Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Original poster

to leave the room while toddler is in the bath?

142 replies

Downdog · 05/02/2010 16:24

I leave the room while DD is in the bath? Not for the entire bath but I do pop out of the room. I'm never far away, can always hear & converse with her (we live in tiny one bed flat), but I can't always see her if I'm in kitchen getting a drink etc.

OH is furious with me for doing this, but I think he is being overprotective & just trying to get one up on me.

My decision to leave 2.5 year old alone in the bath is one I've thought about, and I can always hear her and I'm never more than a maximum of 8 steps away. I'm very happy with what I've been doing but OH is appalled & got upset. He will often leave to room when he is bathing her, to check out TV etc - but always keeps her in his sight. Whereas I go 4 steps further and can't always see her.

Am I being reckless doing this?

OP posts:

Tee2072 · 06/02/2010 16:22

Every safety thing I have ever read says you should be within arms reach of a small child when they are in the tub. Not standing in the door, not sitting in the lounge, even if in sight.

A child can drowned in less than 6 inches of water in about 30 seconds.

nancydrewrocks · 06/02/2010 19:00

So when can you leave a child? A lot of people are talking about not leaving a 3/4/5+ year old as it's "not worth the risk". By this age most children are as steady on their feet as an older child and can swim so your actual worry is that something unusual happens e.g. they slip, fall and crack their head and drown.

This is as likely to happen to an older child as an adult but obviously we permit them to bath alone. At some point you have to accept that nothing we do is risk free and horrible accidents do occur and that it is simply not possible to guard against every eventuality.

nancydrewrocks · 06/02/2010 19:06

rockbird I am sorry to hear about your neice but are you seriously suggesting that we should have stairgates until our children are school age? What happend when our children go off to school at 4 and have to negotiate stairs on their own having never done so alone beacuse we as parents are so fearful of the risk to them?

BillyBlunt · 06/02/2010 19:10

all kinds of things are risky - driving cars for instance
you need to weigh up the risk and make your own judgements - you know your child for a start

zapostrophe · 06/02/2010 19:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

dittany · 06/02/2010 21:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LittleMrsHappy · 06/02/2010 21:35

Just going to comment on something a poster said, something along the lines of "I know what my child is doing minute by minute" when in the bath unattended.

My niece was left alone for 30 seconds, in that time she turned the tap on and went into immediate shock, and fell back further scalding herself, at no pint did she scream or even make a sound, she had no understanding or communication abilities to communicate for help, she was 2.

When my sister grabbed her out the bath, just 30 seconds later, her skin was peeling away from her (sorry but I MUST stress, AND IT ANGERS me that people like my sister always assumed that it would not happen to ME! ) my sister was then investigated by C.I.D (due to dn life threatening condition) and was charged with neglect (later dropped, as there was a fault in her boiler which she reported to LHA) as she did not make adequate provision for the welfare of her child's safety! but this will ALWAYS be on dn SS records and medical records, and now my sister is petrified to een take her dd to hospital in case she is seen to be neglecting her child, if she falls of her bike etc... BUT not only that she has to endure her child going through painful operations, and look at her dd skin scars and have to put burn socks on her feet and hands to try and reduce scarring everyday, something my sister knows that due to her momentary lapse, she caused all this.

I love my sister and dn's, but my sister know ALL of this is her own doing! she lives with this guilt everyday and has to deal with this everyday for the next 16 years, my sister is now over paranoid about safety in the household to the extreme

Yes this is scaremongering, happy to admit this, but think long and hard before you CHOOSE to possibly endanger your child's life/body scarring for life!

iggi999 · 06/02/2010 21:35

I'm wondering about the OP's OH here. Even is she doesn't think she is taking any particular risk, if this is upsetting the child's other parent, shouldn't his feelings matter too? Unless he is generally a controlling sort of person, I think his fears could be listened to by the OP even if they are unnecessary fears.

Rindercella · 06/02/2010 21:50

Dittany, totally with you on risk mitigation.

