General Chat

In the instance I mentioned I suspect it was more the mothers lack of response or care in responding to the escaping child than the fact the child escaped.

My brother climbed out of his cot from a young age and was frequently found on the stairs.

What upset me most was that I have seen some of the worst of society and the damage it causes. An 8 year old who gets excited at the thought of dinner every night and clean clothes for school every day is heartbreaking and I can imagine the pain these children in the article suffered.

When my son was about 20 months old, i was pregnant with my daughter about 5 months on.
I had stair gates fitted to the kitchen door into the porch so i could keep the front door open as it was summer and no worries of son opening it!

So I told him i was going to the loo and wouldnt be a minute. Whilst on the loo, i heard a noise and looked out the bathroom blinds only to see my son running out of the main gate which he had climbed over!! The gate was 4 ft tall.
I hurried as fast as i could as he was now on the road and just saw him, disappear into the neighbours drive. She saw him and said"how did u get out"?

I piped up and said, "think his name is houdini". He said he wanted to see the boy, the youngest next door to play.He could chat quite well at an early age.

Thankfully no cars or tractors were about as it was mid summer and usually very busy. He showed me how to unlock the stairgate and how he climbed up the gate, lifted the heavy chain over the pole and pulled the bolt back. I was astonished, but he had been watching his dad and obviously was a quick learner.

Blood pressure eventually returned to normal and unborn child was none the wiser.

florence in the hebrides

Similar here with my children.

Both walked early - son from around 10 months by pulling himself up - but he moved around for a couple of weeks holding onto furniture. Daughter, however, pulled herself up onto a sofa at 10 mnths 2 wks, looked around, grinned and promptly walked across the room with a smile that said 'Look Mum, no hands.' She never held onto anything when walking and it was a job to get her to hold my hand.

Son unscrewed the wing nuts on the side of his old cot (which I was given) so was put into a bed at 15/16 months old. Previous to that he had used the handles of a set of drawers to climb up onto the top of them.

Daughter climbed over the top of her new cot and was greeting me at the door in the morning so was put into a bed at 13 months old.

Both were climbers. Trees were easy but when I caught them on the roof of the house (a bungalow, I hasten to add) it meant I had to watch them like hawks.

It was nothing unusual to see kids on top of the roof of the school opposite us (a one-storey building) even though they got into trouble for it.

I think there are (and always have been) a lot of naturally adventurous and inquisitive kids around - judging from my younger grandson during lockdown.

I have to say my older brother and I were pretty similar in attitude - but he did fall off the roof of a derelict two-storey house, breaking his collarbone when he was around 10.

That said, I do like lively children. They don't half keep you on your toes! :-D

My eldest was climbing out of the cot at 9 months.
She then slept on a mattress on the floor!

At 9 months our son learnt to undo his cot and climb out so we made sure he couldn't undo it - found him dangling from his cot. For safety's sake we bought bunk beds and put him in the bottom bed, hiding the ladder and jamming the edge of the other mattress just under the bottom bed so if he fell out he landed on it.

Our daughter born 4 years after son was so placid she hardly moved for months. She always behaved herself - years later said she behaved because she saw all the trouble son got into and that he never won. She couldn't be bothered with all the hassle :-D

My son was quite laid back, I never need to pull the side of his cot up because he was quite content to wait for me to come and get him, but what he did do was scream and cry whenever I as on the phone (land line) which caused whoever I was talking to to call the police because she thought I as hitting him which in hind sight wasn't a bad thing to do because it could have true.

I was an escape artiste, and very feral!
When we lived in Malta, we were on the ground floor of a house, and, due to the heat, the door was left open.
To stop me escaping, my parents put a huge trunk in front of the door - that didn't stop the under 2 years old me! I was regularly brought home by strangers.

I also used to climb on the stone windowsill, swat flies and feed them to the cat, who was sat there with me. These flies were to placate him for when I dressed him up and put him in my dolls pram - which he hated, so I was also covered in scratches.

