Left my toddler in the car yesterday. Will I be in trouble?

[LivelyLion]

Yesterday, my 21 month old had just fallen asleep in the car as I was on my way home. I needed to call into the supermarket to get her some food, so parked in the closest possible parking space and ran in as quickly as I could and was gone for a couple of minutes tops.

When I returned, what seemed to be an employee was taking pictures of the car and rightfully gave me a telling off for leaving her in the car unattended. Now I can’t stop feeling guilty and can’t stop thinking about the consequences. Is this a social service matter or even a police matter if he passes those photos on? My child had woke by the time I got back which makes me feel worse and I feel like it makes the situation seem worse. What are the possible repercussions?

It is appalling, and the posters on this thread making out this is 'nothing,' are making me nauseous to be honest! I am actually disgusted by some posters on here, playing this down like they are. And mocking and goading posters saying (quite rightly!) that what the OP did is wrong. It's actually so disturbing and worrying. 😖

You fucked up, @LivelyLion, as parents are apt to do from time to time. The thing to do if SS/the police do get in touch is to own your poor decision with contrition and cooperate with whatever they say.

You've faced harsh consequences in the form of a lot of worry but in the end no harm was done to your child. There's a thread full of scenarios as to how on another occasion you might not have been so lucky, but there won't be another occasion because you know this isn't an action you would ever repeat.

Lesson learned. People do learn from their mistakes and I doubt that the good user-body of Mumsnet can say they never made any.

Hope you're okay.

OP knows it was wrong. No one else in the posts I've quickly skim-read is saying for one moment that this was a good idea.

The important thing now is what happens in the future.

You should have edited your post further. No one needs to hear your rabid disgust. I hope the OP hid this thread ten pages ago.

Honestly the only disturbing and worrying things on this thread are reactions like yours. You sound unhinged.

I’ll take 0 chance over 1 in a million chance, thanks. I had no health issues, until one day I did have a medical episode out of nowhere, and was unable to look after myself in that moment, let alone my baby. Thankfully I was at home and my DH was too.

There are lots of what ifs, but you have to take the toddler in the car, you have to bath them, you have to cook just the two of you. You don’t have to leave them in the car alone whilst you go shopping.

Perhaps ask the OP to get a grip for you next time she goes shopping. Of course it was wrong and stupid, but your reaction is way over the top.

I used to work in a supermarket and people do slip and have heavy falls. You can’t always see spillages.

Anyway we can see that OP has learnt from it and I’d bet any money she wouldn’t do it again so all is well.(assuming ss wont throw the book at you, it’ll be a scolding I expect).

I always think - what would happen if I slipped and fell or couldn’t get back to the car for some reason. Never leave your child in the car alone. Nothing is worth the risk however small x

If in the UK, the weather has been rather hot/warm lately so it's dangerous to leave your child in the car. God forbid you had a heart attack or something inside the shop - who would know the child was in the car, roasting away, maybe for hours if no one noticed?
It's a bit like mum who leave their little children in the house for 10 minutes to go get some milk or cigarettes. 99.99% of the time no harm will come to them but many a house have burnt down with the children in it when mum has popped out for a few minutes.
Don't chance it, you will never be able to forgive yourself if anything happened. Just 10 minutes could well be a lifetime of misery and regret maybe in prison!

You must have known when posting that people would put you on blast - if you thought otherwise I think you should seriously take a minute and re-evaluate your life choices when it comes to your children.

Beating yourself up about it now won’t do any good. Chalk it up to an experience that you will never repeat. We all do stupid things and learn lessons from them. Just be thankful nothing bad happened and move right on! Don’t listen to all the high and mighty perfect parents on here (they are not as perfect as they like to think they are I’ll bet) xx

That I think.

i still have in mind that story of a woman leaving her babe in the car « just the time to get something in the house » so a hop of two minutes. Well someone stole the car…with the babe in. She had to call the police to start the amber and the babe was found in a ditch next to a road screaming…hours later 🥹

No babe alone in a car, house, garden. Just no. You wake her up, safe in your arms ❤️🌺

I hope you will be ok, you sound like a good mom whom done a mistake. It happens to all of us.

good luck 🌺

Imagine you had been suddenly taken ill while shopping and collapsed. It would take some time before the fact of the child in the car came to light. A lot could happen in that time. Sounds dramatic I know but the truth is often stranger than fiction. Anyway ,thank goodness the child is alright. A mistake you'll never make again I bet.

Posting scenarios of what could have happened, isn’t helpful. (Plus, thankfully, they didn’t happen). I think the OP knows she was wrong and shouldn’t have left her toddler alone in the car, and I sincerely hope she has learned from her mistake and won’t do it again.

Jeez, it was two minutes! No car is heating up to dangerous levels in two minutes.

Your toddler is many orders of magnitudes more likely to come to harm from car crashes, pedestrian accidents and other traffic hazards than being left in the car for two minutes.

We need to keep our kids safe, but don't need this kind of disproportionate overreaction hysteria.

No way was it two minutes.

Forgiven

I hope you do face the consequences. The child could have been overheated, snatched, car could have set on fire, and how scary is it for the kid to wake up alone. Disgraceful.

OP will know NOT TO DO IT AGAIN so leave off upsetting her further! Enough now!

You might not get in trouble, but you should. What is it that makes you people think a car is going to protect an unsupervised baby from being human trafficked? I'll never understand it, never.

The worrying thing in this post is you are more concerned about lawful consequences than the fact that you put your child at risk of dying.

Theworldsmad

Another of those US urban myths. It’s always a friend of a friend.

Never left mine in the car but back in the day used take them in the pram to local shop to get milk bread etc and leave them with DH on Saturday for supermarket shop.

You shouldn't have been ever doing that! Why are you judging when you've done the same thing?

You foolish woman, what on earth were you thinking, purposely leaving a defenceless child in the car? Absolutely anything could have happened. This is beyond stupidity I hope you have attend some parenting classes.

You must be ignorant or just plain slow it takes less than 10 minutes for a child to die in hot car.