Is it illegal to be drunk in charge of a baby in your own home?

[morningpaper]

As title. I think the answer is no, it's only illegal in a public place. Anyone know?

Why?

No idea, but if you give the baby Calpol he can't operate machinery or drive. Bottles of alcohol have no such warning labels! And by the way, my baby is now definitley in charge of me.

I was discussing a situation with someone where police left the home of a couple drunk in charge of a baby - this surprised me.

Ah right!
If on a rare occasion we do manage to go out, one of leaves the drink for the purpose of being alert enough if our baby needs something in the night.

I wonder too in that case.

Yes we do too. To be honest I'm more worried about me not bring sober enough to calm dd down quickly enough and ending up awake for hours. But we've never both been 'drunk' together since she was born.

because i have to do all the night feeds (as my DP doesn't wake or just ignores the crying) whenever i go out, i do have a drink but i only have a few so that im alert enough to get up in the night and see to DS

juicechops - my DH sleeps has NEVER got up during the night to either DS or DD so I too sometimes have a couple of drinks....otherwise I would be still be teetotal even tho DS is 3!! If like me you can only manage a couple (cant face hangover & boistrous toddler) I dont see that it matters. Falling down drunk is another matter...

I don't know about illegal but I think if anything were to happen then people like social services might get involved depending on severity of the incident. I suppose they would take it further if it was regular incidents.

We have a deal that one of us is nominated to stay sufficiently compos mentis to deal with an emergency - neither of us drives atm, once we do I imagine whoever's 'in charge' will stay off the sauce altogether.

Wrt to title, I'd imagine it'd be quite hard to enforce a law against parents boozing at home...say you took the legal driving limit as a benchmark, would police have power to enter homes of anyone with an under 2 (again, for sake of example), demand to know who the 'designated parent' was & breathalyse them?!

Not advocating getting paralytic whilst caring for a baby you understand, just don't quite see how you'd make it illegal...

You mean if it's the parents it's OK?

A local childminder was recently responsible for a child in her care drowning in the bath when she'd had several bottles of wine - she is going to prison for 3 years and there is now a big fuss about her being cleared for minding in the first place. Daily Telegraph .

No, not at all!

Just that I'm not sure if it'd be enforceable, iyswim.

The childminder in question had, I believe, downed the booze before the child joined her in the bath at 1am, slipped, & she was too p$ssed to lift him out - if I did that with my own son, I'd definitely expect to be prosecuted for manslaughter!

Message withdrawn

is this about the recent sentencing of the babyminder who was drunk in charge of a toddler who drowned?

the law allows people to keep their own children when they are heroin addicts , so i think drunks are quite safe.

i dont mean safe to look after children, i mean safe from the law.

So the law states...
To be drunk in charge of a child under the age of 7 years old is an arrestable offence but only if in public or on licensed premises.

Police have the power to take any child into police protection for not longer than 72 hours if they think that leaving the child in the circumstances the child is likely to come to harm.

Whilst police protection is a great power, in the circumstance of a parent at home being drunk in charge or a child, it’s impossible to police and detect this.