Have you been seperated from your child in a public place for more than 10 minutes and what did you do?

[Happybrewer]

I'm sure it's happen to us all at some point, even if we imagined it.
I (a few years ago took my eldest daughter (she was little then 4 1/2) to the Lady Diana playground in Hyde park, for those of you who don't know it, it's a great! if not very busy playground. It has only 1 way in and out usually with an attendant at the gate.
Star, was starting to want minor independence and asked if she could go off and play alone. I agreed and sat near the gate with other parents.

We had done this before and she would usually come back every 5/10 minutes of so to tell me what fun she was having, or to ask me to join in. O this occasion 20 minutes passed and my fear levels started to rise.
I asked a mum sitting next to me to keep an eye out for a small blonde girl, looking for her dad, and to say I'd be back after my search.
I went all around the park and couldn't find her, on return to my waiting spot the other mum said she hadn't seen her !!!! now I'm panicking, I go to the attendant, she assures me that no children had left alone, so I asked the mum to continue to keep watch while I ran madly around the play park calling her name and asking every other parent if the had seen her, to no avail.
I think I was very close to calling the police, and then she appeared from the Pirate ship where she had been playing with other children deep within it's bowls. possibly the one place I hadn't searched.
So how long before you call the police?
I have friends who have lost a child on a beach for 3/4 of an hour and hadn't called the police, I said I would have done it

when my ds was 3 I saw him go into into the changing room in Matalan with my mum- for some reason he grabbed the number ticket and ran off she thought I was outside waiting for her so wasn't concerned- but I wasn't. Anyway when he wasn't with her I totally panicked and started to cry when I told the security guard all he did was stand on a chair and casually said there's a kid running around outside and can I please get the number ticket off him and bring it back! tbh I wonder what goes through childrens minds!!! I still feel bad about it now and it's 17 years ago!!

We lost DD2 (who was 5 at the time) in a shopping centre in Bratislava for about 15 minutes a couple of years ago. We thought she'd followed us into a shop and only realised after about five minutes that she hadn't. We searched the shop and the areas around both exits, including the area where we must have left her, but she was nowhere to be seen. The staff were very helpful and made an announcement in English for her to come to the cash desk, but we were already pretty sure by that stage that she wasn't in the shop.

We would probably have found her more quickly if it hadn't been for the language barrier. DH asked a security guard outside the shop, but he couldn't speak English or German and wasn't much help. He then asked in another shop, who directed him to security - they seemed to know he was looking for DD2. I don't think I've been so relieved in my life when DH phoned to say that she was at security. There must have been a tannoy announcement, which would explain why they'd known who DH was looking for in the one shop, but we hadn't understood it as it was in Slovak.

The thing that worried me the most was that DD2 told me afterwards that a man and woman, who had obviously seen her looking lost, had taken her to security - and she had gone with them without a murmur. We've now impressed on the DC that they must always stay where they are if they get lost and wait for us to come and find them, and not to go with anyone they don't know.

I too have lost a dc in the Princess Diana playground and yes my son was found in the bowels of the pirate ship too.Having given up waiting for all the Tarquins to let him have a go on the steering wheel said child decided to dig his way to Australia !!!

I immediately ran to the entrance and deployed dp to search inside.We've lost this particular child countless times as he's very daydreamy iykwim.

The first time was in Sarlat in France(medieval rabbit warren for those of you that don't know it). Our dc were 3,3 and 2 at the time and the twins took it in turns on the buggy board and in the buggy. We'd just switched and dt1 wasn't clipped in(it was a Nipper double which lean back quite a bit).Strolling through the lanes we stopped outside a toy shop and then moved on completely unaware dtwin1 had hopped out to look at some wooden swords. Got back to the car and 1 half of the buggy was empty.

I retraced our steps through the heaving lanes,dp ran off with the other 2 trying to find a policeman(that scared me the most as normally he's very laid back). It was the summer after Madeleine and I rem running,sobbing,literally pulling my hair out convinced we'd lost him and I'd be on the news that evening. I'll never forget eventually seeing this little sobbing figure in a green T-shirt in somebody's arms way in the distance.I kissed the lady who had had the good sense to stay put. My French isn't great but I rem her saying he was crying and mothers will always come back so I stood still or something to that effect.

Same child did the bloody same in the Science Museum at 5,looking up at the shuttles he became disorientated and wandered off.I did the same thing ran to the entrance and deployed dp to search inside.A security guard found him.

We've also lost dd at 18 months by a lake and this was the worse.We go to a farm with a playground next to a lake. Was just taking the twins(3) out of the swings and she toddled off. I was with a friend who was helping but she had a dd 3 too.I ran to the lake as it was black water and where the most danger was,my friend ran alerting everybody from their picnics to search.

Again this time I was convinced we'd lost her as the water was so black(unbeknown to me it's quite shallow).I'll never forget the sickness and sheer terror.Anyhow an old man found her behind the lake and he told me off for not looking after her properly which was upsetting. From reading this you'd think I was pretty incompetent but I had 3 babies 15 months and in the early days when they were all roaming it was really hard work.I think when you have bigger gaps between kids you can focus on the little one better.

It happens to us all I've since found out and avoidance(reins,back up on trips)helps.I always have an emergency plan ie run to the most danger eg the lake or museum entrance in a busy city. Make the other children safe.Deploy somebody to search thoroughly.

