Would you let your baby sleep in another room at wedding

[nellly]

Hello all, this is far in the future but you know, it's lockdown, not much else to do but think!

Brother and Sil are getting married next spring (2022) we are expecting our first baby this year who will be 8/9 months at time of wedding.

It's a small wedding in a 14 bedroom country house, only family staying over, sil suggested we can have the room down the hall from the reception space and baby can sleep and we can just keep baby monitor with us.

We obviously don't have kids yet so not sure if this is ok? Or will it work? Would you have felt comfortable with this at that age?

House will be locked and is rural, far from other buildings. Only family staying and baby will be in travel crib approx 20ft down a hall from parents eating and chatting, we're not big drinkers?

No I'd keep baby with me in pram- most likely they'll sleep. Mine definitely would have.

Yes I think you could make it work, don't rule it out just yet.

I would hire a babysitter for the evening. I used to work for a nanny service that offered babysitting in hotels (exclusively 4 and 5 star hotels). I'd sit in the room whilst the parents were downstairs for dinner/party/whatever the event was. Sometimes I'd put the children to bed, other times I'd arrive and they'd already be asleep. It will allow you to fully relax and enjoy the evening. Agree with the comment above about speaking with the staff. One of the staff might do it (providing they can provide DBS) or they might have contacts with local nurseries who have staff that do it as an extra income, I've had hotel babysitting jobs through that route too. You can probably expect to pay around the £10 an hour mark, depending on where you are (though I haven't done it for a while, so rates might have gone up, but a local nursery nurse would bite your arm off for that). Just factor it into your budget for the weekend.

When DS1 was 14 months, we went to a wedding with a similar scenario. Small country House hotel that we had exclusive use of. Very rural. My ILs lived 40 minutes away and weren't going so we stayed with them the night before the wedding, left around lunchtime to go to the hotel to get ready, leaving DS with them and got back at lunchtime the next day. It was the first time he'd been without both of us and I didn't fully relax until I'd spoken to FIL just after his bedtime and was told he was asleep (he was an excellent sleeper, so I knew then he was down for 12 hours). Friends of ours took their 3 week old to the wedding and she went back to the room straight after the meal (we are a close group but I'm still amazed that they made the journey, they live in Kent and the wedding was in Shrewsbury!)

None of those things you can guarantee in a place you do not live and whilst freak accidents happen, why would you not at least try and reduce the risk?

By that logic you’d never spend the night in a hotel at all if you don’t trust their basic safety procedures.

In terms of the risk in the event of a fire, I think the risk of a serious fire occurring during an evening when people are awake which prevented you getting back to a room 20ft away is vanishingly small. Not to say there is no risk or that risk wouldn’t be smaller if you were sitting awake in the same room as the baby. But it’s such a small additional risk I would personally be happy to take it in order to participate in the wedding (assuming the baby wasn’t one of those that was equally happy to be asleep in a bassinet amongst the party hubbub).

I wouldn’t think worse of someone who wouldn’t leave a baby in the room, or worse of someone who would. We all have a things that make us uncomfortable as parents. I have my own things that I am very risk averse about, which probably aren’t are rational balancing of the risks. If OP isn’t comfortable leaving the baby in the room when it comes to it that’s completely fine.

@Fuckadoodledoooo

We had sil try to push this on us when Dd was a baby. It was a no from me. I co slept anyway, so I don't know how she thought Dd was going to magically go to sleep on her own.

Dd didn't sleep until 9:30 - I would've taken her to the room at 9 Ish. This was deemed unacceptable.

In the end me and Dd stayed at home.

I might be thick but why was 9 deemed unacceptable? And did your SIL know you coslept?

For context, we coslept but son was more than happy to sleep on his own once he was asleep.

I went abroad and stayed with a friend, and put him to sleep at night whilst we were in and out on the porch all night, every night without a monitor. He was okay, even with people who were strangers to me, but her friends.

You haven't met your baby yet, could be out like a light or could be glued to you all the time. You can't decide now. Either way I would personally put him/her in a carry cot on a pram and keep them with me.

@Bigheaded oh she knew... Dh family have issues with it. They were always trying to take Dd for the night to "get her in her own bed"

I've got another Dd now, 6 months, co sleeping again and I'm getting the same. Only now they are blaming lockdown on them not being able to help out and "get this one out of it" too. Despite me and Dh repeatedly saying it's our choice. And despite the fact that older Dd is 7 now and not spent a night with any of them.

9 was unacceptable as she didn't want anyone leaning early.

Dd was 7 months at the time and rolling everywhere in her sleep so I didn't feel safe leaving her.

*leaving early. Dh said she went bonkers when a couple of people left around tennish as there were fireworks at 11.

No I wouldn't risk is ever. You can't trust what's going to happen. Madeline McCann and all that. Even if it's 0.1 of a risk I wouldn't take it.

Absolutely, unequivocally no chance.

Yes, I have done similar. I would only do it with a video monitor so I could clearly see my child and in very small hotels/B and Bs.

Both of mine went down well in their cot and didn't tend to wake in the early part of the night.