Leaving baby in car to get car park ticket

[IstheCartooFar]

Name changed as chatted to husband and friend about this already...

I've tried to include all relevant details to avoid drip feeding etc...

Woman in car park annoyed me yesterday. I'd left baby in car to walk to ticket machine (at the end of the aisle next to mine, no closer spaces available). When I came back woman had parked next to me and getting her own children out.

She said 'excuse me, have you just left your baby in the car all on its own?' in an accusing way.

I replied I was just at the ticket machine, which she humphed at and turned away.

I felt pretty cross at her implication I'd done some awful dangerous parenting so I said I found her tone very judgemental.

She just said well you hear horror stories (and then said some confusing story about how some people have brain injuries and do weird things so you have to check). I just said you have to make lots of risk assessments as a parent of leaving baby in car vs lugging them through busy car park, she turned away and didn't answer.

Anyway, do people leave baby in car to get a ticket or is that just me being lazy??

And was she unreasonable to check or would you do the same? (to me it was pretty obvious I'd just gone to get a ticket rather than done a full shop, considering I'd walked past her car with ticket, put it on windscreen then was getting baby out).

lndnmum
"Of course you don't leave a baby out of your sight for a second, let alone a minute in a car, am I missing something"

Wait, am I Missing something... you never let your child out of your sight even for a second .... do you never sleep? You never blink? You never do anything apart from watch your baby like a hawk 24 hours a day?

Hahahahahahaha ha common sense. That's funny, I'll give you that.
If a baby was alone in a car someone would see and would alert the emergency services. If someone was in an accident, they would do the same. A child without injury in a car alone for a period of time is better than an injured child for any point of time. The police can run checks on the car almost instantly to see who it's registered to. doesn't take a rocket scientist to put the injured person and the car in injured persons name with child in it together.

NapQueen Nothing exciting unfortunately, I bought it second hand so didn't deliberately choose the blacked out windows. It was owned by a TV station and has apparently been used to chauffeur Z list celebrities about. It's very handy for getting changed or letting a child sit on the potty in the back.

Er duckthingy, I am saying that if an accident happened to you out of the
car and you child is with you, then emergency services can look after the child as they can see them, if you had an accident on your own outside, then who would know you have a baby in the car? So yes as it goes it would be safer if you are both together then separated, and no am not a troll just a mother with a bit of h&s common sense

Oh shit, you ARE serious. OK, so if I left my baby in the car to get a ticket and I had an 'accident' sometime in between leaving my car and walking the 30 metres to the ticket machine and back, then are we assuming that my accident would be so severe that I would be unable to communicate to anyone that I had a baby in the car? So, by this logic we are talking being reversed into by a very large vehicle (a truck?) and being rendered unconscious. You genuinely believe it would be better for my baby to have been with me (strapped to me or in a pram pushed by me) than in the car 30 metres away? Because the emergency services can then "see" the baby and look after him (never mind the fact that he has also been crushed by a truck)?

Seriously, if you want to apply this rubbish to your own life, go nuts, but don't push it as the norm and some sort of standard to follow for others. Interestingly, babies can survive a long time sitting in a car seat until a passer by helps them. Not so many survive severe crush injuries.

YANBU to leave her while getting a ticket but neither was she to check that you returned to the car imo.

I can't believe that it's normal to do a full blown risk assessment over something like this where the risks are virtually non-existent - seems incredibly over anxious to me. Surely you just do whatever you feel comfortable with according to your instincts, and go with whatever is convenient based on that?

I keep an inflatable life sized Peter Andre doll in my car at all times, with CCTV eyes linked to my phone by an app. He scares off all car jackers, dingos and foxes.

Maybe I should patent him and go on Dragons Den.

bold-fail , that was aimed at ldnmum2015

" Doh 100000010000 if you and your baby got hurt while outside the car, then at least your child wouldn't be still in the car on its own waiting for its parent to not return, imagine how much worse that would be!"

wow. Yes, I can see how a baby waiting obliviously in car would be so much worse than them being knocked into by a reversing car. Terrible.

I'm ashamed

By far the most dangerous thing you and she did was to put your children in the car and drive to the car park!!!

Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us ever do and the leading cause of death in children aged 5 - 15 is traffic accidents.

In comparison the risk to your child of being left alone in the car park pales into insignificance.