I just told DH about this thread. He normally baths DD, but I did tonight. As I was bathing her this thread was uppermost in my mind. I just ould not imagine any circumstance where I would leave her alone in the bathroom, however nearby or in control of the situation I thought I was. DH was horrified that some parents seem to think this is an ok thing to do. He said that DD has fallen several times (on the non-slip bath mat) and he would never take his eyes off her. He said it would be several years before he felt comfortable leaving her alone. Thank God we share the same views!

Why, why, why would any responsible parent think that leaving their small child unattended in or near water is in any way acceptable?

BITCAT · 06/02/2010 23:40

Cantsuppinate its so true..you cant stop everything..i think people underestimate how clever a 2.5 yo can be..they are not stupid. You have to give children some independance..i mean really..i have seen..children of 6/7 fall down stairs..hell ive even dont it myself and i was 8mts gone at the time. Are you going to follow them round and hold ther hands everytime they come dwn the stairs, people are holding on to rare cases..accidents..an again scaremongering has begun. I have four kids..3 of which bath themselves and the youngest 4yo can get in the bath quite easily without slipping..and will shout me or her older brother to help her out..i always stay right on the landing or bedroom nxt door. It was rare for me to leave them when they 2/3..but i did for split second

hewasmytwin · 06/02/2010 23:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

displayuntilbestbefore · 06/02/2010 23:52

YABU

Bathing a child isn't a lengthy or tortuous process so whatever else you have to do can wait a few minutes.

scanty · 07/02/2010 00:43

I have left the room to get a towel etc and made them sing for the few seconds so obviously not perfect but I think people really underestimate how little water and how little time it takes. I remember looking down in a paddling pool at my 14 mth DS as he lay under the water looking right up at me, no movement no splashing, he was frighteningly calm and both my husband and I were within a few yards reach ( he had been bobbing about in one of those inflatables and it tipped over). It still haunts me and I still don't undestand how it could hapen with us both in reach. Know your children and take considered risks but don't underestimate the dangers. Somepeople on here truly seem not see the danger. Any child at 2 or 3 yrs could easily come to harm.

hmc · 07/02/2010 00:47

I wouldn't have done it at that age. 2.5 is so little. I saw my son trip over in the shallow toddler pool (where he could easily touch the bottom) when he was about that age. I was amazed that he floundered and flapped his arms in a kind of dazed panic and didn't seem able to right himself. Good job I was there

SparklyGothKat · 07/02/2010 00:54

haven't read whole thread, but I have a 2.5 year old and he has slipped under the water before, and I have been kneeling beside the bath at the time, it only takes seconds for them to go under the water

differentnameforthis · 07/02/2010 01:04

How hard is it - when your child is in the bath - for them to be your only focus?

I fill the bath (non slip mat, no deeper than to cover her legs, no instant hot water - unless it is summer & you get water out of the cold tap, I kid you not! - CantSupinate)

Take into the bathroom her towel. Get out any shampoo etc I need, flannel etc. Then put her in the bath.

I sit next to the bath & play with her, talk to her. So I can prevent a 'stand up & fall' incident. Then when she is done, I take her out.

It isn't a long time out of my day, if I don't have time to dedicate that 15min to her, I don't bath her!

differentnameforthis · 07/02/2010 01:10

To extend a little on what littlemrs said. My nephew was younger than 2. My sister had filled the bath for his sister. For some reason only know to her, my sister always did hot water first, then cooled it with cold.

She had filled the hot, the phone rang. She was upstairs the whole time. My nephew got one of those plastic steps he uses for the toilet, put it by the bath & stepped up. He put his hands in as deep as they would go.

The only reason he was 'rescued' before my sister finished her call, or before he fell in, was because his sister (6) saw him & pulled him back off the step. He never screamed or cried until a day later. He now has scars up to his elbows.

As I said before, children who are under water don't scream, nor do they splash & thrust about.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6