There might not be a specific legal age to leave children alone but it’s safe to say babies, toddlers and young children should never be left alone, even if it’s just while you pop down the road. Even if they’re sleeping peacefully when you leave they could well wake up and get very upset when you’re not there to look after them. They would not be able to protect themselves in an emergency and may even try to leave the property to find you.
Straight from the NSPCC
I personally love the use of the wording “safe to say”
If I was in the garden my children - even my 19 month old - could find me. If I had left my house and its plot then he would not have a clue.
The NSPCC has even done a toolkit ( don’t we live there!) and look at the top BIG SHOUTY LETTERS ABOUT BABIES AND TODDLERS
home-alone.nspcc.org.uk/?_ga=2.160665213.1503027431.1560244286-946228447.1560244286
My youngest child woke up from a nap on the sofa the other day. I was watching him through the doors into the playroom whilst I was ironing. He woke up and couldn’t see me. I watched for a few seconds while he called “mama” and his face crumpled. I sit here now feeding him and I imagine how he would have felt I’ve I’d not been in the kitchen, the bedroom, the back garden. That he was all alone. His little voice echoing round an empty house nobody coming after one, three, five, ten minutes.
I actually feel ill.
If you as a parent can live with the thought doing that to your child: park the thought of their distress and fear, while turning off plug sockets, calculating risk blah blah blah, then I suppose the actual process of leaving them , locking the door and walking away is easy. If some fires back at me it isn’t something they found easy to do, well then have the strength to say it’s because you knew in your heart of hearts it wasn’t something you should be doing!
I come to motherhood later in life then most. There isn’t much that shock me these days. I truly don’t judge other parents for how they feed their babies, if they co sleep, how they bring them up because I know how bloody hard it is. At one point we had three under 3 and a half. I’m on my own with them a lot due to their father’s job. I’ve been there in the shit weather, the endless lugging , the busy roads, waking one sometimes two sleeping children sometimes poorly ones to collect the other. The lifting, carrying, stairs, bags, tantrums several times a day. I know the drill. I do five school runs and seven different nursery runs every five days. On my own. So I get it, the temptation. But I have never done it and I never will.
This isn’t really about being the better parent. I’m crap at a fair few bits of it I am sure. But, it is about that child, that baby. It isn’t about who loves them the most but I suppose living as a parent with decisions you make.
The thought that I would have ever done or would ever do to one of my tiny babies or toddlers that I saw on my little one’s face the other day is something I couldn’t live with. Perhaps the reason parents who do this and are found out are arrested but rarely charge isn’t always about the Law, the Judge. Perhaps it is because on a higher level, it is considered that should you do this and something tragic happen to your previous child you can’t be punished anymore than that.