Stupid question, but can I leave my baby in the car for this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree you can't leave the baby. I'd look for a daycare with a carpool/drop off where they meet the kid at the car

So you’d SWITCH DAYCARES to avoid a 60 second period of your baby being in the car in the mornings? This is what’s killing families these days. The idea that SWITCHING DAYCARES is the response you should have when you realize you’ll have to leave your baby in the car for 60 seconds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clearly everyone says no, you shouldn't.
And you shouldn't. But not because there is any danger to the baby. Of course there isn't. What you want to do is perfectly reasonable and in most other times and places would be what every mother does.

However... here in 2023 in the US, it is a dangerous thing to do not for the baby, but for you. Within just a few days of doing this, you will be called into the daycare directors office and chastised. You will also become the focus of mommy gossip and glares and judgement.
There is a non-zero chance someone will report you to CPS.

So, sadly, you need to take your baby out of the car.

This.

+1000 and you can see this by all the unhinged responses on this thread.

OP, I have three kids. I leave my baby in the car when I walk my kid to preschool. I also leave the baby in the car when I drop something off at UPS, or pickup my mobile order from Starbucks. It is not illegal, and I pity the person who ever tries to call the cops or CPS on me, because I'm not joking when I say I would ruin their life.

I have called police and reported someone who left their kids in a car while they "Just ran in for just a second!". There is no such thing as being safe to leave your child unattended in an automobile.

Karen gonna Karen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would do it, personally. I think the people saying you have to take the carseat with you are being overzealous. If the area is secure and you are within sight the whole time, I don't really get what the danger is supposed to be.

A mom did this at our preschool drop off and when she came back her key wouldn’t open the car. Huge huge ordeal w/ firemen, broken lock, etc to get back in and she was chews out by the first responders (head of preschool was obligated to call after about 20 minutes)

And this could have easily happened in her driveway while she unloaded groceries.

People have lost all common sense.

Right?? This happened in a grocery store parking lot next to my car a few years back. Woman put groceries in the car, put her baby in the car, shut the door and walked around to the drivers side and realized she had locked her key in the car or something. Firemen came right away, baby was fine, mom was upset and sheepish in equal measures, everyone went on with their day. The firemen did not shame her (why would they??).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty sure any veteran mom of 3 or more is going to figure out a way to leave that baby in the car.

+1. I left the baby in the car in similar situations and all of my kids are still alive and kicking. And have never been carjacked.

That is so stupid. If your house has never burnt down, why do you need house insurance? There is always first time. That’s what you are trying to avoid.

Except there wasn't a first time. My kids are now a lot older.

You were just lucky. You shouldn't have done that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree you can't leave the baby. I'd look for a daycare with a carpool/drop off where they meet the kid at the car

So you’d SWITCH DAYCARES to avoid a 60 second period of your baby being in the car in the mornings? This is what’s killing families these days. The idea that SWITCHING DAYCARES is the response you should have when you realize you’ll have to leave your baby in the car for 60 seconds.

Because it's not actually about helping this mom figure this out. If it were just about making the most common sense decision that will both keep her kids safe and make her life easier, the thread would universally be "yes, leave the baby in the car, it's a quick drop off and you are within sight of the car."

But it's not about that. It's about making her that no mother, ever, feels like anything she does is good enough. It's about setting the bar so unbearably high that moms just kind of drag themselves around feeling like failures. It's about making sure we always preserve the ability to criticize, judge, ridicule, and shame a mother. We HATE moms in this country. Hate them. If we actually cared about moms and families, the answer to OP's question is exceedingly simple and obvious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way. Your baby could be carjacked in front of the preschool. The car could mysteriously roll away. You could have a heart attack and no one would ever notice your car in the line. YOU could be kidnapped.


/S

Or you could forget the baby is in the car and leave him in there for hours….

Yes, that is very likely to happen while dropping your child off at daycare. You might just randomly decide to walk to work.

Did you know that when children die in hot cars, it's usually because the parent did not realize they child was in the car at all? The baby falls asleep, the parent forgets it's their day for daycare drop off and not their spouse's, they drive to work and get out of the car and don't realize until later the baby was in the car. Especially happens with parents who are exhausted from sleepless nights.

It does not happen because a parent makes the intentional choice to leave a baby in the backseat of a car while performing a short errand during which the car is always in sight. Literally a child has never overheated in a car because their parent decided to leave them in the car while the dropped off a sibling, grabbed a coffee, picked up takeout, or similar. Never. There is zero evidence this is a danger in this situation.

If you put the child in the car how did you forget? I don't believe this sorry excuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sure nothing would happen but I wouldn’t on principle. Possibly because if I started doing it all I might inadvertently do it in other settings where I would be away from the car for longer.

This is a ridiculous argument. Sometimes your kid is not in your car, but, with this logic, maybe they should ALWAYS be in the car so you always maintain the habit of getting them out of the car when you leave it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would do it, personally. I think the people saying you have to take the carseat with you are being overzealous. If the area is secure and you are within sight the whole time, I don't really get what the danger is supposed to be.

