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

Not perfect by any means . I’m sure the mother shares your sentiments that poor woman

No, today in Italy I believe. Parents have been arrested. Bloody right. Child was 2

Must have been 50 in the car.

The one that sticks with me is the Dad who was supposed to do a nursery drop on his way to work, his wife normally did it, kid fell asleep in his seat behind the Dads seat & the Dsd totally forgot about the nursery drop. Went to work as usual, forgot the toddler was in the car, on a very hot day...

I just cannot imagine his you'd live with yourself.

well I walked home from work as normal last week, forgetting that I had driven to work that morning (only happens once in a blue moon). Only realised I’d left my car in town when I went to get something out of the boot next morning so I absolutely hear you.

There will be no more to it than he was distracted, possibly doesn’t usually do drop offs, child was quiet in the car.

This has happened so many times, especially in hot US states which are always very car centric. It is always the same reason. It’s very sad, it is parental negligence but without any intent.

Heat builds in cars so quickly. I remember an incident when mine were young. Just leaving a friends house with DS 1 (3) and DS2 months old (in a Scottish summer) I had managed to get out of the house and got the baby in the car seat when DS2 announced he needed a wee. He headed back inside with another friend while I stood on the pavement next to the car chatting. I could see my baby - but had closed the door. When DS1 returned 5 mins later - I opened the car and was hit by the heat. Baby was okay - but sweaty, and I was shaken.

You started the thread, why bother if you weren't going to read the replies? Just fancy a bit of attention?

I’ve read that article before and it is harrowing and was really eye opening about how something like this happens. I was guilty of thinking how but I can understand.

I’ve wondered as well as we only read about the children who die how many families this actually happens to but in cooler temperatures/climates and other seasons where the child thankfully has survived. They wouldn’t make the headlines and chances are if the child was ok albeit upset when they come back to the car I bet most wouldn’t say a word. Maybe not even to their partner if their child is young enough not to say what happened.

i normally do the school run on the days I go to work - it’s literally on the route anyway.

There have been occasions I haven’t needed to but when it’s not school holidays (when DH has taken them for some reason). Every single time I’ve found myself turning into the school road on autopilot. So, although I’ve never done it, I can completely understand how these tragedies can happen if the child has fallen asleep on the journey.

i wish car manufacturers put something in to help reduce the risk.

It happens. People make mistakes all the time, especially when their routine is changed, and sometimes they have tragic consequences.

My husband came to collect my older child and I from a school event once. He had parked 5-10 minutes away because it was a big event and the roads were jammed. I remember seeing him sauntering towards us, no pushchair, and saying to him "Where's DC2?" I have never seen anyone sprint so fast in my life. He'd left our younger one, then 18 months, asleep in her car seat as he'd completely forgotten she was with him. It wasn't usual for him to be coming to an event like that with the younger child - normally, we'd be coming together as a family or I'd have both kids and he'd be meeting us there after work or the younger one would stay at home. He was busy at work at the time, his mind was on that and he was definitely on autopilot in the sense that he was following his usual routine in those circumstances.

In cars, we do seem to go on autopilot. We live next to a roundabout: sons school one way, daughters childcare another. I drop dd off first and then take ds the country way round to school..about every 6 weeks I'd drive straight to school with both children. I've recently started a new job, and my sons school is a turn from the main road i commute on: he's nearly 6 and I still almost took him to work the other day!

Theres lots of research done around this in the States and this situation generally happen in the same set of circumstances, there's been some change to the routine or someone not used to the routine and there's a 'glitch' (and I know thats a glib word, I'm not trying to make light of this awful situation) in the brain and it goes on auto pilot, most commonly happens when combined with an extra added stressor like work deadlines or a v illl grandparent etc. It's the same way we find ourselves at home without any memory of the drive or find ourselves parked up outside the house we moved from a year ago or driving to the workplace we finished up at months ago. Often it's the other parent doing the drop-off, or they have to make an extra stop enroute to childminders, the brain ticks 'stop made' in the to-do list of the morning and we continue on to work without having gone to the childminders. Literally the difference between tragedy and not is the child being asleep or awake

It makes me wonder how often babies and toddlers are forgotten about and left in vehicles when there isn’t a heatwave that kills them. There must be quite a number

It's terrifying, I know people say 'how do you forget your child', but obviously people do for whatever reason. I think it's crazy myself but I can't believe people leave their babies on purpose. I've recently gone back to work and find myself double checking I've definitely dropped my son off at nursery because these stories seem to be everywhere at the moment

Well I pulled up next to a car in the car park the other day that had the engine running, key in ignition (obviously) and a child in the back seat on their own with all the windows up! Father had "popped" into the supermarket and left the child on his own like that 😡

When my 2nd child was born we all got ready to go out. We hadn't taken him out much so got my older child and the baby dressed and ready. Put baby in the carseat and put him on the couch.

Then got older child (3) ready, wellies on, coat, juice cup etc...

The routine we had done with one child for almost 3 years.

Went outside, locked the front door, got half way down the street when we remembered the baby.

It's not that people 'forget'or are careless, they are just on autopilot.

Have you ever driven somewhere so oftwn that you realise youre half way there without even really thinking about directions?

Theres a part of your brain that just takes over.

In alot of these cases something out of the ordinary has occoured and routine has been disrupted.

It's really sad.

Yeah that one was really sad, change in routine I think and was at work all day. Another one was a dad that left his toddler in the car in the driveway, the mum had told him repeatedly to stop leaving the kids in the car!

The car manufacturers put in internal motion sensors - they’ve been mentioned. In newer cars with an app I think you’d get a phone alert rather than having to have it go off while you’re still in earshot of the car. And now there’s the thing I mentioned upthread where if you’ve had a back door open for any reason earlier it reminds you to check the back seat when you leave the car.

It's so sad and it could easily happen to anyone. One of the issues is that in the US they have a very short maternity leave so new parents are still in work mode and haven't had a proper break to get into new routines with baby.

How the feck can you forget you have a child in the car. You know you have a child and at some point they were put in the car. No excuses, at all.

As for Spain having a heat wave, get real. It's nearly always hot, unlike the UK where the weather can change from hour to hour. Not that UK would be excused but well, Spain is hot.

Any parents on here that have ever forgotten they have a child with them? Apart from humorous anecdotes, I bet no one has failed at the very basic level.

That poor poor child, bless him and hope he rests in peace.

That’s possibly the saddest but best written article I’ve read. My heart breaks for these parents and their children.

I think you're kidding yourself if you really can't imagine how this could have possibly happened. I suspect most of the parents it has happened to would have felt similarly, right up until the day it did.

I had some fairly intense PPA about this exact thing as I was just so distractible and overwhelmed after I had DS3 that I was always worrying I'd leave him in the car. Whenever he wasn't physically with me I'd fleetingly panic I'd left him without thinking.

I can 100% see how it's so easily, devastatingly done.

People don't forget their babies or children. They think they're exactly where they should be in a safe place - nursery, preschool, with another parent. In their minds, they've dropped them off there, so that's where the kids are. If you think about leaving the house in the morning, there are lots of things we do on autopilot that we don't have an actual memory of doing but they're part of the routine so we're pretty sure they've been done. I imagine this is similar.

I hope this wouldn't happen to us as our children's school/nursery have a policy of phoning home at the start of the day in the case of an unexplained absence, but I can see why it does happen to people.

Read the thread.

You don't forget your child. You think they're somewhere else and safe.