Child left in car in 35 degree heat

[Empress13]

Please tell me as I’m struggling to understand How the hell you could forget you have left a child in a car in such extreme heat. Unbelievable ! that poor child

Oh well done you for your superior parenting.

Despite having the set up you described, often singing to the baby in the car, not infrequently actually stopping the car so I can lean over and verify the baby is still breathing if they fell asleep unexpectedly….i can still absolute imagine circumstances in which this could happen, or that I could do it myself. It only takes one lapse.

according to some posters here, this is not possible and you simply wanted to get rid of your baby. I mean really. At least should have left them at Waitrose..

It’s mostly dumb ass dads. Sorry to say but they are less vigilant

I lived in Australia for a few years .
I had dropped all my 3 children off at their schools and kindy and was having an early morning coffee at a cafe sat outdoors ( mid winter is fairly mild weather there but often sunny ) I noticed that there was a car parked right outside on the street and I looked again and saw a small toddler in there asleep and the windows were closed .
i thought that perhaps the mum / dad / carer / relative had dashed in for a take out coffee so i went inside the cafe and asked whose car it was and that there was a small child inside .
No one knew so one of the staff members and I went into each shop in the very small mall ( had a few stores ) and loudly asked whose car and child this was and that we would need to take action.
The child’s mother was shopping for clothes claimed she had only been 10 minutes ( not true ) and hadn’t wanted to wake him as he’d fallen asleep in the car !!!!!! the cafe staff were absolutely furious 😡 as was I .
She started off on a “ well what would you all know you don’t have children , you can’t go shopping with them “

I have a Hyundai Kona. It doesn't matter whether you have a grandchild in the back, or just a carrier bag on the seat, when you switch off the engine it flashes up a warning triangle ,'bings' and the screen says " check the back seats". Very useful.

Even if you don't think it could happen to you, if you get into the habit of always checking, you won't make the mistake.

It's like when I get off a train I always check the seat I was occupying to make sure I've not left anything there, even though I "know" I haven't. A quick check might mean avoiding a load of hassle - or a tragedy. When my son first got old enough to go into changing rooms on his own I told him to always check the area around where he was changing before he left so he wouldn't leave a shoe behind or similar.

I always check my car to make sure nothing valuable is on show even though I know it isn't too. And I double check it's locked.

Get into the habit. It take seconds.

Hard to imagine.

I wish nurseries would text/call a parent to confirm why their DC hasn't arrived in nursery today, on hot days. Maybe some do but it's not standard practise.

It's hardly superior parenting to remember you have a child in your care that you're responsible for? It's the absolute baseline minimum of what is expected.

It’s superior to truly believe that you couldn’t possibly (and have never) had your brain go into autopilot.

Perhaps you’d like to offer yourself up to the neuroscience community so they can study your superior brain that has evolved past the normal human brain? You could save lives!

Sorry most of these cases the parent has forgotten to drop the child off, the nursery place needs to be paid regardless if the child is there or not. Change of routine and autopilot.

Nobody would deliberately leave a young child in a car all day, no food, no water, no nappy changing and thats before you consider the heat to try and save money.

i do a quick train seat check too. Didnt help me this very morning when I was unusually carrying a large item which I placed on the overhead shelves. Which I repeatedly thought “must remember” during the journey. And I still managed to go onto auto-pilot and forget the damn thing when I left the train didnt I? My automatic check the seat reflex didnt extend to the shelves because I almost never put anything on the shelf.

(fortunately I was at the terminus so managed to run back and retrieve it)

My brain has gone into autopilot thousands of times. Never once has it gone into autopilot to the extent I forgot my basic parenting responsibilities.

No parents aren't infallible. We've all seen our DC take the odd tumble etc and chastised ourselves for not anticipating it. Doesn't make us bad parents.

However, that's worlds apart from forgetting you have a DC with you and leaving them unattended in a car for a prolonged period. That is bad parenting and shouldn't be excused or brushed off as 'it happens, she/he was on autpilot'. Stop making excuses for shit parenting.

It was an accident, the parent will be forever tormented, but nonetheless careless and shit parenting.

I guess I was wrong all these years in thinking Home Alone was far fetched. How could Kevin's parents not, at the very least, check their own kids were present and accounted for in the taxis/airport? It's ok though they were tired from the early start, in a rush and on autopilot!

Explaining how this happens isn’t excusing anything. Accidents happen - humans are not God (though you seem to think that you are).

People who have had this happen are in enough of a world of unimaginable hell and torment without vile God-like creatures pointing their fingers and claiming to be superior.

Where are you?
I'm Scotland and it's standard practice for nurseries to call and ask about a child if they don't turn up or you don't phone them.

Someone got uppity on MN the other when their nursery called they questioned was nursery checking up on them, was it normal.

Totally different scenario.
Kevin should have been with the parents.

Children who are forgotten about should normally be at daycare, not with the parents, the parents think they are safely being looked after by other people.

I really want to know how many near misses are there every year when parents remember at the last minute or in colder climates finish work and get back to the car to find a cold, hungry child.
But reality is nobody is recording the near misses we only hear of the tragic cases that make the international news.

@Needspaceforlego that's really good that they do that. Northern England. Mine are at school now so maybe the practise has changed. But I recall on a couple of days when DC was off sick and DH forgot/didn't get around telling nursery for a few hours, no one checked up. In that space of time, in different circumstances it could have been too late!

Ah ok, so we should all adopt the opinion of shrugging our shoulders and saying 'accidents happen'? Got it. And it's vile to hold the opinion that accidentally being neglectful to the point a child dies is inexcusable? Ah, ok.

You’re doing a whole lot of imagining and assuming there.

It’s fairly obvious to rational and reasonable posters that terrible accidents happen and that piling on the judgment and superiority is abhorrent.

The Mighty frequently end up finding out just how much of a drop it is from their self-made pedestals.

Him slamming the car door would have woken the child if he’d been asleep surely ?

Not at all, when my first baby was about a month old she didn't stir when a VC10 aircraft landed within 75 yards of us, turned and taxied to the terminal but when the little bell by the barrier rang to warn of the barrier lifting she woke up and howled!

@Kubricklayer do you not think the parents of these poor children have enough to deal with, without other people putting the boot in? Most of us feel for the parents to.

God only knows how anyone gets on with their life after such an accident. How do you face family and friends?
A high percentage of parents end up divorcing after a child death in normal circumstances never mind in circumstances where a parent has forgotten about the child.

What would you like to see happen?

Stupidity. I have 2 young children and never done, never even come close. Serves them right they need to live with on their conscience.

Can you not even see that this is a ‘there but for the grace of god…’ situation.
Your kids are young-you still have plenty of time to make mistakes. I doubt they will be tragic but they will happen.

Expressing an opinion on an anonymous forum is hardly putting the boot in. Reading a mixture of views and opinions on the topic is more likely to make someone in a similar situation think twice, check twice. Compared to reading a sea of unanimous opinions of 'accidents happen' that reassures and breeds complacency.

If anyone hasn’t read that WaPo article linked to at the start, here’s an archive link, no registration required. It’s very much not easy reading, but explains in great detail how something like this can happen.
Article “Fatal Distraction”