to leave dd asleep in her cot

[Rhubarbgarden]

while I nip to the hospital to collect my friend after her op?

I'm pretty sure I won't do this in the end but I'm curious to see if others would be tempted or if it is as big a no no as I think.

I live over the road from a hospital. Friends are always using our drive to park in when they have hospital appointments. I'm happy to help them avoid the high parking charges.

One particular friend has regular appointments there and has had a series of quite major knee operations. She always comes to visit before or after and it's a great excuse to catch up as she lives some distance away.

She's having a relatively minor op this morning to remove pins, and as she had to be there very early this morning she stayed here overnight last night. Now although I say relatively minor, it's under GA and when she checked in first thing they told her she must be collected by someone afterwards and even though it's only 5 mins walk to this house, they won't let her leave on her own.

Obviously I'm happy to go and pick her up; the only snag is that this is likely to coincide with dd's lunchtime nap. Dd is clockwork in her naps and is highly unlikely to wake up during the 2 hours she's down. On the rare occasions she does, she just babbles to herself and plays with her toys till I go get her. I usually finish what I'm doing first.

So would it really be bad parenting to leave her asleep in her cot while I dash to the hospital and back to collect my friend? I would only be gone ten mins. Really truly?

the reason the errands took up to 5 minutes is so that I could have a cigarette.

But ldkr, if you worked full time then surely it was someone else with your babies during most days and you could get on with your errands then? I get more done during my hours lunch break on the days I am working then I do the rest of the week...

peekaboard I dont really get your point there tbh. Yes i could pop a letter in the post if i was on my way to work (dont get lunch breaks in mental health) but thats precisely my point,i scheduled things into my day when i didnt have the children in bed or napping,therefore not needing to do it at an inconvienient moment. Yes the children were sometimes "with someone else" when i worked,isnt that what most people do when they work?

There is a difference between popping to the bin on your drive/garden and actively making a choice to leave your baby asleep in a cot alone in a house while you run an errand.

Im not going to bother keep justifying why its no right to leave baby alone cos it just isnt. The stories above should be enough to prove that.
If you want to take risks with your babies then go ahead,i just wouldnt.

I don't think I'd risk it to be honest. Although I'm also guilty for questionning such things myself!

I live in a 2nd floor flat (2 flights of stairs). I never dared leave DS at one point. However, it did become a PITA when I needed to take rubbish out etc. To do so means leaving him alone in the flat, going down 2 flights of stairs, out the building and round to the carpark where the outside bins are. This takes around 5 mins in total. I couldn't bring myself to do it for a good few months when I first moved in. However, it then became clear that it was much more of a risk to carry him and the bins down the stairs than it was to leave him so I now wait until he naps and do run that errand.

I have thoroughly risk assessed though and the whole flat is toddler friendly, should he wake and get up which is doubtful as I always time it for when he's just nodded off. The biggest concern would be IF he left the flat and those stairs would then be a huge danger to him. So, I ensure the door is locked when I leave. Locking the door obviously wouldn't be ideal should there be a fire but in those 5 minutes, that's highly unlikely and if it did occur I'd be back quickly enough to take action.

I suppose it's slightly different to going so far as your house being completely out of sight, but in terms of running to a postbox (as someone mentioned) which is close enough to be within sight, I fail to see the difference.

Well I've been a sahm for 4 years with no family support and not once have I HAD to leave either of my kids home alone. Posting letters and popping to the shop over the road are not things that are essential to be done at your childs nap time!

Exactly secret what the hell do people think happens at school run times. DD2 either sleeps in the pram or i wake her at 3 if she is sleeping.Its just not necessary.