To have left DS asleep in the car?

[HelenLaBloodyAnnoyed]

Today I took DS (14 months) swimming. The pool is only a two min drive from school so I thought he'd make it and then could nap after but the poor little thing was absolutely exhausted and snoring by the time I arrived at school. I parked in the school car park and waited until I saw children from my DDs class leaving, then sprinted to get her leaving DS in the car. The car was out of my sight for less than 30 seconds. WIBU?

I’ve often wondered at this. My wife insists that it’s not safe to leave the 9 month old asleep at home while I drop the 3 year old at nursery (5 minute walk). I believe she’s being neurotic. What’s going to happen to them at home? They’re asleep. At most, they’ll wake up the second I walk out the door and cry for 10-15 minutes. That’s realistically it.

I mean, there are of course the other possible risks- house fire, flood, earthquake. I suppose earthquake I couldn’t do much about anyway. Fire is a pretty low risk in a modern house, likewise flood in the upstairs bedroom. Even the crying I can monitor with access to the camera on my phone.

The only reasonable risk to address I can foresee is being run over enroute to/from nursery. But if I’m walking with the baby in a sling and I get run over, that’s worse for the baby anyway. And really my being mown down could be mitigated against by calling my wife and saying “I’m leaving to drop DD at nursery now, if I don’t call back in 10-15 minutes confirming I’m home, come home cause I’m incapacitated and our baby is unattended. Or call me cause I’m home and enjoying the 45 minutes of peace before hell is unleashed and I’ve forgotten to call you back cause this is a ridiculously low risk to mitigate against.”

Then baby sleeps, risk is mitigated and eldest is dropped at nursery. Win-win-win-win-win as Michael Scott would say.

If you are concerned about the car being hit in the car park, would you consider it acceptable if both parents were on the school run, and one parent went inside while the other remained in the passenger seat with sleeping dc in the back? Everyone would say yes. But why - the car could be hit in the car park just the same.

I used to leave mine asleep in the car on the drive behind a locked gate and visible from where I was in the house. I would, if necessary, leave them in the car while paying for petrol rather than try and wrangle them across a busy forecourt. In reality, I could count on one hand the number of times that happened thanks to paying at the pump. I would not leave them in a car, in a public place, out of sight. I see that as a very different thing.

I sincerely doubt it was only 30 seconds. It was clearly long enough for the TA to notice and get concerned. You could very easily have had the teacher wanting to urgently talk to you, or your DC fall over and need attention, or another parent wanting to talk to you, or any number of things that would have held you up.

How long do you think would be too long to leave him there? I mean from your own description you were concerned enough to make the time as short as possible and felt the need to sprint. So you obviously didn't want to leave him more than a minute or two? If you're scoffing at the idea that anything bad could happen then what do you think could happen in 10 minutes that couldn't happen in 2?

When bad things happen they happen very fast.

Don't be sure there aren't things happening about the other family you refer to either. More than likely stuff is happening but it's just not visible to you. Staff at school can't force the parents to be responsible, unfortunately. My job would be much less depressing if that were the case.

I bet if you'd said you'd left a dog in the car this thread would be full of YABUs.

Do you live too far away from school to be able to walk? It's so much easier using a buggy for the school run and let the baby sleep in there. No need to leave it anywhere then. Not much help if you're too far away though.

Tubeworker you're not going to be able to watch the camera whilst you're walking and if something does happen, you're too far away to interfere. For example, what if the baby starts crying, you're not available to comfort them and they make themselves sick, easy in 15 minutes.

Also it's pretty shitty to call your wife neurotic, just one step above hysterical.

I do this all the time. But I don't live in the UK and it is normal here. I have a battery powered baby monitor so if DC is asleep when I get home I can leave her in the car. We do have a gated drive though.

There is a really interesting study here about our perception of risk relating directly to leaving children unattended

www.collabra.org/articles/10.1525/collabra.33/

I can totally understand parents who don't feel comfortable doing it, but your child was at significantly more risk on the drive to the school than during the few minutes you left them in the carpark.

@Eatmycheese still no explanation?

I did it all the time

The TA is out of order, not you

I used to know a mum at school who would leave her DD asleep in the car on the road while she collected her older DD. Nothing ever happened but I couldn't take the chance.
When I went for petroleum when my babies were small I'd always take them in to pay, I know statistically the chances of anything happening were very slim but I just didn't want to risk it.
When my children fell asleep in the car, I'd always bring them into the house. I wouldn't leave them in a hot car sleeping and if I left the window open a little bit I'd worry a wasp/bee might fly in.
I know chances were slim but again didn't want to take a risk.

