TX - Luke Jacobson, 7 mos, dies in hot truck, Houston, 4 May 2012

[T4Tide]

I know this doesn't happen to negligent parents. However, almost every story I read it has happened to working parents. I know this will sound judgmental, and everyone has a story about how they "have to work," but this kind of accident happens because we, as humans, can only do so many jobs at once. Parenting is one of those jobs. It's not a hobby, or a side event to your "main" life. Instead of being preoccupied with what might or might not be going on at the paying job, we need to be preoccupied with what's going on at our more valuable job.

We need to slow down. We need to quit running the rat race. We need concentrate on one thing at a time instead of trying to meet so many demands. IMHO, we shouldn't be working an outside the home job if we are so sleep deprived and preoccupied that we can't parent cohesively. When the kids are older, we are more rested, and they are safely able to unbuckle themselves and exit the car if they are accidentally forgotten, then maybe we can return to work.

Better than a teddy bear, why not engage in a conversation with your child in the vehicle? Turn off the radio. Put down the phone, and talk to the child. If they are asleep, sing lullabies to them. It's hard to forget your baby when you are talking or singing to them.

JMHO

 

[JeannaT]

Then put your purse in a car seat. You are not going to forget your purse, are you? Or make a habit of always checking backseat of your car.
This ain't rocket science.

That's a REALLY good idea, jjenny, and not high tech at all, and doesn't require any retrofitting of anything. Parents, put your purse, or your cell phone right next to the baby seat. You won't be without that for more than 15 minutes before you notice it's missing, and then you could save your babies from cooking in the car.

For parents who swap out care of the baby, put your cell phone next to the car seat. It IS interesting, in this generation, that a phone would be sorely missed but a baby could go unnoticed for 8 hours. Sad, actually.

 

[Karmady]

Alot of posters have great suggestions, but the fact is that NO GOOD PARENT thinks there's any possibility that they will forget whether or not they dropped their child off at daycare. It't just completely beyond the realm of possibility until it actually happens, and then it's too late.

Imo, any person can habituate to anything to the point that this could happen. I've been taking life sustaining medication for my entire adult life. I forget to take it all.the.time. I decided that I'd be less likely to forget if I kept it in my purse because I'm in my purse (unlike my medicine cabinet) several times t/o the day. And that worked until I got used to seeing it in my purse. So now I don't even see it. And so on, and so on. I've never completely forgotten my child in a car. But there have been literally hundreds of times when I've had to remind myself whether or not they were even with me. All the days, and the routine, completely run together, and many days I couldn't tell you whether I dropped them off yesterday, today, or the day before yesterday.

I can't even imagine the hell that a parent who does this goes through. I'm sure that nothing I could say or do could possibly make that better or worse. And the baby is at peace. So I'm willing to let it go at that. jmo

 

[SkewedView]

I know this doesn't happen to negligent parents. However, almost every story I read it has happened to working parents. I know this will sound judgmental, and everyone has a story about how they "have to work," but this kind of accident happens because we, as humans, can only do so many jobs at once. Parenting is one of those jobs. It's not a hobby, or a side event to your "main" life. Instead of being preoccupied with what might or might not be going on at the paying job, we need to be preoccupied with what's going on at our more valuable job.

We need to slow down. We need to quit running the rat race. We need concentrate on one thing at a time instead of trying to meet so many demands. IMHO, we shouldn't be working an outside the home job if we are so sleep deprived and preoccupied that we can't parent cohesively. When the kids are older, we are more rested, and they are safely able to unbuckle themselves and exit the car if they are accidentally forgotten, then maybe we can return to work.

Better than a teddy bear, why not engage in a conversation with your child in the vehicle? Turn off the radio. Put down the phone, and talk to the child. If they are asleep, sing lullabies to them. It's hard to forget your baby when you are talking or singing to them.

JMHO

I'm not going to address the socio-economics that make two income households a necessity to earn enough to feed & clothe your children, other than to say that I sooo wish it were as easy & straightforward as you make it sound. I truly do. If only the earning power of the lower third had stayed at the levels of the 1950s.