A mom did this at our preschool drop off and when she came back her key wouldn’t open the car. Huge huge ordeal w/ firemen, broken lock, etc to get back in and she was chews out by the first responders (head of preschool was obligated to call after about 20 minutes)

And this could have easily happened in her driveway while she unloaded groceries.

People have lost all common sense.

Right?? This happened in a grocery store parking lot next to my car a few years back. Woman put groceries in the car, put her baby in the car, shut the door and walked around to the drivers side and realized she had locked her key in the car or something. Firemen came right away, baby was fine, mom was upset and sheepish in equal measures, everyone went on with their day. The firemen did not shame her (why would they??).

If a man had locked keys in car you would be screaming for his head on a stake! Onlybs fool leaves car keys in ignition when not in cst..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would, and in the warmer months I’d leave the AC running.

And, I would call police if I saw this and so would most other people.

And I would hope that karma will come back at you hard.

You are far more of a danger to this family than the OP.

+1. If you call the police, I would say there is over a 50% chance that the family (including the child) now has to deal with the stress of some kind of investigation, including potential financial stress from needing to hire a lawyer. If there is a person of color in the family, those odds increase substantially and then throw in a good, i don't know, say 10% chance that DCFS actually takes the kids away from their loving family for some reason. You're inflicted this risk on the kid because of a %.000000000000000000001 chance the kid is kidnapped?

If you cared that much about preventing risks of harm to children, go spend your time convincing the parents to not drive in the first place because of the risk of a car accident.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sure nothing would happen but I wouldn’t on principle. Possibly because if I started doing it all I might inadvertently do it in other settings where I would be away from the car for longer.

This is a ridiculous argument. Sometimes your kid is not in your car, but, with this logic, maybe they should ALWAYS be in the car so you always maintain the habit of getting them out of the car when you leave it?

It's not a ridiculous argument, it's literally the science behind how babies get forgotten in cars. This is how our human brains work.
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/hot-cars-and-kids/hot-car-deaths-scientists-detail-why-parents-forget-their-children-n777076

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t judge you if you did this but someone will if you do it every day. As PPs have mentioned, there are lots of people out there who will call the cops or Cps for this.

But I promise you the logistics with two gets a lot easier than it seems at first! You will be a pro in no time!

[Anonymous]

I would never call the police on someone for this (I mean, you can see the mom right there; just stand by the car until she returns if you're worried) but I would never do it either. People are laughing about carjackings but it's actually happening quite a lot in DC right now, and there are many instances of a baby or kid being in the car and the criminals take off anyway. If you're leaving the car running it's at risk for being taken, if you're not it gets hot, etc. Interfering with the habit of always grabbing the baby is reason 2 for me.

I think it's weird that your daycare can't task some administrative person with helping out walking kids in during this dropoff hour for parents with multiple kids, but I also get that daycares seem to write their own rules around here and charge whatever they want while they're at it.

[Anonymous]

Wow this thread is truly insane. No wonder everyone is complaining about how tired and stressed they are. Op my son’s drop off was similar and in a very secure area and I do not know one parent that got baby car seats out!! Siblings always stayed in the cars.

So much parenting headspace worrying about INCREDIBLY UNLIKELY scenarios. I’m all about precautions to make sure baby doesnt get forgotten and have put many in place but leaving them for 30 sec in a secure place where you can see them surrounded by other parents cars, in a car you must return to to leave the parking lot is not how babies are forgotten!!!

Take the key out of the car and roll down the windows. Again, yes should we be careful to not leave babies in hot cars, of course!!!!! Is that happening in the 60 seconds of your drop off or pickup. NO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would never call the police on someone for this (I mean, you can see the mom right there; just stand by the car until she returns if you're worried) but I would never do it either. People are laughing about carjackings but it's actually happening quite a lot in DC right now, and there are many instances of a baby or kid being in the car and the criminals take off anyway. If you're leaving the car running it's at risk for being taken, if you're not it gets hot, etc. Interfering with the habit of always grabbing the baby is reason 2 for me.

I think it's weird that your daycare can't task some administrative person with helping out walking kids in during this dropoff hour for parents with multiple kids, but I also get that daycares seem to write their own rules around here and charge whatever they want while they're at it.

You would NEVER leave your baby in the car for 30 seconds while you walk your child 30 feet in a secure area with your keys out of the car?? This blows my mind. The baby is not going to be impacted by heat in a car that was air conditioned literally 30 seconds ago in the 60 seconds it takes to hand over kids. Why oh why must we make everything so difficult. It does not sound like op is on a random DC street. Much more likely in a suburban parking lot…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t judge you if you did this but someone will if you do it every day. As PPs have mentioned, there are lots of people out there who will call the cops or Cps for this.

But I promise you the logistics with two gets a lot easier than it seems at first! You will be a pro in no time!

What in the world?? She’s not going in the building! She will literally be visible. If someone can get through the line to 911 in the time it takes her to get to and from her car that would be lucky. I am so grateful my oldest son went to a preschool with parents who treated each other with normalcy as we all dropped off in the same roundabout and dropped our oldest at the fence 15 feet away from our cars. Never seen a baby out of the car.