I leave baby/roddler in car to get parking ticket/nip into a shop for milk with car outside/pay for petrol.
Ou car has very loud alarm so if some insane person did want to car jack with a toddler and baby inside, I'd hear it and be out in an instant. Argument re. cars reversing/banging into car while parked (probably at about 2 miles per hour) while you are paying for ticket doesn't hold- as if you drive with a baby in the car (as we all do) this is far more risky than leaving baby in a perked space, in full view of you for a few minutes. If a few mums want to make everyones (ie. toddler, baby and themselves) life harder by strapping both in buggy, traipsing back and forwards through tight spaces in car park, thats fine, but there no common sense about that.

toddler obvs, not "roddler"??!

ParadiseCity

I just spat tea all over my phone thanks to you, you arse.

This thread just shows that some people have no idea how to assess risk. All they are doing is recognising a danger. But a risk assessment considers the likelihood of it happening too. The examples given are really so far fetched that the chances of them happening are miniscule. There are all sorts of things that could happen, and that is just day to day life. Leaving a baby in a car when getting a ticket is no more risky than a multitude of other things we don't think twice about. For some reason there are certain dangers which people are comfortable with but others they incorrectly perceive as being risky.

ParadiseCity I need to get me one of them.

Oh god I'm due a baby in 2 weeks and this is one of the thousands of things no one warned me about!
I'm just not going to leave the house in our car unless I have someone with me (other than baby obvs) then they get the ticket whilst I get the baby sorted. Problem solved!

Wait, I have to go out by myself with baby in tow and noone with me?! No can do I'm afraid!
How do people drive if they can't take their eyes off their child even for a second?

My mum left my 3 older sisters in the car once before I was born (but she was heavily pregnant with me) and the car set on fire! They were all ok, as the older 2 were 9 and 10 so old enough to get out and grab the 3 yo. New car needed anyway so mum looked at it as a blessing. Still left us in the car though - she believed lightning doesn't strike twice or just didn't give a shit which is more likely

As I said before.

Parents who truly love their children wouldn't conceive them

do you know how dangerous it is being alive??

I feel I should clarify, I specifically don't leave my kids in the car because of the blacked out windows. If something happened to me no one's going to spot them sitting in there. And as I said, I'm paranoid!

whatsthatcomingoverthehil +1000

I'm actually a H & S professional and am a little bemused at the scenarios being presented.

This thread is hysterical. I can't believe that there are people who are so bad at assessing risk and are that paranoid. It must be hard to go through life worrying about car jackings and spontaneously combusting vehicles.

I feel i need some facts to compare

1. Unattended babies hurt in /stolen from parked cars in a UK supermarket car-park by a vehicle or person
2. Children hurt in /stolen from a UK supermarket car park by a vehicle or person

I'm going to put down a 50p bet.

Number 2 will be higher than 1.

Anyone with me?

he is my son and I was looking after him as we crossed the road. He was perfectly safe - so yes, I took offence to a random stranger grabbing him. It's just another example of people judging others with no due cause

A random stranger who saw your son in what he percieved was a legitimately dangerious situation and you wanted him to stop and asses if he could identify a parent and if they were nearby enough to grab just incase you felt judged?

Really? Most people would just prefer someone to grab their child and stop them going into the road in the first place rather than have a squished child and lots of competant adults standing by watching just incase mummy or daddy felt judged.

But then I guess actually watching your own child bleeding out on the road then spending the next year watching them experance serious pain and trauma and then having over 10 years worth of ptsd tends to make you feel less bothered about being judged and a little kinder towards strangers who try to help prevent stuff like that even if it's not really needed.

But treebird SURELY cars spontaneously combust all the time in UK car parks? Right? Surely as a H&S Professional you know the risk of disaster is automatically times by a squillion with the presence of an unattended baby? and you call your self a "professional"

00100001

100% of people that suffer from life, die. I don't like those statistics.

I love this thread 😂

I was locked in a supermarket carpark by my mum when I was little. She was driven home by the manager to collect the spare keys and I was entertained by an assistant. I only started crying when my mum got me out of the car.
I don't see the problem in leaving a baby for a minute or two whilst you get a ticket. They're strapped into a seat and can't go anywhere. Surely less risk than going to the loo at home and leaving a child unattended... Think of the plug sockets! The power cables!

How on earth did we all survive to adulthood. We should all be dead by now.

Best thing to do is put them in the car seat, shut the door behind you and hop between the front seats so you don't have to walk around the car!

Although my post kids arse would really not have allowed this happen.
But it doesn't matter if you get wedged in because hey you are in the car with your baby!