would you leave your baby in a locked car?

[Friendlygirl]

have left my baby sleeping in my locked car while I dashed into the supermarket to buy a couple of things. Would any of you do that? Is it even l;egal? It worried me but I would rather do that than wake them up and sometimes I just have to get sometyhing from the shop for tea.

Still seems strange for a new poster to resurrect this thread, and I have to say I find it unbelievable that social services would get involved in leaving children in the car for 3 minutes otherwise then surely they would be in and out of petrol forecourts continuously. Frankly I think that it would be bloody marvellous if the emergency services managed to turn up in 3 minutes.

Didn't realise that til you pointed it out Ladymuck

rather depends on the colour of the car.

But the great thing about Mumsnet is that we all have different ways of Mumsnetting and we get see different point so fivew.

I have changed my thinking on a few things - or at least increased my understadning of a different POV - thanks to Mumsnet disucssions (not all of which I have actively participated in).

Using a diferent example to the children in cars one, which is very emotive, some of use chair gates and some (a minortiy) choose not to. Not because they want their children to fall down stairs, but because they want them to learn to use stairs safely - and then be at less risk in strange surroundings when you can't always control the environment. I personally follow the latter route (on the advice of my best friend - GP, mother of 4 and who lives in a house with lots of stairs) - and the only children I know who have fallen downstairs are those who were used to stair gates. But I totally understand why people choose to have stair gates.

We all make different choices.

My post was in response to Cazboldy's one.

prettybird i agree with you on all those points. in fact the only stairgate i have is for the dog
i wasn't trying to cause a fuss, but this subject is one i do feel very strongly about.

I would never and have never, certainly not into a supermarket.

My cousin would be dead now if her mum had left her in the car one day; she was a small baby and her mum looked at her as she got out of the car, thought "I'm only going in for a couple of things, is it worth waking her etc etc" she DID take her in, and thank god, because 2 mins later her car (parked on flat road) was crashed into at speed, from the rear - baby would have been killed for sure if left in the car.

staionary cars are stolen and crashed into - it happens, not often but I think my ds is precious enough to just cut this risk out altogether, and yes I have one child but I have friends with 3 kids who bother to get them out too.

I think one of the best ways to ensure your car isn't stolen from a petrol station forecourt is to leave your children in it. What would YOU choose if you were a car thief??
As for all of you who haul your kids in everytime because the car might spontaneously combust or be hit by a meteorite or something, what about the equally unlikely risk of you both being flattened by a delivery lorry or runaway car or being shot by armed robbers?

The scenario of roaming paedophile gangs smashing car windows to seize toddlers while their mothers watch helplessly from the cashdesk of the Esso garage actually makes me laugh out loud, I'm afraid.

i dont get my kids out of the car on a forecourt. dd1 (bless her) is very sensible. she will sit in the drivers seat, and has instructions to toot the horn if i am needed. dd2 is rule obsessed, so wont move out of her seat. dd3 is usually asleep.

pay at the pump petrol stations! the wave of the future!

I would never do thaqt just too much of a nervous norris where kids are concerned.Its no trouble to take tehm with you.

If I have to get petrol on my own I do lock the car and leave them in it whilst I pay for it (I can see them at all times though), usually I wait until DP is in the car.

The only other time I leave them is in the supermarket car park i.e. to get one of those baby and toddler trollies that they only have 5 of and are always at the back of the trollies whats the option carry a 6 mo and 2 yo across the car park?