Feeling shaken and stressed and a bit angry. I think I probably am BU, but need some MN soothing and slapping.

[MadamAnt]

Just been round to a (new) friend's house with DD and DS. When it was time to leave I went upstairs to retrieve DD, leaving DS (2) playing downstairs. The friend came upstairs to show me the view from her bedroom window (tis v beautiful). As I came downstairs I saw that she had opened the front door . I immediately panicked re: DS and rushed down just in time to see DS toddling across the frigging street (a city street, not much traffic, but the cars whizz along).

I nearly died of fear. DS was luckily rescued in one piece. She did apologise, but she seems kind of scatty and airy fairy and I don't think she appreciates how shocked and upset I was/am. Although that's partly my fault as I have a ludicrously stiff upper lip.

But seriously WTF was she thinking???!! Would you leave the front door wide open onto a city street and eave a 2 yo unattended?

I came home and have been cuddling a napping DS non-stop, but I keep imagining what might have happened if we'd spent a minute or two longer upstairs.

Oh and just to top it all off dd (3.9) thought it would be a lark to re-enact the drama and shot off across the street as I was strapping DS into his buggy. Great. My nerves are in tatters.

Yes I do only have the one.

I'm really not trying to give you a hard time about this, obviously your friend is a complete ditz. Perhaps her children are just not like ours, and stay where they are put.

Yes I do only have the one.

I'm really not trying to give you a hard time about this, obviously your friend is a complete ditz. Perhaps her children are just not like ours, and stay where they are put.

My dd1 wasn't/isn't a very adventurous child.

We only had stair gates for a few weeks tbh. I never left a door deliberately open, but friends would come into my house (with their dcs) and take the keys from the front door and put them up high (knowing that I didn't mind, but knowing their own dcs would unlock door and be out like a shot)

To echo what others have said perhaps your friend's children were of a similar temperament to mine? I do still think that she should not have left the door open though. From her point of view if her dcs weren't about to leg it, it may not have crossed her mind.

I was always very vigilant if I looked after children and their parents weren't with them, but I'm afraid if they were with their mother/parent then I assume they are keeping an eye out. (that's how my friend's 18 month old came to wander up to our loft bedroom which is completely un child-proof)

These problems often happen because one parent has mentally handed over responsibility to someone else - often the other parent - without being clear about the fact that responsibility has been handed over IYSWIM.

Yes I do have more than one child and there were times when it was awkward. In your situation I might have made it clear to your friend that she was looking after your DS while you went to fetch your DD.

Honestly I have been there so many times - I still have a nightmare vision of the time (before he could swim) where DS pulled off his floaty jacket and his armbands and jumped into the deep end of a pool. He samk like a stone DH was allegedly taking a turn at looking after them while I went to get icecreams but was preoccupied by DD at the other end of the pool. I happened to see what had happened and SPRINTED back.

I'm sorry but I don't understand how you can be an adult, downstairs with your friend's toddler, and think it's a reasonable thing to open the front door and then go upstairs leaving the toddler there with the open street door. It's irrelevant who is legally liable, what a strange approach to the situation. It's just a really bizarre thing to do. I wouldn't care if I was responsible for a child or not, I wouldn't deliberately leave a child in danger on the basis that it's not my problem guv.

Yikes!!! YANBU!! I have a friend that left her son in a highchair in the restaurant (she completely walked out and so did her husband) and pretty much expected us to retrieve him. He has also run out into the parking lot and I was the one shrieking for someone to grab him. My hands were full with my own.
I have another friend that put her baby (in a chair on top of the car to pack gear) and got in and started to drive away but realized what she had done and when she braked the baby tumbled onto the front of the car.
Still another left her grandchild with a sitter (second floor apartment) and the sitter fell asleep and the baby fell out of the window. They only realized the baby was gone when someone found him outside in his nappy (snow on the ground and him scratched from landing in bushes) wandering about and started knocking on doors.
YANBU!!! Your friend isn't losing anything...and I asked the same thing of all these people...What were they thinking???
Now you've given me willies up my spine and I'm thanking your LO's guardian angels.

She left your toddler alone downstairs, she opens up her frontdoor which leads out to a city street, she comes upstairs and keeps you up there, asking you to admire the view from her bedroom window?

How do you know this was not malicious?

I would not see her again. I would be extremely careful in her presence.

wehaveallbeenthere - holy shit!

quattro - I did say, I'm just going to get DD, but admittedly I didn't spell out "and please can you not open the front door / hand DS a box of matches / practise your knife throwing skills while I'm up there". I had no idea that level of communication was necessary! But you live and learn. I suppose it gives me an opportunity to be smug about the fact that I would never be so careless with someone else's child.

I totally disagree. I don't know what the law reads in the country you are in but here in the states you are under obligation if someone have ask into your house is met with injury or death. Sometimes even if they are an intruder (I don't agree with that but that is how it is here).
The friend opened the door and the child wandered out. That is totally different than say the child being inside and falling off a chair or opening the door and leaving of their own accord.
I'm glad it worked out okay though, but I would be very careful around this new friend as this behavior may occur again.

Yes, the mother with the baby was very tired. The friend that left her child in the restaurant and let him wander into the parking lot has done strange things (don't know if it was her state of mind or just exhausted or what) like leaving the water run after washing her hands...but she insists on letting her children play on the stairway after I've asked them not to, warned them about the carpet tacks coming up and the possiblility of the children falling down the stairs.
The sitter incident was incompetence and an unsafe window but that is how Eric Clapton lost his little boy...an unsafe window. It was luck and resilence of the children that saved them.

YANBU, but how do you know it wasn't one of her children that opened the door? Or maybe she opened it for one of the kids and expected them to shut it but didn't?

She definitely said she'd opened it.

wehaveallbeenthere - soooo lucky they are all OK!