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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to go out to communal garden and leave baby in flat?

130 replies

curiouskitten · 02/08/2011 21:33

Name changed as I'm not sure if this will leave me in line for a flaming.

I live in a small block of flats. Communal garden at back. WIBU to go out into garden with baby monitor while baby is asleep in the evening? She is a good sleeper. Flat is very secure, fire alarms fitted.

Wondering what the general consensus is here? I will listen to mumsnet opinion.

OP posts:
IwishIwasmoreorganised · 02/08/2011 21:58

2nd floor - in that case I would.

If you'd said 4th or 5th I might have thought again!

Enjoy the lovely British summer !!

RabbitPie · 02/08/2011 21:58

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

vividgingerchilli · 02/08/2011 22:01

I would with a ground floor flat but not with any other.

festi · 02/08/2011 22:02

yes make sure you have keys. although handsome firemen will always brighten up your night.

when I lived in a flat the young girl downstairs accidently let the door bang shut whilst she was putting pram down stairs, she had lay her week old baby on the sofa with cushions. she was so panick stricken it took me along time to persuade her that the baby was not likely to roll of but we must call the fire brigade, she had no one with a key etc and we couldnt get hold of anyone with a ladder, she didnt want to call them as she thought they would call ss. I had to convince her 1 they wouldnt and 2 ss qwould not be overly interested anyway, after 40mins I said im sorry im calling them it will all be fine. they were awsome. but yes as Quietness said make sure you have your keys. that is the only difference from going in your own garden.

lechatnoir · 02/08/2011 22:04

Blimey I would without a thought

blackeyedsusan · 02/08/2011 22:05

I wouldn't... but our bedrooms are one floor further up.

can you leave the bottom access door open? in a house you would not have 2 locked doors between you and baby. it just feels wrong to me even though I can see the logic of it being the same as a town house. i do go down to the bins if ds is asleep, leaving both doors or at least the bottom door open so i know i am not being that logical.

Maryz · 02/08/2011 22:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
curiouskitten · 02/08/2011 22:36

thank you for the opinions. Keys are needed to lock my front door so won't be forgetting them! Look forward to time in the garden in this sweltering weather.

OP posts:
wearenotinkansas · 02/08/2011 23:32

I wouldn't - but then I'm slightly neurotic about these things.

MumblingRagDoll · 02/08/2011 23:35

Can the door or window to the building be accessed without you noticing?

RitaMorgan · 02/08/2011 23:36

People steal babies out of their cots all the time. 10 a day I heard.

WilsonFrickett · 02/08/2011 23:37

I would double check that the monitor works first - sometimes they can be a bit flaky if they go through too many walls. And if it did work then I would say 'yay' and get out there!

bellabelly · 02/08/2011 23:43

MAke sure you have a (working) smoke alarm in the flat, just in case. That way, you would hear it on the monitor. V v unlikely but housefires do happen (probably rather more often than baby-snatching, even by those pesky eagles) and people can sometimes be overcome by fumes before they wake up. Grim, I know but having lived through a housefire (this was pre-kids, thank god), I am now mega-evangelical about smoke alarms.

Bubbaluv · 03/08/2011 05:28

Rita - it's not people, it's the eagles!!
Pelicans are worse though - they just swallow them whole! Every adult male pelican eats 4 babies per day.
The only responsilble thing for the OP to do is to sit in the garden with a bottle of wine and a sling-shot to ward off the birds.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 03/08/2011 06:52

YANBU... I've always liked gardening in the summer evenings after DS is in bed. It's a very big garden but his bedroom window opens onto it so I could hear him if he cried. Of course you can sit outside with a baby monitor.... you'll go mad feeling like you're a prisoner in your own flat.

cumbria81 · 03/08/2011 07:12

it's absolutely fine. No different from your own garden (which it is).

EuphemiaMcGonagall · 03/08/2011 07:21

Sweltering weather. Envy

Chickenruby · 03/08/2011 07:43

I used to leave mine and sit in my neighbours house with the baby monitor, it was a semi and we had no dividing wall in the garden. My theory, right or wrong was I could've been in the garage, the shed, the bottom of the garden.

OrangeHat · 03/08/2011 07:47

I would. YANBU

Whatmeworry · 03/08/2011 07:51

I would. Just put eagle bars in the windows first :o

seeker · 03/08/2011 07:53

You also have to remember that the baby might climb out of the cot and try to make itself some chips. I know people will say this couldn't happen, but you really can't be too careful.

And I heard that the eagles are actually trained by international rings of baby snatchers- there was an article about it in the Daily Mail a while ago........

EdithWeston · 03/08/2011 07:53

I think it's like going into your own garden.

You do need to check your smoke alarm works (but you'd do that anyhow) and conduct a proper test of the baby monitor (so you're not accidentally sitting is a dead zone).

If other posts have made you concerned that someone who might harm a child might surveille and exploit your presence/absence then avoid setting up a predictable pattern: eg do not go out at the same time, every day, or for the same length of time each time. Call the police with any actual suspicions.

And try not to worry about accidents - if they're so quiet a baby monitor doesn't pick them up, you'd never have heard them indoors either.

lovemyboysandbeagles · 03/08/2011 07:56

When I first read the title I thought NO WAY.......but after reading all the other posts and if it is only as far as going into your back garden and the monitor is on I don't see why not.

I remeber when DS1 was a baby sitting outside in my front garden (I only had a yard at the back at that time) in the summer with my neighbour, DS1 was in the room at the front of the house and I could hear him and had the monitor on, so it seems this would be no different.

If on the other hand it was a flat at the back of the block or higher up and maybe a bit further than just going into the garden, that would be a different matter.

Chandon · 03/08/2011 08:14

I would.

And have done so.

Even in hotels.

abroad.

It is called "calculated risk". I.e. the chance of anything happening (mad baby thiefs, eagles, exploding chip pans) is VERY small. Some people, influenced my media scaremongering, think nobody should take any risks EVER at all though.

Yes your neighbour could be a chip pan maniac who has been waiting for YEARS for this chance to abduct your baby and run off, setting the chip pan on fire, whilst first and skillfully having disabled your baby monitor.

But really?

If baby is bigger and there is a risk of him climbing out of bed there are more possible problems so I'd be more cautious.

Whatmeworry · 03/08/2011 08:17

Bugger I forgot about the Pelicans, they can pick front door locks with those beaks. Tacks on the hall carpet too then.....

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