Can't sleep - child let themself out yesterday evening

[Cheapcookies]

Can't sleep from the sheer stress of the what ifs.

Last night I took my dog for a walk. DH was with DD (nearly 4). He rang me at 8pm in bits saying she'd let herself out.

She had got out of bed, come downstairs, opened the front door and gone out in to the street and was stood on the corner. A neighbour was going to the shops and waited in his car before realising we weren't with her and her shoes weren't on, so brought her home. 2 houses distance away.

I can't stop thinking about the what ifs.
DH said he didn't hear the door going, he was on the phone. She said she wanted me and knew I was outside on a walk.

I went to speak to the neighbour and have thanked him profusely. He said his eldest did the same thing once.

For some reason I've convinced myself that ss will be called.

I've ordered a security chain that we can put high up on the door. I feel like the world's worst parent. She is safe, nothing happened other than mum and dad having the fright of their absolute lives. But I'm really struggling to process this.

Sorry I have RTFT but 2 things that might help in addition to the chain.

We have 4 children. The 3rd is an escape artist extradonaire. We have door connectors on our front and back doors that make a small beep noise when the door is opened.

We also have a ring doorbell at the front door and it alerts me if there is motion at the front door. I can then check on my phone.

It has been very useful!

We've all had at least one 'what if' occurance as parents. Scary at the time but you learn and move on. 99.9% of people will help if they see a child at risk.

Escapees happen all the time. I used to live in a block of flats and heard an odd noise in the surrounding hedge as I walked home in the dark. I thought it was an animal and continued, then something made me go back and look. A tiny toddler in nappy and t-shirt. I was holding his hand and wondering what I should do next, then his frantic mother came tearing round the corner of the building.

We experienced it as the third party, too. When my youngest DS was about 6 his friend and his little sister got out of bed and got dressed, took the dog and walked half a mile to our house to see my son. I was so shocked to open the door to see them at 6.00 in the morning! The police were already out looking for them.

There's nobody who hasn't temporarily lost sight of their child and their heart sank.

I once lost my 4yo son in a store (deliberately hiding), I lost my mind, all the what ifs while crying and desperately calling out his name. He could see and hear me and thought it was funny!

As my DH always says..... alls well that ends well.

I hope you feel a little calmer today and get some sleep tonight.

I once found 2 little girls about 4blocks from their house - 3 maybe 4 years old. I used to walk past regularly so knew where they lived. Their mother glared at me when I walked them back home, possibly thinking I was taking them instead of returning. I explained where I found them and she was very thankful.

Kids hiding in shops is why I don't like playing hide and seek with dd. DH plays it all the time but I just stress about the time it ISN'T a game and she thinks it is...I know that things still happen but it's so scary

As long as the child is safe, a few seconds taking the chain off isn't a problem, is it?

My nephew let himself out of the house at 3am in the morning whilst his parents were asleep in the room next door, he was 4 at the time.

He was at the bus stop when a passing police car saw him and brought him home, my sister was mortified and had no idea he could unlock the front door by himself. Apparantly he had woken up and decided he should go and visit his friend, climbed on a chair to open the door and gone to the bus stop.

He's almost 40 now and only vaguely remembers it.

I really don't mind taking a chain off a door.
I tend to always have the door locked anyway due to a random person walking in to my NDNs house about 5 years ago. Very rare that anything like that happens here, and this was pre-children, but I started locking the door at all times.

I think Ring cameras are a helpful addition but I would still go with door security, with Ring cameras sometimes there's a delay in letting you know there's movement at your front door, DH put the bins out the other day and it was a full 3 minutes before our phones alerted us about it! 3 minutes isn't long in the scheme of things but it's a long time when a child goes missing.

Wintersgirl I'll do both

There things happen but it’s natural to be unsettled following an incident like this. We have 5 children and a 3 storey town house where we can’t always hear what’s going on downstairs if we are on the top floor. We invested in ring doorbells and put alexa’s through the house/apps on our phones and it gives me a bit of peace of mind. Might be worth looking into? Means you can hear if door opens.

My dd did this once and ran across the road. Felt awful but no harm came to her and l learnt a lesson that day.

