will probably cringe and shudder more than you care to admit when you re-live it in your head (and you will).

I agree re the hot cuppa - relax and don't forget the biscuits.
You'll look back and laugh about it one day (actually no, you'll probably still cringe at the thought ).

Btw, would you shop there ever again?

My two fight over who gets to go shopping with DH. What with all the inappropriate sweets, cakes, toys etc all in the same building.

The selfish fucker even lets them pick a treat if they help put things in the trolley. T'is slave labour I tell you.

My nana left my mum in her pram outside the butchers, she had taken her 2 dogs with her as well (huge alsations, but daft as a bat and soft as anything). She went home and it was about 3 hours until my great nana (her MIL) asked her where my mum was.

She ran back to the butchers and found my mum fast asleep in her pram with the dogs standing guard.

Did I miss the lesson that said supermarket shopping is a social situation that children can't handle????? All of my poor, manhandled, dragged everywhere children have always loved the supermarket because they get chocolate.

My sides are aching.

Cart me off now please. I have clearly been parenting all wrong for 18 years and I took my two year old to the fish market this morning. OMG.

The fishmarket?

[hoiks judgey pants].

Yeah man - they got scary lobsters 'n all. And it's full of dangerous people doing their shopping. No matter that DD3 gets free lunch of whatever seafood is shoved her way! Dangerous country is Spain don't you know, they even take their children to restaurants AND after 8pm.

What a horrible unsympathetic woman you had the misfortune to deal with! Forget her and have a hug x

Oh gosh you poor thing OP. If it's any consolation I once left the pram outside the shop and walked home leaving my six week old son there. It wasn't until I put the groceries away sat down with a cuppa and started to wonder what time he'd wake that I even noticed I left him Not neglectful just sleep deprived.

I left my nephew on a bus once. That's got to be worse than forgetting your own dc. I was 18 at the time and looking back can't beleive I was entrusted with him as often as I was. Luckily the bus driver didin't let me get very far, but when he asked if I'd forgotten something I checked my handbag!. He actually had to ask if that little boy (dn was 2) was with me. I went bright red and said thank you whilst grabbing dn who was still happily staring out the window oblivious to the fact I had just forgotten about him.

I went straight to Mothercare and bought on of those wrist strap things.

Luckily I've never forgotten DD in a way that could have had catastrophic results, but the amount of times I've got all the way to the front door before I realised she was upstairs asleep when I was about to nip to the corner shop is beyond me. I can't even blame sleep deprivation though, she's slept through since she was about 2 months. I'm just an extremely forgetful person, it seems!

I am clearly a bad, bad, mummy. I was working from home today with DS in nursery and I could very easily have gone and done the supermarket shopping at some point.

However, I quite frankly could not be arsed to waste my extremely pleasant child-free time, particularly since I got my paperwork done in half a day and spent the rest of the time in pleasant pastimes, including laughing myself silly at this thread.

I am going to take a detour on the way home from nursery and do it then. Fortunately DS thinks supermarkets are the best thing invented since Ikea's warehouse.

Op don't stress. The woman in the shop was rude and nasty. If I had been in her shoes, I might have been worried but more likely I would also have been amused. You went back pretty quickly and clearly in a panic. You didn't go home, make yourself a cup of tea and read the paper for an hour.

I would go back to the shop on a weekly basis and give her the evil eye every time I saw her!

theinet is a bloke, probably a teenage one, home early from school for the bank hols and already bored and quite clearly trolling. Either that or he recently arrived in a time machine from sometime in 1890 and can't handle the fact that women no longer sit at home doing needlepoint and getting the servants to do the shopping!

FWIW my DS1 loved supermarkets, DS2 not so much admittedly but it was either go to the supermarket or not eat. Even though he didn't like them, it wasn't because it was a bad environment for him it was because he didn't like being strapped in his pushchair or the trolley. Didn't matter where you took him he wanted his freedom.

Awww at theinet doing its best to be controversial .
OP, don't worry about it. Not the same thing, but I took Ds2 to a toddler group with Ds1 when Ds2 was 3 months old. Towards the end it was time for a singsong. I dutifully got Ds1, checked I had my coat, my bank cards, my house keys. Was stopped over the threshold by a woman asking me if Ds2 was mine. I had left him lying on his own in the other room, having temporarily completely forgotten all about him.
And when DS1 was a couple of days old, in the hospital, I went to the use the toilet, came back to my bed and Ds1's hospital cot and stared in amazement for a couple of minutes, wondering where this baby had come from .

Keeping up that is brilliant! Well handled...

Tutu my baby was the same today, had no idea I'd abandoned him. Just seemed a bit surprised by all the attention...

i am still mortified, but at least I've had a good laugh. And DS is getting non-stop cuddles so he's happy.

Could be worse though - OP could've walked in with a penguin, and left with a guillemot.

I've "misplaced" my dd2 aged 5 (almost 6) no less than 6 times in the last 2 years

Once at Folly Farm, once at west midlands safari park (the fairground bit, not actually IN the safari park [cgrin] ), once in ThinkTank science museum, and 3 times in ASDA. I have 3 other dc that I haven't lost, I am a pretty capable person but she is a slippery little madam! Fortunately she is gaining some self preservation skills and hasn't wandered off for a good few months!

And I wasn't sleep deprived on any of those occasions, so if you think you're bad op?! [cshock]

theinet I don't know which reality you live in but it definitely isn't mine [cgrin]
Oscalito when ds was 5 months DP and I were shopping in Tesco when we both agreed to split up and get different items to cut the time shorter. DS was sleeping peacefully in his pram. Unfortunately we both thought the other person had DS. When we met up again we were a few minutes in before we noticed neither of us had DS, panicked and were walking up and down the aisles frantically trying to find him. Thankfully we saw a man (with small children himself) pushing DS purposefully towards Customer Services. They were a bit snippy with him (I am grateful they didn't speak to me tbh) but no harm done and we went off home feeling terrible. And there were 2 of us!