To leave Dd alone in hotel room?

[Shelby2010]

More of a WWYD really. We are going to be staying with Dd (18mths) in a hotel next month on holiday & then overnight for a wedding in July. How safe do MNetters feel it is to leave their sleeping DC in the room with either the listening service or a normal baby monitor while eating in the hotel restaurant or attending an evening reception?

Am I being very PFB to worry about how many members of staff could access the room (especially with programable card keys)? The fact that hotels do offer a listening service suggests that many parents are ok with this. I'm torn between thinking I'm paranoid and thinking that they always tell you not to leave valuables in you room except in the safe..... Help!

DH and I have done it with DD during dinner at a Christian conference centre where our room was very close and also at mum's 60th birthday at a very small hotel where we had all the rooms, we were also very close to the reception room. We use an iPhone app that listens for DD and rings DH's mobile, the call is connected so we can hear her. One of us also went back every 20-30 mins and we were only a couple of hours before we went to bed ourselves (much less at dinner at the conference, maybe 45mins tops). It's a risk but we also travel long distances in the car with DD which is a risk too.

I wouldn't do it at a big hotel or where there's lots of people we don't know, or where our room was miles away, so we often either leave DD with PIL or politely decline invites. I also wouldn't leave DD all night, she usually stays up late (until about 9pm) and I'm off to bed about 11pm (teetotal!).

I suspect that I will get jumped on for this but....

has it not occurred to anyone who does leave their child, that by including them in social events, late dinners, a late evening in a taverna etc makes them far more able to deal with them when they are older? My friend had the "bed at 7pm, no excuses" wherever they were in the world or what was going on. That was fine but it meant that when they came to my wedding and the DD was 5, she was VILE. She didnt know how to behave at dinner, she was unbearable in the evening and why? Because she had never done it before.

My lot have had their share of late nights, discos and doing the "peter kay skid" on the dance floor and are fine! I think its because they have been used to doing it since being babies.

Its not the main reason I take them with me, thats because we are a family and we want to spend time together, but it is a nice side effect.

i was quoted £80 for a babysitter and believe me we phoned around trying to get a better deal, we afforded the hotel by the skin of our teeth, scrimping and saving as it was for my sisters wedding and the food was paid for by my parents, my mum paid for the babysitter in the end as she didnt want dp and myself to miss out :)

at my cousins wedding my room was literally a min or two from the party, so i left two sleeping children and used the baby moniter, having checked it worked and checked the room was childproof incase one of them woke, which would have been very unlikely anyway. then me, my mum and my dad took it in turns every 15-20 mins to nip back and check on them, they were fine. like i said it all depends on the circumstances, the hotel, how big it is, how far away your room is, is the room safe, does your moniter work, are your children likely to wake etc.

i can understand that some parents dont want to do it, fine but i wont be told i am a neglectful parent for doing it.

OP back again

Thanks again for all the opinions - certainly didn't expect to get quite so many! I did respond yesterday but that was way back on pages 4 & 5, so has probably been missed by many.... And I decided not to leave her.

Thank you particularly to theRhubarb for common sense & Monkeymoma for the inside info.

To answer a few of the questions directed at me:

1. Wedding is friends rather than family so unfortunately no grannies to babysit & too far from home to leave her behind.
2. Have no problem paying for a babysitter but DD would freak out completely if she woke up to find a stranger there. And I would not be comfortable leaving her with someone I didn't know.
3. If she did wake up there is no way she could get out of the travel cot & she has never been worried about waking up in a strange place (ie friends' or family's houses) as long as she has her teddy bear. So am less worried about this aspect.
4. Fire wasn't something I had seriously considered as most fatalities are due to lack of smoke detectors & I don't think they build hotel staff burly enough to stop me or DH getting back to the room. However it is a valid concern.
5. Have no problem changing her routine, but she does turn into a demon from hell get a little cranky when over tired. Hopefully being in new exciting circumstances will mitigate this & she will be dancing til 11pm.
6. Will try to get her to sleep in her buggy, but she hasn't done this for months and is likely to object to the idea quite strenuously - but more than willing to try it!

I think the main deciding factor against leaving her is the security issue of the rooms, who's got a key etc and the fact that my monitor probably won't work that far away. I do feel a bit though at the poster (can't remember who) who stated that they 'judged me' for even asking the question. Thanks again tho to everyone else.

