I believe that the McCann's were referenced only in the leaving of their children in the home alone while they dined 100 yards away at a restaurant.
Thank you Debs for clarifying that in my absence. And yes, my comment made the point that the professional and well-educated McCanns clearly had a habit, acceptable to them and their group of similarly well-educated and 'respectable' friends, of leaving their very young children unattended for hours at a time.
When their daughter turned up "stolen" *cough cough*, they said someone went and checked on them every 20 minutes, although from the quantity of alcohol drunk, I'd be very impressed if they actually kept tabs on the time that precisely.
When they were questioned in detail about the "checking in on the kids", who and when and how, iirc some of those times were simply "listening in through the closed door", not actually seeing them, and not hearing anything,
assuming they must be fine and dandy. Sometime in there, with only 20 minutes supposedly between checkers, a child turned up missing.
So, my comment makes the point that there ARE more people than most of us would want to believe that find it acceptable to leave sleeping children unattended. A young child can choke to death, fall off a balconey or stairs, scald themselves, break a bone jumping off furniture, kill another child, ingest poisons or medications, or burn up in a fire in far less than 20 minutes.
The drugging them to get them to sleep and stay asleep has been brought up in a number of cases and test results on hair samples to determine long term abuse, IF they were done, have never been released to the public. As far as I know, that is true for Caylee Anthony, Madeleine McCann, and Haleigh Cummings.
I'm sorry, Elle, if this post caused you distress; it was not intended to in any way. My love and concern is with the children who have no voice or power of their own and need others to be that voice so their odds of living to see adulthood are better.