To think hot drinks should be baned from toddler groups?

[cah1]

I am sick to death of parents just leaving them in toddlers reach! It really scares me!

smallholder that comment was not here not there tbh. personally I don't think you need to know french to be a good dr in england.

It also doesn't make any difference to your opinion-I am very slap dash when I write on here and don't proof read.

I know that children do get scalded by hot drinks but how many of us have first hand experience of this happening at a toddler group? Most accidents seem to happen in the home.

Yes, thereis a danger but the ridiculous notion of banning hot drinks at toddler groups is the exact mentality that means we can no longer buy Medised etc for under 2s - the stupidity of some parents "ruining" it for all.

Just have a notice with clear rules by the drinks counter reminding parents that drinks scald and are hot enough to scald for a good time after they are poured.

"I usually find it's a pretty useful idiot-detector: someone who responds to having had something bad happen to him/her by wanting to ban everything in sight. Grow up and develop a sense of proportion."

SolidGold, I would like to nominate your post for the most least sensitive and compassionate of the week, if not the year.

May I point out that when something bad happens to YOUR CHILD (not yourself) and you realise that it happened despite you taking what you thought were good precautions, you live in horror of anyone else's child having to go through the pain, fear and agony that yours has gone through. Plus you are in a very heightened state of nervous tension, obviously.

And when you see, as the OP clearly states in the first post, other people NOT even taking the care that you did (which turned out not to be enough) then yes you do try to do something. Because you think if you saw the risks, knew the risks, and just shrugged your shoulders and looked after your own child, and someone else's child was injured, you just don't think you could live with yourself.

It has nothing to do with being an "idiot" or needing to "grow up."

I agree that a sense of proportion is needed. Seven years down the line I feel I have regained my sense of proportion. But it takes a long time and is part of a perfectly normal process of recovering from a traumatic event. The OP is clearly still suffering from the injuries she has seen inflicted on a child.

You should be very ashamed of such a heartless and thoughtless post.

It is up to the adults to take care with the hot drinks!
There are terrible drivers on the road-driving isn't banned; people drink to excess-alcohol isn't banned; people fall off horses and break bones-horse riding isn't banned etc etc. Adults have to take responsibility-the answer is not to take it out of their hands and ban it!

When I was a young child I pulled over a very hot, just made cup of tea all over me, resulting in being whisked off to hospital and spending a night there. Should hot drinks be banned from the home?

My friend's DD has just burnt her hand quite nasti;ly on an iron. She knocked the ironing board, hot iron fell and without thinking the 7y went to catch it to stop it falling. Hospital trip and banaged up for a week or so, very painful. But shuld that mean irons should be banned too?

Accidents do happen. We just have to remain vigilent and think a bit more.

I would really think twice about going to a social group such as a toddler group if I knew I wouldn't even be able to enjoy a hot drink whilst I was there. Am off to soft pplay witha friend today. If I couldn't enjoya cup of tea whilst thre I simply would not go.

Yes of course it is the parents' responsibility to keep their children safe. As it is in the home. But to be blunt, if you don't take care in the home, it's only your child who will cop it.

The point about the toddler groups specifically, is that there are other adults wandering about who are not taking care.

The only poster on here who says that her child was scalded at a Mum and Toddler group clearly stated that it was someone else's mother who was careless. That woman was probably careful enough with her own children though.

What would the response have been to an AIBU along the lines of "A woman spilt hot coffee all over my DD at a toddler group and then said it was my fault for not watching her properly." ?

I personally agree that Mum and Toddler groups need to serve hot drinks. It's part of what they do and what they are.

But they need to take certain precautions, and a lot of them do not. I listed some of the things they can do to make things safer in an earlier post.

My main issue is the lack of compassion to the OP, who is clearly still terrified over the experience she relates.

When I approached the leaders of a Mum and Toddler group about my fears years ago they were so nice to me. Not much changed but they did at least try to accommodate my suggestions. Most of all, no one called me an idiot, or suggested I need to grow up. (They didn't even look at me as if I was mad, as did the Mum who's hot coffee was about to spill all over her child's head before I alerted her.)

A little kindness goes a long way, especially to someone who is already suffering.

Some of the response on here have been pretty unkind.

I think the idea of having the coffee all at one time, say if the kids have snack time, so are (mostly) sat down. What I find awkward at one of the groups i go to is that the mums with little babies sit with their babies and have coffee on the floor next to them, whilst todllers run past, and mums of toddlers put their cups down on the table, which is just the right height to be pulled down.

When dd2 was in hospital they had a policy of having the hot drinks in thermos cups, and it was more dangerous imo, because the cups were more unstable, the lids didn't fir tightly enough, and the drink stayed volcanically hot for a longer time.

Oh and my mum scalded her stomach with a hot drink, and she was in agony for ages, with a huge open wound,I hate to think of that happening with a baby or toddler.

I do wonder what people think we parents do at home: are we to avoid hot drinks altogether until our children are fast asleep?

I personally do not think that hot drinks should be banned from toddler groups. Where do we stop? Banning hot drinks at home? Banning microwaves? Banning hot food? Banning toddlers from coffee shops?