As for your latter suggestion - that's what I do! I find it helps to keep me from zoning out too much when I'm driving, and keeps away the stereotypical 'I'm bored' comments. If my daughter is busy reading or drawing, then I have her sing to the music (she loves to sing), which keeps me in the here & now. I really am that paranoid about paying attention to my driving. That it also keeps me from going off track with regards to who's been dropped off/picked up etc...that's a nice bonus.

I also talk to my dog when there are no other humans in the car & he's acting as my copilot, for the same reasons. Luckily he gets excited to get out and explore as soon as I park my car, so I don't have to worry about forgetting him, but the talking does indeed help to keep his presence in the front of my mind, as a safety backup.

All JMO

 

[Donjeta]

Then put your purse in a car seat. You are not going to forget your purse, are you? Or make a habit of always checking backseat of your car.
This ain't rocket science.

Good ideas.

Actually I have forgotten my purse, and my cell phone, when I go to work several times, and I didn't always even miss them until the next day, and I also forget things that I try to make a habit of but the more safeguards there are in place the likelier it is that some of them will work.

But I don't think that people will fail to experience memory lapses if they just have enough will power.

 

[BrownRice]

I don't think any of these cases involve single parents - mostly married parents who switch the daycare drop off duty. Parents should get into the habit of texting/calling after drop off to the other parent - just a quick note to confirm. Sounds ridiculous I know but it would work.

 

[Lovejac]

I know this doesn't happen to negligent parents. However, almost every story I read it has happened to working parents. I know this will sound judgmental, and everyone has a story about how they "have to work," but this kind of accident happens because we, as humans, can only do so many jobs at once. Parenting is one of those jobs. It's not a hobby, or a side event to your "main" life. Instead of being preoccupied with what might or might not be going on at the paying job, we need to be preoccupied with what's going on at our more valuable job.

We need to slow down. We need to quit running the rat race. We need concentrate on one thing at a time instead of trying to meet so many demands. IMHO, we shouldn't be working an outside the home job if we are so sleep deprived and preoccupied that we can't parent cohesively. When the kids are older, we are more rested, and they are safely able to unbuckle themselves and exit the car if they are accidentally forgotten, then maybe we can return to work.

Better than a teddy bear, why not engage in a conversation with your child in the vehicle? Turn off the radio. Put down the phone, and talk to the child. If they are asleep, sing lullabies to them. It's hard to forget your baby when you are talking or singing to them.
JMHO

BBM

Best "reminder" I've heard yet. And very sweet, too.

 

[raeann]

I don't think any of these cases involve single parents - mostly married parents who switch the daycare drop off duty. Parents should get into the habit of texting/calling after drop off to the other parent - just a quick note to confirm. Sounds ridiculous I know but it would work.

Even more reliable is an alarm set on your phone to go off 30 minutes or so after arrival time at work....a loud annoying alarm that is set ONLY to remind the parent to review their morning routine and make sure all are safely at their destinations.

jmo

 

[T4Tide]

I was thinking... don't most babies have diaper bags? If the diaper bag is in the front seat, or near Mother's purse or Father's briefcase, it would be hard to overlook.

 

[pistolina]

One thing I think would eliminate most of these would be to have a procedure in place with the day care/babysitter that if the baby doesn't show up one day w/out notice for the provider to call both of the parents and keep calling the parents until they acknowledge it's an excused absence.

The above is excatly what my little ones Daycare does. If the child is more than 1 hour late with no call from the parent - they will start calling you until they reach someone. And that means everyone on your contact list. I don't know why all daycares don't do it.

 

[OkieGranny]

From May:

http://abc13.com/news/trying-to-save-children-from-hot-car-deaths/734885/

It's simply heartbreaking every time we hear of someone accidentally leaving a child in a car and the child dies. One local couple is sharing their story of how they lost their seven-month-old son in an effort to hopefully prevent another family from going through the same tragedy...

Leland Jacobson said, "I can't say how bad the struggle has been and it's been three years. There's nothing worse than doing something that will put your whole family in therapy"...

"Don't become judgmental. Don't assume it can't happen to you, because it can," Deannie Jacobson said. "We're normal people. We have normal jobs. And it happened to us."