A mother recounts an alarming incident where her mother-in-law, responsible for emergency childcare, picked up her sick child from daycare but neglected to properly secure him in the car seat. Despite previous training and access to assistance, the grandmother admitted to struggling with the straps and ultimately driving with the child improperly buckled.
When I returned to work six months after our youngest was born, our kids started at a daycare about a 10-minute drive away from home, halfway between our house and my husband’s work. I work 20 minutes from home in the opposite direction. My in-laws live just a couple of streets away from us and are retired, so they volunteered for emergency pick-up/childcare duty as needed.
We made sure they had an appropriate car seat available for each of our kids and went through with them how to properly strap the kids in. My mother-in-law can be extremely anxious when she encounters new situations, so she asked us to install the seats in her car so she’d be sure they were in properly. She regularly asks if she can strap/unstrap the kids to practice when we visit. She seemed to have it under control just fine.
Last week, we got a call that our youngest was sick. My husband was unable to leave work, so my MIL went to pick up our 10-month-old, who was vomiting and had a fever. I left work, planning to meet my MIL and son at my house, since I had a light workload I could complete from home. The timing worked; my MIL and I arrived at my house simultaneously. I went to get the baby out of her car, but my MIL kind of stepped between me and the car and said she would get him.
I talked to my husband about it when he got home from work and he said his mother had also already called him, crying, to apologize. I know sheshe just needs more practice, but it’s clear to me that this is just the latest example of what her anxiety won’t allow her to do. Over the last four months, she has buckled/unbuckled him at least 50 times, at her own request.
But I don’t think there’s any way that telling her this, after everything you’ve already told her, is going to make a difference in how she proceeds. You mention that you’re aware that she is “uninterested in treating/controlling” her anxiety.
Child Safety Car Seats Grandparents Emergency Care Parenting
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