Most parents have lost their child at least once and had that heart thumping moment.

I lost ds aged 2 in a supermarket and turned around to see him through the store windows running about the carpark 😲🚗 looking for our car. I was at the very end checkout and sprinted the entire length of the store bumping into people, at the front door a woman shouted after me "it's ok my dh is following him". Don't think I actually thanked them after I scooped him up as I was so shocked 😳

A friend's ds was stripped down, and she was upstairs getting his bath ready, she went downstairs to get him and the front door was wide open. She found him quite happily playing in the play park around the corner starkers and two gentlemen, not quite sure what to do with him, were already on the phone to the police. A bit embarrassing for her as she was a police officer!

I am so sorry to hear your story and that you've been blaming yourself for 23 years. I just wanted to say that you can't possibly know that this was due to a sickness bug and so that it was your 'fault'. If you'd done your 'what if' moment differently everything might have still been the same.

When I was about 2 I went shopping with my parents and my cousin. My sister a few months old was at home being looked after by my aunt. My Dad thought I was with my Mum. My Mum thought I was with my Dad. Nope, I had left the shop and trying to board a bus outside because I wanted to see my baby sister. A couple realised I was on my own and kept me safe until my parents turned up in a right state. It was the wrong bus anyway 😀

However it probably made my Mum's anxiety really kick in because I was the child who was rarely left alone to do stuff, always an excuse why I couldn't to go to xyz and even if I went upstairs to the toilet when visiting my parents as an adult my Mum would be following me "to see what I was up to".

A security chain means you can't get in if it's on.

Can't you get a lock that can be accessed by adults but will stop her doing that again?

I was chatting to the other Mums in the school playground while DC1 (5) lined up to go into school. The lines went in and I realised DC2 (3) was nowhere to be seen. The school was on a busy road, and the other Mums dashed off in all directions, checking the playground, which had two exits onto different roads, checking the roads, no sign of DC2. The school were alerted a child had gone missing from the playground. We were just about to phone the police when DC2 was discovered, safe and well.

Turned out DC1 had told DC2 about the stories they got at carpet time at the start of the day, and DC2 had said she wanted to hear them. So DC2 had joined the line into school with DC1, DC1 had smuggled DC2 into the classroom, hanging her coat under his on his peg, and the teacher hadn't noticed there was an extra child sitting listening to the story.

This has happened to me. My toddler walked down the middle of the road holding a saucepan. You can't bat a hundred.

Just use the chain.

*A security chain means you can't get in if it's on.

Can't you get a lock that can be accessed by adults but will stop her doing that again?*

Do you know what type of lock this would be?

Me or DH don't mind waiting for the other one of us to unchained the lock if we are out but any suggestions are welcome and I can have a look at them.

We live in a tiny village. When youngest son was about 18 months, I was washing up in the kitchen while the children (four of them at that point, eldest about six) were playing in the garden. There was a tractor parked in the road outside (we only have about three cars an hour through) and he had his engine running. I assumed he was chatting to someone I couldn't see, but when I finished the washing up I went out of the front door to see youngest son sitting in the middle of the road in his nappy, playing with the dust. Tractor couldn't get past and was just waiting for him to move.

I was out there like lightning! That child never escaped again, but eldest daughter (ADHD) would let herself out at dawn if it was raining to play in puddles. High bolts and chains didn't stop her, she would just drag things to stand on, luckily she never went further than the garden and we locked the gate to stop her getting out (although she once climbed over the gate and was found wandering down the road).

last week, i woke up at 5am to pots and pans clanging and burning smell , i ran into the kitchen and my 6 yr old is trying to make friggen pancakes by herself😳, i almost died.. but i was also impressed that she chose the right pan , right ingredients and even the right number on the hob.. the burning smell was because some of the pancake mix spilled on the ceramic ..
definitely remembering to switch it off now..

so dont beat yourself up about the what ifs , sometimes these things happen, unfortunately xx

You are NOT a bad parent, neither is your dp

This is what you have decided to post on this thread???

Honestly, the lack of empathy and social skills some posters choose to demonstrate on here sometimes is shocking