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Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers
Triplets in House Fire in Bethesda--Install Fire Detectors
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Anonymous
I'll be sure to feel the same when tradegy strikes you. Why be so mean? Despite the fact that mistakes were made innocent children were hurt. |
Anonymous
I don't understand about crib tents. I am not judging. I've just never used them. When my DD was old enough to climb out of the crib, the cribs were put away. She got a regular twin bed frame w/ a mattress w/o a box spring. Thus the mattress was low to the floor and she couldn't hurt herself if she fell out. We childproofed her bedroom and put a plastic gate at the entrance to her room. If she got out of bed, there was absolutely nothing in her room which could hurt her. In the beginning it did take extra work to teach her to stay in bed. There were consequences if she got out of bed and played in her room at night, but she was allowed to look at books in bed if she couldn't sleep. Within a few weeks, she learned to fall asleep and did so quickly. Why do parents use crib tents? What makes a crib tent better than just switching to a bed? Do parents use them because they think their kids won't stay in a regular bed to sleep? Not judging, just don't understand the pros of a crib tent..... |
Anonymous
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your kiddo learned.
some kiddos don't learn. don't judge. |
Anonymous
| Our daughter jumped out of her crib at 14 months. No way we were putting her in a twin bed then. |
Anonymous
It doesn't mean they don't deserve compassion. I hope you're not my neighbor. |
Anonymous
On that note, they work at my house! Oops! (just trying to add a smile to this sad topic) |
Anonymous
As I mentioned, my son has ASD - Autism Spectrum Disorder, and he was in full swing when he was a toddler, so "teaching" him wasn't happening. He really needed to be tented in his crib, to be safe, while my husband and I slept, or when I took a shower, stuff like that (he was too big for a play pen, he could knock it over, and climb over a gate at that point as well - and gates can pose problems with fires, too) . Extremely active kids can be very difficult, and, granted, my son had special needs. So, I think crib tents and the need for one varies with the child, the # of children, the family's needs, etc. It sounds like you didn't need one, but we did. And our tent could have easily been ripped of in a fire - we took it down when my son was a little older and pulled it mostly off himself. |
Anonymous
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One toddler is a lot different than 3, which is reason alone for crib tents. What one child cannot do, two or three together can. So, for many safety reasons parents of multiples (and singletons for that matter) choose to use a crib tent. It is unfortunate that the crib tents hindered the firefighters rescue efforts, but I'm sure these parents were considering the everyday safety of their children when they installed the tents in the first place.
I'm not a praying kind of girl, but I am definitely hoping for a speedy recovery for these little guys and their parents. |
Anonymous
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The first time my kid tried to get out of her crib, she did, feel and broke her collar bone. We HAD to put on a crib tent to prevent her from getting out again and we were not allowed to put her into a bed b/c she could have fallen out and re-broken her collar bone.
Some of the pp's here understand that the tragedy of this fire was multi-layered, not one thing, like a crib tent. For anyone judging the crib tents, well, they are idiots. Like anyone judging this period. Don't you think hindsight is killing this family? Jesus, people. Lay the fuck off. Lessons have been learned. You are all better. Move on. |
Anonymous
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I don't understand why this thread has become a battleground. I can't imagine that anyone posting here isn't hoping and praying for the children to recover. And no one who is a parent can help but think, there but for the grace of God goes my family.
But at the same time, the situation just seems shocking - parents of considerable means who didn't maintain basic safety devices in their home, a father who left his children in a burning home while trying to put out a fire with a garden hose, who waited to call 911 until it was almost too late. I understand the crib tents and can even imagine why they might have employed a nanny whose language skills failed during a crisis...but I just truly don't understand the rest, precisely because I assume they are loving, devoted parents. And I wonder what the reaction here would be if this story involved some other kind of family who acted with shocking disregard for their childrens' safety - if the parents were poor / young / uneducated / didn't live in a fancy Bethesda neighborhood and share a pediatrician with DCUM types?? I suspect we would all be very quick to judge.... |
Anonymous
It's not that I don't have any sympathy for them. I'm sure those parents are suffering greatly in the aftermath and it's very sad. It's the fact I feel absolutely horrible for those 3 little ones and the men hurt saving them needlessly. Truly, needlessly. I have a young cousin with PTSD from being in a house fire- she suffers a fair bit. And she was old enough to get herself out and not suffer physically. These babies were helpless, left in smoldering heat and smoke, unable to breathe, alone, likely scared to death and crying out for help. If ONE single adult had had the intelligence to think, "hey, there's smoke and fire- lets get the kids" nobody would be in this position right now. The kids would have been outside playing, the firefighters and father wouldn't be injured. The parents wouldn't be sitting in hospital room... It is just beyond my ability to understand how, why, what the hell they, especially the nanny was thinking. She knew the house was on fire. She knew, and she left them inside to follow the dad out and show him, without the kids? Why? Just....why? I understand that in an emergency it can be hard to think clearly. truly, I do. But even taking that into account the lack of any common sense whatsoever displayed here is atrocious and sad. I hope that everyone involved comes out of it with as little negative effect as possible. But to think of the kids who suffered the most in all of this, it is impossible to not feel any anger at the adults involved who behaved so stupidly. |
Anonymous
Great-thanks for the clarification-have you spent one minute wondering how the children were doing?-try doing that instead of spending hours blaming others. Might be a little more constructive. |
Anonymous
This is exactly how I feel. I just don't get how this could have happened. People talk about how mistakes happen. Well, THESE types of mistakes shouldn't. They really shouldn't. I think the lack of working smoke detectors is unbelievably stupid, but what really gets me is that the father and nanny didn't immediately go in to get their children. That just isn't excusable. Unfortunately, the people who are paying the price are the poor children and of course their family (father included), but I still don't get it. |
Anonymous
| Actually, unless you've been in an emergency you really can't understand how difficult it can be to think clearly. The nanny saw smoke, not fire, and may have felt that it was something minor. She may have - in an instant - calculated where the bedrooms were and where the smoke was and decided enough distance existed between the two. She could have seen smoke at a previous job/house and it turned out to be nothing, influencing how alarmed she was this time. Let me say, I've been in a house fire (with fire alarms going off, which is also disorienting): you have about five seconds to get it right - your judgement, that is - and no second chances. The only way to know for certain what to do - and what you would do in such a situation - is to practice. But a blind fold over your eyes and a towel over your mouth (literally) and practice getting out. And have absolute rules - when you see any smoke, however minor, tell everyone to get out and meet on the sidewalk, for e.g. But these are lessons learned the hard way. How many of you have such a plan? |
Anonymous
Agreed. And this was said tongue in cheek. But I do think it's really bad karma to be so judgmental and to kick someone when they're down. |