Exactly Bogeyface, get your children used to functions when young.
So what if they go to bed late once in a blue moon it actually teaches them how to behave and a little break in routine does no harm.
Some children sleep in pushchairs some dont but so what let them stay up late theyll probably enjoy it.
Unfortunetly when you sign up to be a parent you cant just go part time when you feel like it and leave them on their own just so you can have fun!

my children often do stay up late, and eat out and go to parties etc, you can do both so get them in bed by 9pm, use the moniter and then have a couple of hours yourself to unwind :)

if you're alway in a hotel as opposed to self catering, then you would have had to GO somewhere for your DCs dinner, then you go out for dinner again? why now all have dinner together? wouldn't that free up more time and money for chilling out and enjoying your holiday?

we have dinner a bit late for DS but a bit early for us when we're away. its nice we all enjoy being out for dinner together, getting him fed and put to sleep just to get ourselves ready to get out and get fed sounds far to rushed for a holiday!

not all babies and children enjoy staying up late, some just get overtired and miserable, really miserable.

I agree bogeyface . If we were more inclusive of our kids in the way of the Italians, French and so on, maybe we would learn to enjoy them as part of the social scene and they would learn too. I take my ds to weddings and don't care about routine too much, far nicer he has a memory bank of great family occasions. Granted a toddler is too young to care but in a year or so they do start to really join in and learn how to behave in social situations.

Have let husband know that we might as well get divorced, since we have no desire to spend every waking moment together with DS for 2 weeks. He noted that he didn't remember anything about no longer being an individual person with our own needs in our marriage vows, but if MN has decided, then we might as well call the lawyer.

All of this is about calculated risk; risks you might take every day with your child I would never dream of taking. To me, leaving a child in a locked hotel room, while they sleep, with a monitor on, is fine. Of course there are risks, whats to say that some drunken party guest wont vomit on/spill a drink on/fall over and land on your pram? And yeah, not a chance in hell of my DS sleeping in his pram at a wedding reception. He would be awake, and overtired, and screaming. Fun times all round.

The accusations of neglect flying around here are ridiculous. This kind of thing is why a lot of people think MN is populated by overbearing harpies. Fine, you wouldn't leave your kid in a hotel room as you judge it to be too risky. Calling people who would chose to do it unfit parents?! An over reaction of epic proportions.

Just do a risk assessment.

If there's a fire, how would you get your DD out? If your room is near the restaurant anyway, it may not be much different from being in a large family house. If it's a long way from where you will be, then you may want to get a sitter in.

Are you nervous about intruders? A listening service will rapidly tell you if someone is in the room, and you can download an iPhone app that would provide extra backup to a hotel system. If someone got in the room, what would you be able to do? Again, this comes down to entrance and exit routes and your distance from the room.

If your DD woke up, would she be frightened? How quickly could you sprint to the room to see to her?

If all of those things can be sorted in your own mind, then by all means leave her. Any doubts, then get a sitter in or keep her up late with you.

we have no desire to spend every waking moment together with DS for 2 weeks

I find that really sad :(

Not sure if MonkeyMoma's query was to me and I wasn't very clear in my post. DD was 6mo at the conference and wouldn't settle at all with all the noise at dinner, lots of crying and jiggling & being passed between DH and I, so I popped her to bed so we could eat without disturbing everyone else. Room was 30secs away and secure. Unfortunately dinner time was dictated by the conference schedule so DD was massively overtired. We would usually eat early etc. Lots of parents were in the same boat that weekend :(

Submitted too soon,
meant to say

Isnt the whole point of a holiday that it gives you a chance to spend 2 weeks as a family with nothing getting in the way? No work, docs appointment, housework, in laws, outlaws etc.

The fact that you have "no desire" to give your child 2 solid weeks really saddens me.

Sad that someone would want an hour or two to themselves? Or that a couple might want a couple of hours of time together in a separate room to their baby/child? There's no medals awarded in parenting, it's not a crime to say that you need a sanity break. Having aholiday is supposed to be a break for everyone. If I went on holiday and had to spend every minute, or every day with my husband and baby, I would come back AND NEED A HOLIDAY!

Fair enough, my lot would keep going until midnight and just sleep later the next day (which is handy!) :o

But easily that is part and parcel of having kids. Not judging you, I have 3 dcs and believe me after 2 weeks away I feel I need a holiday on my own! But I accept that I chose to have children, so we holiday/go to functions/whatever as a family. I have can time to myself at other outside of these time

Also, I spend every day with him anyway. I enjoy spending time with him, and my with my husband. But yes, I need a little bit of time on my own, and a little bit of time with my husband to enjoy being a couple.