To not leave DD with batshit DM alone

[theymaynotmeantobuttheydo]

DM has no concept of danger and thinks nothing bad will ever happen to her. I often question how I survived my childhood with no physical injuries. Not a single broken bone or hospital visit...

There are (unconfirmed) rumours that she once gave my cousins 9 month old a sip of coke.

She lives localish to us and would have the kids DD6 and DD3 at the drop of the hat but I just don't trust her.. DH thinks I'm crazy as we could be off having a whale of the time but...

We use nursery for childcare.

I left DD3 for about 3 hours one morning as I had an adhoc work meeting and she put her in DS's forward facing booster seat for a non urgent car journey a mile away to collect something that could have waited. She "thought she was old enough to face forward now as she's big enough"

DD3 had a very minor scratch and I asked her to get some savlon and before i knew it she was applying some dodgy antibiotic cream to "take the redness away"
Oh when One DD was born she shoved some honey in her mouth at a few days old (some batshit cultural custom) before I could stop her. She has no boundaries. She can't be stopped or reasoned with. I had to insist she covered up her 6ft deep pond after she persisted with the fact I had never drowned in it as being a good enough reason to leave it.

My children need protecting from her. AIBU? I suspect not but DH thinks I am OTT!

Britain's car seat laws are very very far behind a lot of other countries.

But we have higher actual compliance than many.

The RF/FF thing - I always remember a quote on BBC breakfast regarding this where the guest said 'everyone is safer facing backwards in the car'. I assume he meant except the driver .

I think it is better for v young children to rear face though if possible looking at the evidence. The most important thing though for me is seats being correctly fitted when they are used in gps cars.

The pond and battery thing would worry me too.

It like race to the bottom of the parenting pile on this thread today

^^THIS

Biancadelrioisback - but the pond is now covered; the button batteries were got out because a battery needed replacing in a toy, not because grandma thought they would be fun playthings, and provided the 3-year old was being well supervised at the time, I do not think it batshit to use her better eyesight to help identify the correct size of replacement; the honey incident was a one-off; and it would seem the rear facing seat was not available when grandma used the forward facing seat (and I do not think running a short errand with said 3-year old was batshit, either). Yes, it would be lovely if grandma was 100% au fait with the latest safety advice, but nothing that she is described as having done is particularly appalling or life threatening!!! A batshit grandparent would chuck the 3-year old in the pond to teach her to swim, or leave her behind in the garden to eat deadly nightshade and fall into the pond while grandma went on the errand by herself, or tell her to lick the batteries because they taste interesting...

I have never ever seen anyone with a rear facing car seat in real life, 'cept for babies

Probably missing the point but if kids sitting with their legs crossed or whatever are involved is an accident, it could do severe damage to their spines and pelvises (sp) compared to having legs straight and pelvis level?

"Besides rear impacts being statistically a much more infrequent source of serious injuries than frontal crashes, there are also some physical aspects to consider. When travelling rear facing, the child sits further away from the point of impact in a rear crash, so that a longer crumple zone is provided even in cars with a small boot. Additionally, significantly less forces come into play in a rear collision, as both vehicles are moving in the same direction, so that the forces are spread on both cars equally. In contrast, in a frontal impact both vehicles are stopped from their speed to zero in an instant."

I know this country has a deep mistrust of experts, but really, when they say it's 5x safer it really is. It's not danger-proof, but it's the optimum. Regardless of how many people one has seen actually follow this advice (the vast majority in my area)
Other misconceptions covered here:
www.carseat.co.uk/misconceptions-rear-facing-car-seats/

Usually I'm 100% in favour of the OP on these kinds of posts but in this case I think YABU.

When you say "she has no boundaries" is there any part of you that wonders if you have far too many?

justthere can you please provide evidence? If that is the case I may reconsider however I've never seen that written in any of the research

Oh sorry, I just realised you were asking a question.
As I say, I certainly haven't read anything about FF being better for spine and pelvis.

I can’t believe this has turned into a debate about RF car seats.

In short, OP feels uneasy about leaving her child with her mother. You can’t leave your child with someone you don’t fully trust.

If you had a family member who kept doing things with your child that you’d asked them not to or that were even a little dangerous, can you honestly say you’d happily leave your LO with them?

I think the fact your dh thinks you're crazy says it all. He's not bothered by what sounds like minor things and would like to have a date with you! Sounds like you and him aren't on the same parenting page either.

Drowning in a pond, swallowing a button battery that kills you and using a car seat that is for an older bigger child are just minor things?!

These things didnt happen though other than the car seat thing and even that was for a one mile drive.

The ignorance about rear facing here is astonishing. In an ideal world they would do it until four. We are miles behind safety standards of the US in this. It's been raised to 15 months here but it should be 2.
A few videos of crash test dummies on YouTube and the difference is an eye opener.
Also the honey is bad it can kill a baby.

With regards to the broken legs thing, there's a saying.
Cast it
Or casket.
And @pepperjack my 2 year old is rearfcing and will until 4. It takes almost no research to see the difference and safety trumps what people (including my kids) might think.
But anyway, if you aren't comfy op then don't do it.

I think you both sound batshit 🤷‍♀️

“In an ideal world they would do it until four. ”

Why not 74, if it’s safer?

@StreetwiseHercules because until around 4 the musculoskeletal system is not fully developed and the ratio of head to body weight is not that of an adult, making them much more vulnerable to spine and neck injuries in accidents when forward facing, such as internal decapitation. Any more questions?

I don't think anything you've described sounds that bad and certainly not worthy of 'batshit' I certainly wouldn't turn down free childcare from a loving family member who brought me up with no major incidents for any of this but hey ho. Each to their own. You don't sounds particularly receptive to anyone telling you might be being a bit unreasonable OP so what was the point of asking?!

@Cheetahssitonfajitas Good god, please calm down. You sound hysterical. And your sarcasm is really not helpful in the slightest.

OP, you are being very OTT about this. Its your children so obviously you can decide who gets to look after them. But honestly, you DM doesn't sound as bad as you are making her out to be. It'd be a shame if you let your own anxiety stop your children from having a relationship with their grandmother.

@PengAly she hardly sounds hysterical. But you sound rude.

It's not a race to the bottom. We never even used to use car seats. Should we still not bother? With advances in science and knowledge we now choose the safer path no?

Also, cars have got faster, and there's more on the road.

Honestly, most of the western world is quite surprised at how behind the UK's car seat laws are.

@pinkgloves did you even see her posts on the other pages? She posted a couple in a row all ridden with sarcastic comments and exclamations. Its not useful to the discussion to have posts like that.

It sounds like she isn’t completely batshit if she’s complied with the request about the pond to be fair.

Was she supervising the battery picking, as in ‘can you work out which is the right battery?’ or just giving the child them as a toy? There’s a massive difference.

The honey thing would have really annoyed me but I wouldn’t be dwelling on that years later.

The coke thing is a rumour

The car seat wouldn’t concern me for a one off short trip. You can’t really expect her to buy a RF one when it’ll be in use for less than a year or so. Nor expect her to postpone her errands when she’s helping you out.

On balance I think you possibly need to reconsider the blanket ban