Leaving a toddler alone in a car for ten minutes

[DitaVonCheese]

I am new to this parenting lark so not sure whether this is a bad thing or I'm just being judgey - perfectly prepared to accept I am

Anyway, DD and I were at soft play this morning. As we were getting back into the car, another car parked alongside us. A bloke got out and I assumed that we were going to have to do some awkward squeezing as he got his DS out as well, but he just mumbled "Jus' be a minute", presumably to me and ducked into the bowling alley next door instead. He did lock his car door but the seat belt got caught in it so it wasn't closed properly. DD then refused to get into her car seat so we were there for a little while, plus I didn't really want to leave the other child alone Bloke was gone ust under 10 minutes. Unless they have radically changed the layout of the bowling alley since I was last there (about 15 years ago to be fair), you can't see the car park from inside.

I freely admit that I have occasionally left DD in the car alone since getting her in and out can be a nightmare, especially if we're not stopping long, but only where I can see the car and I RUN like a demon so have left her for probably 90 seconds max. She is my PFB though

Was I right to be a bit unsettled about bloke leaving his DS (didn't peer right in or anything but he looked around 18 months-ish, strapped in a car seat) or is this fine?

i really don't see how leaving a child in a locked car for a few mins where you can see it can be considered more dangerous than dragging them across a busy petrol forecourt!

i would also think there is much more chance of a car catching on fire when it is being driven, so whats next? walking everywhere with your kids in case your car magically explodes or is carjacked? bloody ridiculous!! this hightened sense of paranoia doesn't do anyone any good.

Yes I agree, grapes. I have three pre school children and the idea that they would be safer if I got them all out of the car in a petrol station forecourt while I go in and pay is laughable.

There are risks of everything. I live near heathrow, so i suppose there is some risk that a bit of a plane could fall off and bop ds on the head. best i never let him play in the garden, ever again,then.

I mean come on. Best you all stay sat at home and don't step outside your front door. No actually thats' no good because don't most accidents and fires start at home ?

Oblomov - that's what i always think when people say 'I never take risks with my children's safety'. Mmm, clearly you do because it is impossible not to.

Interestingly I have two friends who take their children out of the car but also have insisted on the babies being in their own room from 6 weeks...

skimty, both my ds's were in their room very early aswell. i read up on the risks, the cotdeath guidelines and they are only guidelines. and i made an informed choice. i wouldn't advise anyone else to do it. but i am not embarrassed to say that i myself did.

see this is the thing. if you make an informed decision about any risk, then how can that be 'risky'.

Oblomov, it's not that I think your babies aren't safe out of your room - we had to move both of ours when they outgrew moses basket and tbh I'm sure Dh's smoking probably was a much bigger risk. It's that I find it weird that people won't possibly leave a 3 year old strapped into a car and think I'm mad for so doing but will leave their baby alone against government advice. If you're going to be 'risk-free' then at least be consistent.

For a car to catch on fire and a child to die of smoke inhalation before the parents noticed, they clearly weren't checking it very often. I do leave my DC in the car on the drive but I look out of the window every minute or so. And as Oblomov says, that's so unlikely (like I said, I didn't even think it was possible) that I think it's an acceptable risk to take.

More children die from blind cords than are killed this way. And yet I've never seen anyone saying that blinds are unacceptably dangerous things to have in houses where there are small children.

i moved DD2 into DD1's room when she was only 3 months, don't really see how that is risky. i was unaware that cot death could be prevented, i thought it was just babies dying in their sleep . suffocation is a different matter and i am always careful to make sure that the blankets can't go over her face.

ex MIL is incredibly paranoid and once when DD2 2 was climbing up the steps of her 4ft high slide actually said "make sure you stand behind her because if she falls that will be it!"

I feel really about this thread, as a negligent leaver-in-car parent. Several points:

• some people seem to be concerned that their car will self-combust. Right, so we've had a couple of people who have known of people, somewhere, through somebody else where this has happened. To be brutally honest, that sort of risk is so miniscule as to be discounted.

• some people seem to be worried that their child will be abducted. Get real. Again, the chance of that is tiny. And while your children are undoubtably the most amazing precious people on the planet, most people would rather grow two heads than want to abduct your child.

• some people seem to think that some sort of accident will happen. A general fear that if their child is not in their eye sight at all times then something awful will happen. That's just daft too. As someone said, most accidents happen in the home, where most of us (excluding some posters here who must be the most neurotic people I've ever hear) are delighted to let our children play out of sight for, gasp, maybe half an hour!

I think some of you are at greater risk of turning your children into risk averse, irrational emotionally stunted beings who are unable to judge situations for themselves and be sensible. Ironically, they may well end up being the ones who are more likely to have accidents.

Kitkats- you speak for me as well. We are infecting our children with fear and constantly giving them the message that danger lurks around every corner. Cars spontaneously combust, parents drop dead at any second, children get struck by lighting and if you survive all that a paedophile will snatch you anyway. I'm sure now I'll hear loads of tales of children struck by lighting and so you always carry a personal lighting conductor (take no chances). This is not a healthy message.

Having said all that coming back to the start of the thread, 10 minutes in a bowling ally would be uncomfortable for me.

Somebody on here once described it as Lily Potter Syndrome. If you love your child hard enough and watch him closely enough you can protect him from harm. Sadly that's not true, but it's a hard lesson to learn.

Just to add - I don't think I would leave a child outside a bowling alley, certainly the ones near us are not very salubrious. I would be concerned that a drunk person/group of people might come over to the car, see the dc and start knocking on windows and frightening them.

But our bowling places are not very nice.