To leave toddler in the car while I collect sibling from school?

[peekabooiseeyouhere]

For context, small rural school, not a dangerous area in the slightest.

Caveat, haven’t done this yet. But it would make life a lot easier …

But that suggests you think all of those who are saying we wouldn’t do it live in unsafe areas. I live in a small village, everyone knows everyone, very low crime rates, and I wouldn’t leave my baby or toddler in a car unattended.

Your biggest risk is the car catching fire or them strangling themselves or choking on something. Don’t do it.

Well, of course every area is different, I'm just not convinced it's the big "NO!" that people are making it out to be. It's not like our town (or other towns where this happens) have seen a massive increase in children dying in parked cars.

I would feel much more at risk walking a toddler across a busy road than I would leaving in a parked, locked car while I walked over alone.

It's a total pain dragging them in, (it's always that grizzly bit of the day where they walk like a slug), but no, you can't leave them in the car.

The other thing is, toddlers often don’t actually like being left alone, even if they say they’re happy with it before it happens. And an unhappy toddler in a car is likely to get free from their seatbelt etc.

The is about toddlers though.

An 8th can sit in a car alone and walk to school (with road safety prep).

A toddler shouldn’t be in a car alone or walking to school.

Babies asleep in the car seat might be fine but not a toddler who’s putting things in their mouth and touching controls.

No way. You'd never forgive yourself if something DID happen.

Nope! Toddlers can get themselves in all sort of troube in a flash. Plus a car can hit your car and scare them beyond measure and you are not there to calm them. You may fall, become ill, get ran over....
At least you are literally 2-4 m from car, with full view. And others can see you. Which is not something I forsee on a school pick up.

You can put toddlers in seats that they can't escape from, and you can easily make sure there's nothing within grabbing distance (which there shouldn't be anyway if the toddler is alone in the back seat).

At the end of the day you don't have to do it if you're not comfortable with it, but realistically, a child is at much more risk on a road with moving cars than they are locked in a car, secured in a car seat, surrounded by lots of parents and children on the school run.

No not at all. It probably did come across that way, sorry. I was more thinking about where the school might be; I wouldn’t leave my phone out in my car anywhere with lots of people walking past for instance, so would never do it where PIL live even though that’s a very affluent city, it is still a city if you see what I mean.

At my children’s primary school yes as I can park the car in the school car park and literally walk 20 meters and I’m at the classroom door. Otherwise no

I hope if you do it someone breaks your car window in or reports you to social services.
It's so irresponsible.. Anything could happen, a paedophile could come along and snatch your child, a car could crash into the back of it, you could leave the handbreak off like that lady who's car went in the river with their little one in and died while she popped into the office.
It's neglect plain and simple.

Massive eye roll 🙄!!
I wouldn’t personally do leave the toddler because I’d worry about something happening like wriggling free and letting the handbrake off, or getting delayed collecting the older child and the toddler gets scared and upset…but no, op won’t get all of her children taken into care because of it.

I think it’s said like that to highlight it is a silly idea to leave an unsupervised toddler in the car.

Never.

God no. Someone hit my parked car not too long ago and then drove off. Imagine how scared a toddler would be if they woke up in a crash and were alone.

I hope if you do it someone breaks your car window in or reports you to social services.
It's so irresponsible

So you’d actually hope my toddler got covered in broken glass, potentially badly hurt and terrified? Hopefully you don’t mean that as I’d say that’s worse than leaving a toddler in a car for a couple of minutes.

It is interesting though. For instance this morning we were going for a walk after the school run and I realised I’d forgotten her wellies. I nipped home to get them and left her on the drive while I went in and went to the loo so probably a fairly similar amount of time that I would have taken collecting ds to be honest.

I used to work in a petrol station, a parent left their child in the car while they went into the shop, another car crashed into the car and sent it flying into a concrete wall. The car was a write off luckily the child was alright.
Another child left alone in the car, managed to get out of the car seat and Release the hand break, the car crashed into an electricity box. So it’s a no from me.

If something bad happened while you were away, would you feel you had been negligent in leaving her there? If so, you need to take her with you.

No. They could be scared and upset, they may be sick, a car may crash in to yours. There are the rare events that could occur too such a abduction or someone trying to steal the car. Child abduction isn't limited to areas that aren't nice and rural. Although very rare it could happen anywhere.

My toddler manage to unbuckle his car seat BTW. And is now doing it relentlessly, it was not an accident.

He's only 16 months.

Even I struggle to press that damn button, it takes some strength and coordination.

Besides the whole someone can steal car, steal baby, hit the car, etc, toddlers just cannot be trusted by themselves.

I wouldn’t I would carry them

because
a) they are my world and the teeny tiny just in case is just in case enough
b) we live in the UK, it’s wet and cold a lot - they need to just get used to it

I would, its a bit like paying for petrol

I do it almost daily. I park around 10- 15 metres from the gate and can always see my toddler as I'm waiting to pick up my other son. People are mad to think that's problematic!

I can’t believe how close some people can park to the school gate! To park 10m from ours you’d have to be there about half an hour early 😬