I do have coffee at home, and when I am (rarely now ) at a toddler group, but am always very careful. It is up to all of us all the time, even if it's not our children in the immediate vicinity, to take care.

(DS1 did once pull a hot cup of boiling (or near boiling) over his foot - his grandfather was making a cup of tea, and didn't realise DS1's reach - luckily not too much harm was done.)

YABU

Cah1, is that your family in the blog?

Yes of course it is the parents' responsibility to keep their children safe. As it is in the home. But to be blunt, if you don't take care in the home, it's only your child who will cop it.

The point about the toddler groups specifically, is that there are other adults wandering about who are not taking care.

The only poster on here who says that her child was scalded at a Mum and Toddler group clearly stated that it was someone else's mother who was careless. That woman was probably careful enough with her own children though.

What would the response have been to an AIBU along the lines of "A woman spilt hot coffee all over my DD at a toddler group and then said it was my fault for not watching her properly." ?

I personally agree that Mum and Toddler groups need to serve hot drinks. It's part of what they do and what they are.

But they need to take certain precautions, and a lot of them do not. I listed some of the things they can do to make things safer in an earlier post.

My main issue is the lack of compassion to the OP, who is clearly still terrified over the experience she relates.

When I approached the leaders of a Mum and Toddler group about my fears years ago they were so nice to me. Not much changed but they did at least try to accommodate my suggestions. Most of all, no one called me an idiot, or suggested I need to grow up. (They didn't even look at me as if I was mad, as did the Mum who's hot coffee was about to spill all over her child's head before I alerted her.)

A little kindness goes a long way, especially to someone who is already suffering.

ooh-er, sorry for the double post!

what a nong!

"The OP is clearly still suffering from the injuries she has seen inflicted on a child."

Where does she say this? I've looked at the blog she mentioned and whilst there are pictures, I couldn't find any explanations.

Smallholder, I would be more about that fact that a doctor who has supposedly worked in "peadiatrics" is unable to spell the term correctly.

It's different in a home environment to a toddler group - as a busy toddler group is full of young kids and carers who are moving about in unpredictable ways, so far more scope for an accident.

She has already said that she is dyslexic.

We all say to our DC's from time to time: "If you can't play with that safely, then you can't play with it at all."

Surely the same goes with hot drinks. We have them at home because we have all worked out how to have them at home safely (and even then some of us turn out to be wrong - see my previous posts).

At toddler groups, the group organisers need to find a way that everyone can have their hot drinks safely.

If they cannot find a way to achieve this, for whatever reason then, the OP is suggesting, that they shouldn't serve them at all.

I think it's quite a simple argument and it is fascinating to see how people are twisting it.

I disagree, Total Chaos, you are far more likely to have put your drink down on a table etc at home where a child could easily pull it off and over themselves from a height.

How many children are hurt at toddler groups in this way compared to at home? I think the home environment is actually more dangerous.

SoupDragon, I haven't even looked at the blog, I can't bear to; I was making an assumption based on other people's posts. And my own experiences of a similar thing. Apologies if I have misled.

Gosh - I haven't read this all but as a mum who spent last night in A&E with my 18mth dd who spilt hot tea over herself after grabbing it from somewhere we thought she couldn't reach - I am quite torn. She is, thankfully, fine. I think a ban would be excessive but I do see that at a lot of m&t risks are taken that are unacceptable, so I think a proper risk assessment should be done and documented and unpdated regularly. I like the idea of lids on cups, seperate areas for hot drinks etc. I think if proper measure are put into place and regularly reviewed then that is fine. I am not normally a fan of more paperwork, but in this case something that demands that regular assessments are done would be beneficial.

The picture on the blog is awful- you are right not to look with your experience. I can't find any explanation of what happened though.

The vast majority of these things seem to happen at home though - I think there is fare more scope to cause an accident when a drink is up high as they can pull it over themselves. I don't think toddler groups are the worst place for hot drink danger at all. I do think more needs to be made about how long a drink remains hot enough to scald a child though - isn't it something like 20 minutes?

I fully understand how people are scared of something (almost out of proportion to the real danger) when they have prior experience. I am paranoid of roads having been run over myself and seen DS1 pulled out of the path of a car.

sorry for that girlwiththecurl - hope you're doing better today. But I dont think a proper risk assessment is practical - not for the one that I used to run and not for ones with doddery old ladies in church halls anyway.

I think its perfectly reasonable for the carer to turn up though and after doing their own assessment of the situation decided not to go back though - if the balance between health and safety and risk isnt right for them - like all things really.

I don't really think its relevant that scalding accidents 'are far more likely to happen at home' - (which may or may not be the case anyway). The point is that you can't control what goes on in other people's homes, but you can in your own - so you can do what you see fit in terms of keeping your LO safe.

BUT, in a toddlers group you just can't stop people being thoughtless/uneducated to the risks/foolish/selfish and you can't stop them carrying hot drinks accross a room teeming with toddlers, or leaving them on the floor.

Anyway, can't we agree that if toddlers groups are going to serve hot drinks they need to think carefully about safe ways of doing it, and make sure the measures are enforced for everyone's safety?

And can we stop giving the OP a hard time?