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Original poster

Popping out with kids asleep at home

86 replies

Beabea · 25/10/2006 16:16

i need to post some letters and the post box is just around a small corner. both kids were asleep (2yrs and 5weeks). 2yr old in buggy so both safe. would you pop out.

i didnt feel i could. just wondered if this was what most would do?

too late to post when they both wake as 5week old will sleep unless i pick him up. oh well will do it tomorow now!

OP posts:
Morgan · 25/10/2006 16:17

Yes i think i would as gone such a short time.

happybiggirl · 25/10/2006 16:17

Message withdrawn

kama · 25/10/2006 16:30

This reply has been deleted

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Tutter · 25/10/2006 16:30

no

against the law isn't it?

paddingtonbear1 · 25/10/2006 16:32

no, i never have and I wouldn't. too risky!

expatinscotland · 25/10/2006 16:32

no, not worth it to me.

StrawberryFULLMoonOWOWOWWWWWWW · 25/10/2006 16:32

no i wouldnt..weigh up importance of post against any possibility of children being hurt/scared?..bad enough with toddler but not 5 weeks old.

not slating you BTW, you didnt do it, just saying how i never would

nailpolish · 25/10/2006 16:33

you could get run down by a bus

then what?

nailpolish · 25/10/2006 16:34

i think my last post there sounded slightly ridiculous

?

Waswondering · 25/10/2006 16:34

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Tutter · 25/10/2006 16:35

yeh, np, or struck by lihgtning

quanglewangle · 25/10/2006 16:35

Yes I would if it only takes a few seconds or a minute.

You could, after all, spend as long or longer in the garden doing things than posting a letter. It just seems psychologically more acceptable because you are on the premises but you are still out of the house.

nailpolish · 25/10/2006 16:35

along those lines tutter

liquidclocks · 25/10/2006 16:37

My DH 'popped' to the shop (100yds from house) when our DS1 was a few months old and asleep - I was livid with him at first, but, on reflection how would it have been any different if we'd lived in a house with a big garden and he'd done something like take the rubbish out or filled the bird bath?

Tricky one - but I wouldn't and DH wouldn't dare do it again!

WitchICouldGiveUpWork · 25/10/2006 16:39

I personally wouldn't for fear of what might happen to me whilst out.Even if I knew dd was safe,ANYTHING could happen to me and nobody would know dd was home alone.
Extreme I know but I am just too chicken-apart from the fact it is illegal.

badkarma · 25/10/2006 16:41

Yeah, my friends clothesline is further away from her house than the postbox! lol She has to walk out her back door, across the farmyard, up steps into the garden and across a path to the bit of yard where her clothes hang, and she waits til her 2 youngest are asleep to hang her washing out. The post box is at the end of her lane and takes a shorter path

My dd (5) didn't want to go to the shop yesterday (I was only going to the local butchers) and she asked if she could stay home and watch TV, she was snuggled up on the sofa with a blanket and watching a dvd, but I made her get her shoes on and come with me.. her daddy said she would have been OK at home alone for 10minutes

juuule · 25/10/2006 16:41

I couldn't do it either.

LadyDooM · 25/10/2006 16:41

Not ridiculous at all. I remember seeing in the news about this man that left his kids in bed to go to the store quickly. He was killed in a car crash, and his wife was overseas at the time in the military. When they finally contacted her she asked about her kids. They didn't know about the kids, but luckily they found them all alive in their apt. The oldest was like 4 or so I think and they had survived on dry cereal and stuff for several days.

NotQuiteCockney · 25/10/2006 16:42

It's not illegal!

I take rubbish out to the bins when I have a sleeping child or children in the house. My bins are a minute or two's walk away.

And while I was on holiday this summer, I took to running around the camp while the kids were asleep. I swung by the cabin every few minutes though. (Um, and that was in a country where it is illegal, whoops.)

nailpolish · 25/10/2006 16:45

that sounds like an urbay myth ladydoom

like the mother who left the children in the car to cross the road to pop to the shops, she was run down by a bus and killed

they found the children in the car in the car park 2 days later, dehydrated in the blistering heat (thats an urban myth)

Original poster
Beabea · 25/10/2006 16:45

Our babyvmonitor has quite a long range and use it in the garden if 5week old is asleep upstairs. It actually reaches the pub (which we dont use) on the corner of the road. But not as far as the post box.

We even went to a party next door with the monitor. It worked as DD fell out of bed and we ran back to her.

I also often do lots of gardening but pop back regularly to check on them.

I still wouldnt go to the post box though. Its interesting how many things you all think could happen, so Im even less likely to go now.

OP posts:
SenoraPostrophe · 25/10/2006 16:45

quite, nqc.

ladydoom: that story may be true, but I bet there are far more instances of someone being suddenly incapacitated while in charge of kids at home (eg by choking) except those stories don't get in the papers. most accidents occur in the home after all.

SenoraPostrophe · 25/10/2006 16:46

np: someone told that story on here a few months ago and swore blind that it had been in her local paper. i didn't beleive it then.

NotQuiteCockney · 25/10/2006 17:16

Oh, yes, there was a single mum who died while getting stuff down from the loft a little while back, and the kids had to manage on their own for a few days iirc .

WitchICouldGiveUpWork · 25/10/2006 17:17

I stand corrected-it really isn't illegal her-bizarre really but doesn't change the fact I am just to chicken.