Would you leave your baby unattended in their buggy

[noblegiraffe]

...while you use the loo?

On another thread I mentioned not being able to get a buggy into a small cubicle and the suggestion was to leave baby outside.

Would I be overly precious in thinking 'No, I wouldn't do that'?

Some posters are not showing themselves in a good light without anyone needing to bitch about them tbh

By being the very definition of entitled.

Fanjo I'm so sorry to hear what happened with your daughter .

Putting baby change facilities in disabled toilets was a bad move and it appears to have given out the wrong message.

Ilovemyself,

I suppose I just come at it from a different mindset. As I have said time and again, where I live and have lived, the disabled toilet option was simply not available - all were locked with RADAR keys. So I never developed the idea that I COULD use disabled toilets, or that I might be justified in doing so. I simply developed processes and ways of handling things that meant that I managed to use the available 'normal' public toilets successfully.

I can see that if you have always used the disabled facilities with your children, then you would feel that it is impossible not to use them - because you have developed processes and procedures that work on the assumption that those facilities are available to you.

Yes, to use 'normal' public toilets with small children, you have to rethink and replan a little. And if you had to, because other facilities were physically barred to you, you would do that rethinking and replanning. Because the bar to using disabled toilets is, where you live, a 'moral' one (you are not allowed to use those toilets if you are not disabled, they are not provided for you) then you have to decide to do the rethinking and replanning, rather than being forced to IYSWIM.

Jacks, I think that is a very true statement. What I did was absolutely 'normal' for all my friends and peers, because none of us (except the ones who were disabled or had disabled children) had the option of using the disabled toilets and had never developed any expectation that they might be able to.

The 'I can use it to change a nappy' is just part of a gentle slde to 'I can use it with any small child in an emergency because I've used it up till now' to 'It's so much easier, I'll use it as a matter of routine' to 'Aren't they all dual use now?'.... which is the nub of the problem.

They shouldn't have to put up with changing facilities being in the disabled toilets full stop, regardless of how clean they are.

Isn't the world full of such unreasonable people!

Isn't it just? It seems to be full of over entitled parents who can not understand why 'just nipping in' a disabled toilet is wrong!

Ok teacherwith2kids. I will take 2 17 month olds and a 5 month old out of the buggy, even if they are sleeping.

And the numerous bags. And the items in the carrier in the base.
Good, because I managed with newborn twins and a 19 month old.
In fact I didn't start using the disabled lavatories until dd was old enough to know when she needed to go, she was about eight by then. And do you know what, sometimes we had to wait. Sometimes she got dirty looks because she can get out of her chair to go, in fact she can walk (very) short distances, and sometimes people had a go at us for using them when she could use the others, those with no grab rail etc.
I still get dirty looks on occasion, but the one I recall the most was when dd was using some disabled loos last year and a young mum came out, looked at dd, waiting patiently in her chair, looked at the baby she'd just pushed out of the disabled loo and said to baby: Well, you won't end up like that will you, sausage, we look after you!
DD did ask her if it was safe to use her whole vocabularly in one sentence!

fanjo just ready our post about last weekend. Sounds very upsetting and stressful. And unkind comments are horrible.
I don't get the bit about the disabled loo being " full of parents" so I am guessing (correct me if I'm wrong) that a woman with a child/ren emerged from the loo while you were waiting.
In a shared facilities loo this is not unreasonable.
Then there was a queue. Was this the only loo? Or we're you of he opinion tat they were all undeserving opportunists?
your DD was clearly distressed.
If I was in a queue for a loo I would have strongly encouraged you and she to move ahead of me.

It was not the only toilet. But the only one we can change DD in.

Sorry. I see that it was the only one you could use.
I was trying to get a picture of what others were up to.
Because from what you're saying a line of parents we're waiting to use the shared facilities and no one let you go ahead.
That seems unreasonable and unkind.

I still think that every situation is different and must be judged on its own merits.

I still get dirty looks on occasion, but the one I recall the most was when dd was using some disabled loos last year and a young mum came out, looked at dd, waiting patiently in her chair, looked at the baby she'd just pushed out of the disabled loo and said to baby: Well, you won't end up like that will you, sausage, we look after you!