Once I could talk, I would escape, and go around knocking on people's doors, asking for' black' bread. Apparently, one of the neighbours taught me how to ask in Maltese :-S
I wasn't starved, I just preferred it to the 'Mother's Pride' my mum bought.

As a 10 year old in Cornwall, the group I went around with - in the days when you disappeard all day, but had to be back for tea - would regularly jump off a cliff onto the beach. We carefully avoided the rocks!
I was on the beach with my parents once, when a couple of climbers got stuck climbing the cliff we jumped off, and a rescue helicopter was called.
I casually said, 'she' could just drop safely from where she was, as there were no rocks below her. He'd need to go to the right.
Dad was impressed at my knowledge of the rocks. When he found out we'd been jumping from the cliff, I was given a severe telling off, and grounded :-(

I would also regularly 'escape' when a child, go outside and walk around until I found a dark place,
I did it until I had children.
I just found it relaxing to find a place with no fake light, and sit there.
In Shetland, it was heaven!
When I was 16, on my search for a dark place, I was knocked over by David Bowie!

My son was an escape artist and at 18 months could open both back and front doors. Many a day we heard him outside playing on his sit on cars at 6 am, a quick grab of a dressing gown for a quick retrieve of son.

We eventually convinced him he mustn't go out of the doors without us so he opened the window in the sitting room and lowered himself down after dropping out his sit on car.

He stopped that but the following year got out of a bedroom window and then found he could climb the garden fence as he wanted to go to the nearby swing park.

You had to try to watch him all the time he was awake. How quick was he - I once was hanging up his sheets in the garden and to start with he was by my side. Up went the sheets and when I looked round he'd was out of the garden, running towards the swing park. :-S

He survived and now laughs when reminded of it and says he was a good escape and evade child :-D :-D

They did indeed, Elizabeth.

In the ‘olden days’ when people left children asleep in their prams outside shops, I know of a couple of people who came out and started to go home, leaving their babies behind!

I was not one of them but what I found once was coming out of the shop and seeing our dog lying next to the pram my son was in. (He was a good guard dog.)

I was surprised because I’d left pooch in the back garden, as usual, and wheeled son to the shops (five minutes’ walk away).

That was when he and I’d learned he could jump fences about four feet high. I think we were both surprised.

dn't the Cameron s once leave their baby in a pub?

Whilst totally agreeing with everything Tawny said...some children even at such a young age can be an escape artist meaning you have to have high locks on doors etc. That's not the case here I'm sure as they could have shown they were attempting to keep the children safely home, but never underestimate the abilities of a child that really wants to get out.

You are absolutely correct, Tawny.

Allan that was being absent minded. This child apparently tried to run away at 21 months old. I have seen damaged children before and it breaks my heart to see children in that position. I can say from personal experience that it’s possible for a 21 month old to feel that pain and I was a loved and supported child. Removing a child’s teeth because of parental neglect and either being incapable of or refusing to learn how to be a parent….. I have brownies and I would give my life for those children. Watching them grow and change and achieve new things there is genuinely nothing like it. What I feel is a tenth of what a parent should feel. Bad parenting breaks my heart. I don’t have any children of my own but I’m a stepmother of four and I know in a heartbeat where I would be.

Well we left our son on a ship in Grimsby when he was a couple of weeks old :-D

The Captain, who was Norwegian and something of a friend, had asked if he could see him after I had been telling him (the Captain) all about the birth, as all proud new parents do.

After wetting the baby's head we just took off. :-0

Fortunately, we realised in time and somewhat shamefacedly went back to the ship just before it was due to return to Norway.

In Edinburgh Live today two parents have now lost custody of their two children aged 5 and 7 and they will now be adopted. The parents put up barriers and lied to social services to try and avoid the children being permanently removed. The children were first placed in foster care after the younger child then 21 months old disappeared from the family home and the mother was totally unaware.

How can your baby disappear out the door and you be completely unaware?????