I meant to say petrol 🤦‍♀️

This thread highlights that there's no right answer to this. I'm of the school of thought that the risk of anything happening in those 30 seconds is so breathtakingly minimal that it's worth taking rather than waking a tired, sleeping baby. I feel the same about petrol forecourts.
I wouldn't not leave my baby at home or in the car while I went out/shopping/anything that took longer than a minute.
But everyone's different and unless there is clear evidence of neglect then no version of this is incorrect.

@youdontknowme

What do you require me to explain? What might happen? Anything could happen. It’s about preventing as much as you can.
I have nothing to explain to you or anyone else.

And BelleSauvage with your moniker is have thought you’d love the poetic nod to being philosophical. Hey ho. Wank seems so prosaic and irreconcilable

At the end of the day the OP was sufficiently rattled to post here. She’s not convinced it was the right thing to do. As much as she sought out reassurance she surely knew she would be criticised too.

End of story
I chose not to run risks like this as a parent and the fact that if something happened to my baby and I had done this means there would have been questions to answer is enough for me

I bet if you'd said you'd left a dog in the car this thread would be full of YABUs.

On a cool day out of summer in the UK... It would take a crazy person to say YABU.

@Eatmycheese

Anything could happen. It’s about preventing as much as you can.
I have nothing to explain to you or anyone else.

Complete non answer!

I would say your level of aggressiveness is the BIGGEST risk to your children.

You're also far more rattled, name calling etc than the OP!

I do it with my toddler. I risk assessed it - getting him out of his car seat, walking across the (very small, 6 space) carpark , then doing the reverse but with three children, strapping them all in was more dangerous than a 30 second dash across to grab other kids and run.

@sugartitz of course it is, the thing that @Eatmycheese is saying is if anything happened in the car then she couldn't be held to blame. But taking kids across petrol forecourts is much more likely to result in an accident ..... but she feels she couldn't be blamed for that, because she's such a "good mother" she was doing the right thing.... no, that accident would be equally avoidable by leaving the child in the perfectly safe car! It's more important to some parents to be seen to be blameless rather than take the safer option.

@Eatmycheese

Anything could happen walking across the road with a baby (and you'd have no car as protection). Anything could happen while you were sitting with the baby in the car. The point is the risk of anything bad happening as a result of being left momentarily asleep in a car.

What do people think will happen?

Abduction? Surely that's more if a risk when toddler is halfway across a large expanse of grass in a park

Low speed collision (as mentioned upthread). God forbid- but do you also sit chewing your nails over the same scenario when you're sitting in the parked car with toddler? Sitting thinking "please don't hit me. Phew! Please don't hit me. Thank God, another miss"

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't live my days worrying about the worst case scenario with toddler ds1. I don't live my life in fear. I perform multiple subconscious risk assessments every hour, I guess I'm just a bit less stressed about life. And I live in a big city.

And no, this doesn't mean I condone leaving children in cars out of sight, or in hot cars etc. Its not a black and white scenario. Nothing is, but so many seem to live their lives as if things are.

So much hysteria on here.......

I'm always surprised that some mums seem to think that if they're with their child nothing bad can happen to it. This leads to stupid risk assessments.

anything could happen

In the circumstances we are talking about ..what could happen?

Tubeworker your wife is totally right, not 'neurotic' FFS

@youdontknowme you seem a bit fixated with me and my views.
Not sure why.

I see this as poor, lazy parenting. I can be absolutely sure that I was knocked down carrying my baby it would me devastating but I wouldn’t be placed in a situation where my parenting would be called into question by authorities. If however I left my sleeping baby in a car on a street to collect another child and the vehicle was out of my sight for any period of time and something were to happen then I would be subject to scrutiny

You are entirely confusing probability with ethical choices some of us make as parents which makes is not anxious or OTT but inerently more responsible

In his case the safe choice was not to leave he child in the car. It was the lazy choice.

I am not concerned with the odds of what might happen I simply refuse to place my child in a position where I weigh up those odds.

I’m not sure why you have such an issue with my having an issue.
Just get over it.

Has anyone said what the big risk was that the OP was taking?

Not weighing up the odds makes you a negligent parent.

That was for you, Eatmycheese.

@Eatmycheese up I think your ridiculous, rude and unable to safely assess a situation. I'm "fixated" as to what you think could happen to a sleeping child in a car? Oh yes .......anything!

You think differently and therefore call people middle class gin mummies, or words to that effect.

I think I've proved now that you have no reasonable argument, that you just "think" it's lazy (it's not!), you think you're a better mother (you're not) because you are unable to risk assess on this occasion or in a petrol station.

You need to understand that because you think "anything (wtf is this anything?) might happen, it won't!