Leaving my 10 month old with strangers while I....

[appletarts]

take toddler for an emergency pee? Ok it looks bad written down. The situation was that I was in a cafe with baby and toddler and toddler needed to pee. There was literally no place to put baby in the loo area as it was tiny and frankly a bit grim on the floor to pop him down there. I can't hold him and get toddler on and off the loo and wash her hands and she's not good enough to do it all herself without peeing on god knows what and gripping hold of the loo, yuk! So there were these two mums on a nearby table with their babies of similar age on their laps and they looked lovely enough so I asked them if they could watch baby while we went to the loo, they were happy to. I shuffled baby over in his highchair and he sat at their table grinning at them happily for the 3 minutes it took us to belt it to the loo and back.

Afterwards I thought it all seemed friendly enough and normal to me and safe but then I reality checked and I did leave him with total strangers out of sight for 3 minutes. We live in a tiny market town much like postman pat world where everyone knows everyone, but still. Am I a bad mother? AIBU? Any ideas

hanging round a bus station in a van probably waiting to pick up someone who was arriving on bus in a few minutes, I do not personally like tattoos but it would not make me think dodgy child abductor

I do not mean in the case in the article but generally just being at bus station is not Dodgy

Dobby - my mum said they used to have long lines of prams parked outside shops - sometimes you had to wait for a spot (old school p&c parking place wars :))

I was born in 1977 so not too long ago

I think the dodgiest part is the tattooed neck. But the whole picture doesn't really say "Mary Poppins", does it?!

Maddening I remember playing with somebody's baby - no idea whose, as they were in that pushchair line up, when I was a bit older and my mum met a friend outside said supermarket and they stood for a chinwag . Mind you the supermarket then was no bigger than poundland now - still had everything we needed though.

I was in my first year of secondary in 1977

Typical mumsnet that.

Is it OK to do X?

Ooh no, because when somebody did something entirely different in America in 2001 something horrible happened.

People lose the ability to risk assess(did they ever have it!) What were 2perfectly normal looking mothers with babies going to do? Even if they had abandoned their coffee, jammed their DCs back in prams, got their coats on, picked up belongings they wouldn't have got out with an extra baby under an arm!! Was the cafe empty? Were there no staff about? I would imagine there were both who are not going to meekly watch it happen! Or maybe they were going to meekly watch them assault the baby!
People have left me watching babies when I have been with children or my elderly mother.
I can't see why you need to ask.

Sorry- wouldn't have got out before you were back with the toddler.