Baby left alone in car

[ChickenGator]

I was on my way to pick up my son from school when I walked passed a car with a baby inside.

I did a double take and noticed he was on his own and felt uneasy walking off and leaving him there.

So I waited there for a couple of minutes to see if anyone came, maybe they'd rushed back in the house to get something.
The car was parked on the street and I knew in front of a house with a driveway with another car in the driveway.

After another minute or so I knew I was going to be late to pick up my son, so I built up the courage to knock on the door.

She answered pretty quick and I asked is that your car on the street and she said yes to which I replied I was just checking because there's a child alone in there.

She then gets a bit annoyed and says I know I'm checking on him which seemed weird since I had been hanging around a while and the windows at the front on the house were covered by blinds

So I said ok and starting walking back down the drive to which she then calls me rude.
I turned back and said I was genuinely concerned for the child and by the way he's awake and walked off.

When I walked back home after collecting my son the child was no longer in the car.

Am I mad for thinking this is crazy. I remember when mine were that age? Transferring them out of the seat would always wake them but I'd never considered leaving them on their own in the car. Many times I sat in the car whilst they slept.
The car wasn't even in the drive it was on the street! I've been thinking about it all evening.
It's a quiet residential street but still...

But did you really get it, can't you see how annoying...joke, all these people wasting time telling you the same thing, madness 😄

How do you have your eyes on the baby when you’re driving?

I don’t think the cold is an issue but surely you wouldn’t put your child in a car on a street? I’d get a blanket and my phone and sit in the car myself if I wanted them to sleep in there. I think it’s okay if it’s on a driveway and someone is literally watching from a window and checking every 10 mins or so. But it’s a bad habit - reminds me of that awful man in America who kept leaving his kid in the car to sleep in baking hot sun until one day she died. Disgusting.

Mirrors? I meant she was supervised. I'm saying the opposite of the woman in the OP who obviously hadn't checked on her baby once in all the time OP was there.

I do think people’s risk assessment is a bit off here. I wouldn’t leave a baby in a parked car on a road but likely driving around with baby is far more dangerous and a lot of the risks identified would be the same if the baby was sleeping alone in another room.

I agree, the baby is more at risk of harm when the car is being driven.

People naturally minimise all the sizeable risks they take all the time and inflate the very rare risks.

Oh right! I thought you were talking about a PP who checks regularly. That’s what I do in fairness , park on our drive outside our living room and then just go and check on her regularly (don’t use mirrors as someone I know burnt their child when the sun reflected off it 🤦🏼‍♀️) so she’s probably more supervised than when I’m driving 😂 I absolutely wouldn’t just leave her asleep on a road out of eyeline without going to check on her!

Well she obviously didn't check on him or else she'd have come out to speak to you hanging around the car with her baby in, or at least made it clear that she knew you were there by moving the curtains/blinds/making herself visible in the windows.

You could have been the child snatcher deciding whether to smash a window and grab the baby.

I did this with mine when the car was parked on my private gravel drive, outside my front window. Nobody could get to the car without crunching over the gravel and waking the dogs.

You could have been the child snatcher deciding whether to smash a window and grab the baby

Bummer, I left that one off my list.

Given that our carport is shaded, I figure checking on her every 5 minutes (and I do set a timer and come out every 5 minutes) mitigates the risk of heat/cold injuries because it would take about that long that long after the climate accidentally shutting off for the internal temperature of the car to start changing, at which point I would get her from the car. I don't think anyone is getting all the way down the crunchy gravel driveway without both mine and the neighbor's dogs (total of 6) going berserk about it, either.

So whatever risk is left, I feel comfortable with.

There's too much hyperbolic fear mongering. No wonder we have major issues with maternal mental health. Ditching your kid at the back of a carpark for an hour, no way. Safely outside your own home, in a locked car, within eye and earshot, with regular checks? Absolutely fine. They're at far more risk while the car is moving.

What a stupid woman. If it happens again, just call the police.

YES BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE HERE IS THAT THE FIRST RESPONDER QUOTED THE OP UNNECESSARILY

Exactly! If they were in the car a passerby would see the child however if the child was in a cot with a dead or injured Mum downstairs then baby could be left for days if Mum lived alone.

Yeah, I mean if mum was sat in the car reading a book, the parked car is somehow immune to being crashed into 🙄

Yes she should have been keeping a closer eye, but people's paranoid perceptions of risk here are both disturbing and hilarious.

Baby wakes and finds something to put in mouth and chokes, has a seizure, nose bleed and chokes on blood. There are plenty things that could go wrong that a carport won’t have any effect on. It’s just not worth the risk

Statistically, when the woman was driving the car she was putting her child at more risk, the child was now safer than before.

I would take my kid into the house or park somewhere else if there was significant risk of the car being hit, personally

Not unique to being in a car though...

Those things can happen any time you put your child down for a nap

But that could happen whilst the mother is driving, and she'd be none the wiser.

You absolutely did the right thing

That baby was clearly being left unattended, the fact nobody came to check on them during the time you were there

It totally was 'your business' to check/knock on the door...safeguarding children is most definitely everyone's business!

Quite.
But the OP both states that she's worried about a car crashing into them AND that the mum could stay in the car 😂

I would have called 999. She needs to understand how serious this is.