AIBU to be a shocked at a parent leaving their 4 month old home alone for 10 minutes

[NotMyUsualNameNoSiree]

I overheard a conversation at school the other day, a mum was telling another mum how she left her young DD (4mo) at home while she picked up her DS (aged 5 or 6) from school.

I believe she lives around the corner and across the road from school, maybe 1 or 2 minutes walk. But pick-up would probably take 10 minutes in total to get the kid, get him ready, leave school premises and get home.

Of course I rationally know that no harm is likely to come to a 4mo left alone for ten minutes. But even if it's very very unlikely that anything bad would happen (to the baby, or the mum, or the older kid), it still gives me the chills to think about it.

Instinctively I want to say something, whether to her or the school. But I don't know if I'm being over cautious.

Well, not sure what being a healthcare professional has to do with this, but I'm a neonatal nurse. I'm also a mother of 4, 3 of which are under 2. Never had to leave one in the house before.

I see families with three or four young children walking down my road every single day. Don’t have three preschoolers if you can’t deal with parenting and keeping them safe without leaving them at home alone. It isn’t acceptable.

And i can honestly say in all the parent of multiples groups I'm in I've never seen this discussed! All I see is twin and triplet mums posting about what buggies they've got, what reins they use to keep them safe, baby wearing, nobody has ever said "hey why don't you just leave one at home?" and I know ALOT of twin mums, you think this would come up if it was SO hard to take 3 kids out of the house. Personally, I have a double buggy and a buggy board, when they were smaller I had one in a back carrier and 2 in the buggy. It's really not hard, I also live 7 minutes walk away from the preschool, so i can totally relate to this situation.

@vdbfamily What does your profession have to do with it?
In any event there’s a cracking irony, or is it hypocrisy to your self justification

7 minutes is very very different to next door or opposite. School was a 5 minute walk and house was no longer in view so I took them with me. Preschool was less than a minute.

Well if you can see the house...

I mention my profession because earlier in the thread there were comments about how ' healthcare professionals' would find this unacceptable . For what it's worth, in most situations I would agree but if it is a thought through decision and not just reckless I would not judge. At the end of the day we have to take responsibility for our own decisions and I would have happily justified mine to anyone who asked.

hysterics alert

Yup. Both my babies went in their own rooms before 6 months too. Both slept through from 7pm to 7am by 9 weeks (DS) and 10 weeks (DD). Both started weaning by 3-4 months.

Now 16 and 18 and both have managed to survive my terrible parenting and are perfectly healthy, well adjusted, clever adults😂. No guilt here whatsoever despite what you may think and wouldn’t change a thing.

Each to their own and all that...hence why I’d rather not judge another mum at the school gate and offer my support if I could or at least make sure I had the full information first before dashing off to SS rather than rely on hearsay, eavesdropped conversations and playground gossip.

At the end of the day we have to take responsibility for our own decisions and I would have happily justified mine to anyone who asked.

Sort of. You don’t get the deciding vote about whether this is acceptable, though. That’s a matter for SS and police, isn’t it?

Baby might of been left at home with partner/grandma/friend etc. Make sure you have all the info first.

I’m not especially taking about this woman as we don’t know the facts
I have an objection in principle should this factually have been been shown to have occurred with any parent regardless of where the house is in relation to it and what they do for a living or if their children survived.
None of that matters to me.

There seems to be an awful lot of mumsnetters who live practically within a hairs breadth of their love shop or educational / childcare establishment

Katiem1234

That’s not how it works. You report a concern, not “all the info”, to SS. As far as the listener could tell from that conversation, right at that moment, a 4 month old baby was at home on their own. There is no circumstance in which I would not report it.

You don’t get the deciding vote about whether this is acceptable, though. That’s a matter for SS and police, isn’t it?

It's really a decision for a judge.

Well, yes. But not just the parent. Some people here are trying to fall back on “We all do things differently”, completely ignoring the fact that there is an established norm and it would be up to a judge - ultimately - to decide, not them.

The last documented conviction was overturned by a sensible judge who thought nipping into a shop and leaving a child in the car should not be considered a crime

Were the McCanns prosecuted?

I am also saying that I would have happily justified to a judge why I felt I had chosen the safest option for my children

vdbfamily

And the judge would have made the decision about whether you were right. Not you.

True...but that decision would be based on whether my babies had been at greater risk asleep in their cots or crossing a dangerous road and it would be hard to argue the former. The only legal grounds to prosecute me was if I had put my children at risk.

@vdbfamily I don't believe a judge would've found you guilty if anything at all, in the case be in 10000000000000 chance something had gone horribly wrong.

vdbfamily

Bollocks. You weren’t there, so your children were at risk by dint of being unsupervised. Argue all you want.

Bollocks. You weren’t there, so your children were at risk by dint of being unsupervised. Argue all you want.*

The chances of anything happening are 100000 to 1, the McCanns weren't prosecuted as sense prevailed.

And far more damage is caused by over zealous helicopter parents making the children into anxious adults.

2 statements there based on pure bollocks, green.
If you're going to claim statistics, try and make them a bit more believable.

Is what are the statistics then @MrMakersFartyParty and what were the McCanns charged with?

Also who am I sock puppeting with today?

As I have previously stated the risks of taking them were documentably greater as was evidenced a few years later.