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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

quickly! to pop to shop when baby sleeping?

141 replies

Scheherezade · 03/02/2012 16:49

Shop is approx 200-300 yards from my house. I have to cross a road and that's it.

Baby is 4m, asleep in cot, not under a blanket so no suffocation risk....

Shop know I have a baby, am scared they'll judge me as bad mum!

OP posts:

Kayzr · 03/02/2012 17:36

I probably would. I have to leave my 4 and 3 year old boys to put the bins out. It's probably 400-500 yards. They are more likely to cause damage than a sleeping baby.

aliceinboots · 03/02/2012 17:38

Why should a fire break out? Ok it might but the chances are so remote if you considered everything that could happen you'd never leave the house, cross a road or get in a car.

pictish · 03/02/2012 17:40

The vast majority of baby deaths happen at night while the baby is asleep in their bed and the parents are asleep in theirs. Does that mean that we should never sleep at night?

Yes that's exactly what it means. In fact, when your baby is asleep in the cot, and you are doing anything other than sitting quietly in a chair beside it watching very closely as he/she draws each breath, then you are being negligent.
Don't have a shower. Don't go in the garden to hang your washing out. Don't take a phone call. Don't take your rubbish out. Don't listen to music or watch tv. And certainly don't nip to the shop across the road for cigs milk.

Social services will be down on you like a ton of bricks you know. And you'd deserve it because anything won't could happen!

008 · 03/02/2012 17:40

I´d probably put the baby in a sling and bung a big coat over the top ... if the baby wakes up, the`ll most likely go straight back to sleep, and then you can take your time in the shop and buy more chocolate and wine

pictish · 03/02/2012 17:41

A lot of the threads I read on here make me very glad to be me. That's all I'm saying.

008 · 03/02/2012 17:41

Btw, not because I think anything would happen, but just because I´d feel better having the baby with me than not.

No one said that parenting was rational.

Aribura · 03/02/2012 17:41

If you go out without your baby, you might get mowed down crossing the road. Can you imagine, the baby would be left asleep in their crib. Much better to take the baby with, where there is no risk of getting hit by a c- ...oh.

Come on, people. Do you never take a shower? What if a fire was ripping through the house in the 5 minutes you were in there? Some people are paranoid.

eurochick · 03/02/2012 17:57

Surely the risk of a fire ripping through the house is far lower than crossing the road with the baby on an icy day? And that is far lower than the risk of being in an accident when you have the baby in the car? I never quite understand the logic on threads like these.

newbiedoobiedoo · 03/02/2012 18:02

Sorry if anyone has said this already but couldn't you go and take a monitor? A good monitor should cover 200 yards no? Then you could hear a fire alarm and anything else that might make noise in the house?!

Sidalee7 · 03/02/2012 18:04

Social services would not come down on you for having a shower while the baby is asleep.
They would (rightly) if you left your baby alone in the house.

Its massive difference! I do not live my life by "what if theres a fire/what if I get mowed down" but those were my instant thought responses to this thread.

Im a lone parent and have had nights where I have run out of milk - I would never leave the house. Its not worth it.

pictish · 03/02/2012 18:06

Or maybe you could behave like a normal, sane human being and nip over and back in three minutes flat, just as you initially proposed?

RillaBlythe · 03/02/2012 18:09

So, is it okay for me to leave sleeping 4 mo in her cot, when the only adult in the house is Dp in the spare room sleeping off a night shift with earplugs in, while I go to nursery pick up?

LikeAnAdventCandleButNotQuite · 03/02/2012 18:12

I would only ever consider leaving a LO on their own for minutes if it was an emergency. Needing something from the shop, unless it is to put gas/electric on a card to keep house warm, is not an emergency.

You can go sometime without milk, bread, wine.

Original poster

Scheherezade · 03/02/2012 18:14

I took him with me, took 38 seconds to get there, a minute in the shop and the same back.

OP posts:

Flisspaps · 03/02/2012 18:20

In my local paper this week there is a report about a father who left his two year old daughter home alone to get his son from school - he had fallen asleep and woke up late to collect his son so thought it best to get to school ASAP.

Nothing terrible happened to her in the time he was gone. No-one got hit by a car. The house didn't burn down.

The police took him home to confirm he was who he said he was (presumably school didn't know him or something) and found his daughter there. He was however charged with child neglect, and given a 12 month community order with 6 months supervision.

Is it really worth it? It only takes a neighbour to see you in the shop, ask you where your baby is (at home, unsupervised) and for them to then call the police or Social Services.

Original poster

Scheherezade · 03/02/2012 18:23

Fliss, that's very different to this, though.

OP posts:

Molehillmountain · 03/02/2012 18:24

All would be fine, but you just can't. All logic in me screams "it's fine" but it just isn't the thing to do. There seems to be very little you couldnt do without until he/she wakes up.

awomenscorned · 03/02/2012 18:29

For those that think it is ok to leave a baby alone and go out, SS would seem this in a very dim light.

CailinDana · 03/02/2012 18:33

No they wouldn't awomenscorned. SS have far more to do than to bother with people who don't watch their babies every single second of the day.

pictish · 03/02/2012 19:17

No awomanscored. Nipping 300 yards to the corner shop would be of no interest to Social Services at all. Wipe the drool from your chin and stop being silly.

slowginny · 03/02/2012 19:19

Trust your judgement OP, the very fact you are asking suggests you are a responsible parent sounding out the boundaries.

My mum used to put my siblings and I in the bath and then go off to mow the lawn. Now that is irresponsible parenting.
And she's a vicar's wife.
Strangely enough, we all survived intact in spite of our parents' best efforts.

moonface73 · 03/02/2012 19:22

I wouldn't. What is it you need so urgently?

Birdsgottafly · 03/02/2012 19:24

Just to clarify, leaving the baby in the house and going beyond the boundary of your property (with a view to going to another building, the shop) is abandonment under the law,both SS and the police would react to this.

pictish · 03/02/2012 19:25

zzzzzzzz....

Birdsgottafly · 03/02/2012 19:28

React however you want, it is up to the OP to decide. If it becomes habit forming and a neighbour reports her, then she has the right to know what she will be charged with and why her child is on a CP plan.

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