Sorry for the essay.I have to say when you've experienced that blind terror once I do wonder if you ever forget it. Happily said twin is fine but due to go to school camp and being only 7 I've written his teacher an essay(I'll be pooing my pants all week)!!!!!

The second coming I have heard a similar story on a bus, while actually it was in the local newspaper. Woman put buggy on bus then got off to get shopping bags or something and stupid bus driver drove off .
When I was around 16 I found a little boy on the high st crying and clearly with no one. I went up and asked if he had lost his mummy he said yes. I had a scan around but couldnt see anyone looking for a ds. So decided to walk him to the police station just at the end of the high st about 1 min walk. Was almost there when mum come running up grabbed son and gave me the most dirtist look and went off. I do understand as it only a yr or so after Jamie Bulger. But it is a bit sad when you have to careful if you see a child alone, especially for men,

I think that as a rule we should just stay with the child and encourage others to look while we wait with the child. As a few people have said my advice to my kids is "Don't move and shout DAD"

I lost DS aged 3 in the Hackesher Hof in Berlin (a network of courtyards and shops). I thought he was with me and when I turned to look he wasn't. He was only lost for about five minutes, but I was in an absolute frenzy screaming his name. When I found him he was standing quite still , in tears, under an archway surrounded by a group of well-meaning Germans. He'd remembered that I'd always taught him to stand still if he got lost and mummy would come and find him. I've never hugged him so hard and he never let go of my hand after that - he's 8 now and still holds on in crowds or in strange places.

When I was on holiday last year an autistic child went missing on the beach. There were coppers with dogs, members of the public, the Coast Guard and even the RAF with Sea Kings helicopters out looking. It went on for hours and hours right into the night. Safely found apparently but the experience must have aged his mother considerably.

A friend of mine always dresses her kids in black when going on days out to busy places. It does seem to make them stand out.

I remember reading some advice one saying that you should take a photo of your child before leaving for a day at the beach, so if your child went missing, you would have a totally up to date photo of them, in the correct outfit, to the police!! It totally freaked me out and has put me off the beach.

To give to the police

i write my mobile number up their arms with a biro on the odd chance I remember. Luckily this was one of those times, last September we went to the Oktoberfest. Absolutely heaving with millions of people. ds1 & 2 wanted to go on rollercoaster, dh put them on and was supposed to meet them off it, I went on another ride with ds3 & dd.

10 minutes later I get a call from dh asking me if I've got ds1 & 2.... I felt SICK. There were so many people. Turns out dh hadn't realised the exit was up a bit from the entrance. Much frantic searching, then my mobile rang. We were reunited about half an hour later by a beer tent.

I would've got police security about then but luckily my mobile went.

I got lost loads when I was a little kid. One time I was lost and my mum had a hideous jacket on that I hated so when I went to the security for help I pretended I couldn't give a description (too ashamed to describe the stripy monstrous jacket )

Ernest that made me laugh, being coy about the hideous jacket! :o
My cousin, brother and I got lost at Wicksteed Park when we were about 6, 7 and 8. The park used to run a mini bus ride around the park and back, and the day we went the driver was a stand-in for the usual guy. He dropped us back at a completely different place to where we started! No mums. We were taken to 'Lost Property', given ice cream and waited for our shrieking panicking mums to find us. By then Bro (8) was in tears, Cousin (7yrs) was sanguine, I (6) was wobbly lipped!
DD1 has made me panic three times- once at the beach when she ran off to find DH who was watching some kite buggies bloody miles down the beach; once at the Sealife Centre (she was hiding and refusing to come out on purpose when we shouted, the little pecker ) and once when she ran all the way to the front and out of the doors in Pets at Home instead of to us, ten feet away in plain sight. I think she's learned her lesson now :)

oooh, I remembered one from childhood that must have been terrifying for my parents... my little sister, aged about 18 months, toddled up the beach at Anti-Paxos (a very small island, basically just beach, that you get to by boat from the main island) and actually boarded the little ferry to the mainland on her own! The boat was about to leave when my mother finally found her - god knows what we would have done if she had actually succeeded in stowing away; we'd have assumed she drowned

I lost DD1 when she was 18 months just for a few panicked minutes at Coram's Fields- she had run off from one playground to the next but the building panic in those few minutes was awful.

I've lost her in the local playground (which is small and we know nearly everyone there) when it was crowded after school more recently (she is nearly 6 now). It was time to go and I had been watching DD2 (2) but letting DD1 go off and do her own thing with her friends. I shouted her and couldn't see her anywhere and it turned out she was just playing under the slide with some friends and hadn't heard me- was only a few minutes again but all the things that go through your head- Would she have left the playground without me?

DD2 wandered off in the school playground and was brought back by another mum as she had been trying to get out of the gate- hadn't even realised she had wandered off. The other mum was a bit . To be fair though I once found my next door neighbour's youngest (3) about to wander into the path of cars coming out of the car park at hometime after school, he had run off and got through the gate in a crowd of parents and kids. I persuaded him to come with me back into the playground against the tide of parents and children and met his mum straight away who had been frantically doing laps of the school trying to find him.

I can still remember losing my mum in Woolworths and my dad accidentally getting off the bus without me and sprinting after the bus as it took off with me on board...both when I was about 4 I think.