Are some people stupid

I agree with Dai the baby p affair was disgusting and these are people that are paid to do the job they are in,
How many more of these c-ck ups before another innocent child is lost

 

PG said it a long time ago. "I'd be happy to have a pint with anyone on the site"

 

I sometimes find it hard to write the way I feel.
I write it with one meaning and reading it back it can look to mean something else.
Thats why I tend to use so many smilies. :o

 

Ok. I started off with the view that this was tragic incident where nobody is any more blameworthy than anybody else, just that this time the mistakes led to a tragic loss of life.

Given the latest news report. I change my view. I now believe that the granny was both stupid and negligent.

Until now I had been assuming that the baby was supervised, and the dogs just flipped out without warning.

Two new pieces of info have come to light. Firstly, the granny was asleep when it happened. It is quite OK for a baby sitter to sleep if the baby is asleep in the same room, provided that any animals have been secured outside that room and the baby is in a safe environment like a cot or moses basket, but you don't go to sleep while there are animals in the same room as a baby.

Secondly, and this bit left me mortified, the baby had been placed on a large pillow on a dining table. Who in their right mind would do that? Is it not common knowledge that babies wriggle and squirm a fair bit in their sleep, and more so when they wake? Apparently when the granny woke up, after the attack, the baby had been "taken from the table, apparently by the two dogs, and sustained serious injuries". Or the baby had wriggle on his large pillow and fell from the table before the dogs attacked. We will probably never know, but to leave a baby on a pillow on a table and allow yourself to fall asleep is horrendous, let alone all this while there are animals present in the same room.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7887994.stm

I reiterate, that I really feel for the family, but in light of what has now been reported, it is difficult not to feel angry at the granny.

 

Was the baby on the table or was he on the cushion on the floor?
My daughter had two bean bags when her twins were tiny and they would sleep on them on the floor in the day.
She as no pets.
It's now common practice to do this.

 

From the way the news article is worded, it seems quite clear that the baby was on the table.

I see no problem with babies being placed on a matt or cushion on the floor, where if they manage to throw themselves over the furthest they are going to go is an inch or so onto the carpet, but on a dining table? That is just plain silly.

I can't help but wonder if the dogs did go up onto the table to attack the baby, or if the baby fell, wriggled, and made noise. As anyone who knows dogs will know, small, noisy, wriggly things can invoke some fairly wild instincts in dogs. If you shake an old rag or a piece of rope in front of a dog, if it is in the right mood, you will start a game of tug of war in which the dog will lock on and do its utmost to get the rag or rope off you. To humans, this is a bit of fun with a pet dog. The instinct that drives a dog to play tug of war comes from the instinct to wrestle over food in the wild.

 

Babies should be on the floor or secured in a cot, if the baby ( which at three months is questionable) managed to wiggle enough to fall off the table then a miracle has occured during a tragedy. It certainly sounds as if she put the baby on the table thinking that would protect it from the dogs-which means she KNEW they weren`t safe with the baby.

And another point, surely it is the mothers prerogative to catch a few winks whilst a new baby is asleep during the day? How knackered can an occasional babysitter actually get to need a nap?

The dogs attacked because they are predators, nothing special ocurred, the baby didn`t wriggle too much or make too much noise, it was a dog attack caused by negligence.

 

I don't know about that, I have only been a dad now for four weeks. What I do know is that my 4 week old son wriggles a lot, has enough strength in his arms, legs and back to move slightly (doing a kind of caterpillar/worm impression) when laid on his front on his gymn. If he continues to develop his muscles at the rate he has done so far, then I reckon that by 14 weeks he will be more than capable of wriggling his way off a pillow. We know nothing about the positioning of the pillow on the table, or the size of the table, but could it not be possible that if the baby manages to roll down the pillow, they could continue more or less under momentum to the edge of the table and off?

Possibly. If that is the case then it was still silly anyway. Unless we had some remarkable mutant climbing dogs that were like no other, then I would say dogs are perfectly capable of getting up onto tables. Usually the only thing that stops them doing so is that they simply can't be bothered.

Fair point, but if my mum was looking after my little son, I would have no problem with her having a nap provided that she made sure my son was safe and happy in his moses basket first.

 

Thats why I said , was he on the table.
If he was ,surely she would have heard the dogs climbing onto the table and chairs, if the baby fell off the table wouldn't he of cried.

Maybe she put the baby on the floor with the dogs in the house and made up the table story to try to cover her stupidity.
It all seems a bit strange to me.

 

Now I must disagree with you there, if I was responsible for someone elses baby then I would take that responsibility seriously, at the very least by supervising the child at all times and not having a nap. Anyone who needs a nap in the afternoon isn`t fit to occasionally babysit in my own opinion. ( Harsh perhaps, but with MY kids it`s MY rules-they are too important to me to allow anything other than black and white).

My eldest is about to turn 15, I was 20 when I had him, never even so much as babysat a baby before ( why on earth would you?-at least that was my mind at the time), but even dense old me knew that babies can fall. I never even had him on the couch I was that paranoid. He slept on his changing mat on the floor during the day, or was taken and put in his cot upstairs when he got older. You can`t take any risks with kids-it isn`t worth it.


This woman has no excuse, she was a gran so she had already brought up one of this baby`s parents at least. She would have known full well that a baby left on a table at any time is disastrous.

She weighed it up in her own mind and determined that there was a greater risk of dog attack than there was of a falling baby, yet at the same time she cared so little for the possible consequences of either catastrophe that she then had a kip.

And this story is to try to absolve her conscience. She can`t.

Prison.

PS just quickly re read what I wrote about the baby on the table not being able to wriggle off-wasn`t thinking, just angry about her behaviour-O course babies can wriggle off tables.

 

Was it afternoon I thought it happened at midnight.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/08/baby-attacked-bull-terrier

 

Just get`s more and more intriguing, I thought it happened during the day.

If it was at night where were the parents? Out clubbing it! (Sorry that was below the belt).

 

I think the baby was staying the week end.
Nothing wrong with that, I have my grandchildren stay over to give my daughter and her husband a break
and I love to have them.
They don't go clubbing, just have a nice quiet night in together.

 

I don't think we can be judge and jury on this tragedy for one we do not know all the facts,lots of people keep dogs but haven't a clue the nature of the beasts,lots of people also bring up children and haven't a clue how to do this either put the two together and we end up with tragic incidents, this gran and all the family have to live this with this tragedy every day for the rest of their lives that is their prison sentence.

 

I totally agree with you walnut , yes the grand Mother was negligent but I'm sure she wishes with all her heart she could turn the clock back.
This was not a malicious act of child abuse.
It was a stupid accident coursed by not thinking and putting to much trust in her pets.
I feel for all the family.

Again this is the type of thing that you read about in the papers and see on the T.V , it's doesn't happen to you.
Very sad.