So do I. The one I remember most was actually a dad who knocked on the door, shouted through the door at me to hurry up, and then had a go at me when I came out for taking so long when he needed to change his daughter's nappy.

Sadly people just assume DD is just a heinous brat who is 9 and still.has tantrums (she is 6 but looks 9)

It actually wasnt a huge deal.as we are used to it..sadly.

But people should be sure they are really understanding the need of others before judging a situation on what they think are its merits.

Having an NT baby is just not like being disabled.

Funny, isn't it WestieMamma, it's invariably the young able bodied parent.

The problem is emily that they are not really "shared" facilities they are disabled toilets that had a changing table put in because its the only place that had the room.
It would never occur to me to use disabled toilets just because I have a pram but my eldest is 19 and when she was a baby it simply wasn't an option due to radar keys. My dd stayed outside the cubicle as for changing I'm very good at doing changes on my knee. I do wonder whether age of children has a bearing how many of those saying its fine to use disabled have older children?

What are "shared facilities"? They might have a baby changing table in which means you change a baby's nappy in there. It doesn't mean they are family toilets that you all traipse in to use once the baby is toilet trained!

When its suggested that a child in distress, in the middle of a meltdown and her father, should wait in line behind mums wanting to change their babies then I don't think it's the bitching that makes them look bad. Yes you can argue that you may have let the Dh through to the front had you been there, but nobody did, which is disgusting IMO. I'm sorry for that fanjo.

To the people arguing that they have never seen a queue etc doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and I'm sad that a lot of people think its ok based on the fact that they haven't seen the distress this can cause for themselves.

I wonder how many of the people displaying these attitudes will be the first to complain when a non parent parks in a parent and child space.

We all think our children precious but its not a disability or hardship to have a child, yes it's hard to manage everything but you know, if baby changing and disabled toilets didn't exist you would still be able to go shopping our whatever and would to find a way round it, no access to a toilet means many disabled people can't go anywhere, that's may sound extreme but its not that long ago that this was the case.

Why those of you with special powers to see if a disabled person is waiting to use the loo you are occupying cannot use them to watch over and fend off those baby-knappers I don't know.

I the age of the dc is a small part jack, but the bigger problem is attitude, my dd is 8 and it never occurred to be that the disabled facilities are an option, I am 33 and the same thing never occurred to my mum, she took valuables and three kids in the cubicle with her, I asked my siblings who bith have two small kids under 4 and they both said they wouldn't do it, they use the regular toilets.

What do people do when at events where there are only porta toilets, the disabled versions of those are a lot smaller, we go to lots of country show and I'm curios as to what the people who need the room purely for pram space do in these cases?

Ah now real shared facilities are a real treat. The best I saw had two toilets, two chairs, a changing table and a sink, in a room big enough for a big pram, and a large door to get through.

Bliss.

My fil would never 'jump' a queue even if it meant he might wet himself. He shouldn't be put in this position. I often have to wait to change my disabled son so there certainly are people waiting outside disabled toilets.

WOW. Just wow - I had no idea this was an issue!

Playing devils advocate here - can we ignore the disabled toilet argument for a minute - but some people here are very determined that there is no risk in leaving the baby outside the cubicle / with a stranger because there's no precedence of baby snatching. I wonder what their reposnes might be if someone did do this and their baby was taken! I think there would be a helluva lot of judgements against that mother for leaving her baby unattended. As, for example, they have done for a very unfortunate mum a few years ago who left her children unattended in an apartment with friends regularly going back to check on them. The McCanns had to cop a LOT of flack for their actions. Just a thought.

And also - what do DADs do - I would have thought it would be much more uncomfortable for them to wheel a buggy into the mens and poop with an open door etc?

The poor dads :(

Drop your sword there is no comparison between leaving a child outside a cubicle with the door open and leaving children in an apartment that is out of sight. Some of us do not class a child outside a cubicle as unattended. Wonder what the nspcc view of it would be.