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!

This has taken a strange turn even for mumsnet aibu!!

Some people get their kicks from wallowing in misery and martyrdom, and practically have an orgasm when they find something they can be reeeeeeaaaally self-righteous about. One of their giveaway tactics is an attempt to stop the merest mention of things they dislike in case it gives the lower orders ideas...

We have done it, but it was a very small hotel (more of a country pub B&B really) and we were no great distance away, and kept taking turns to nip upstairs, plus we had a monitor. It was fine. He was about 18 months old too. It was years ago though - I'm not sure I'd do it again today purely because people are so much more judgemental and critical nowadays, and it would make me paranoid.

Yes everlong, common sense is what I have tried to convey in my posts.

A common sense attitude when it comes to taking risks.
We all make selfish decisions like getting in a babysitter, going to work, putting them into pre-school so we can have a bit of time, etc etc.

Putting your child anywhere that is without you as the main carer is a risk.

Leaving your child at school, on a school trip, with a babysitter, with a friend's parents etc, all a risk.

But you take these risks routinely. Despite all the shock horror newspaper reports of abusers lurking in our nurseries, in our neighbourhoods, in our schools, in our scout camps.

Yet when it comes to leaving a child asleep in a hotel room with a good monitor that shows not only every noise but also their breathing, and suddenly everyone is hysterical.

I've listed all the reasons why this is not a bad thing, why this is not neglectful. Most of those reasons have been bypassed by the this is so selfish brigade.

The thread is going around and around in circles. Same old arguments repeated. It's hysteria and no-one seems to be using any common sense.

no it just makes me wonder if people are actually reading the thread tbh, as we have said you can leave your child wiht a loving caring friend or relative and they can still get hurt or abused (most abuse is by a close family member or friend) yet that is seen as an ok risk but being a room a few doors away even with a highly sensitive baby moniter is seen as a selfish risk. why is one selfish and not the other, you can choose not to go out and leave yoru child with a babysitter? its still taking a risk, as rhubarb has said there are risks in everything some you seem to deem ok and acceptable and others people get hysterical about, and start shouting abuse and neglect.

funny as i said earlier on this thread my dp works in child protection its what he does everyday and is trained to the hilt in and its emotionally exhausting for him tbh, it does however mean he is good at assessing risks, and leaving our children asleep in a hotel room when we are literally a minute or two away with a good quality moniter and the door is locked is no more risky than many things people do day in and day out, less risky infact.

i dont want to convince you, i actually dont care what you do, but like others such as rhubarb i am not going to be called irresponsible and neglectful and not answer back!

still on another thread i am 'sick' because i have let my children see me naked, its a good day on mnet

I agree with TheRhubarb and 5madthings. Being downstairs with a baby monitor in the same building as your sleeping child is about as safe as it gets. I have never, not once, heard of a child coming to harm in that situation, has anyone else?

Funnily enough, I wouldn't do what my friend did, and leave her baby and toddler in a foreign hotel bedroom and go down the road looking for a better restaurant......

..and I wouldn't do it in USA where I am sure I read once of parents being arrested for it.

Bloody hell, there are people doing worse things to their kids than leaving them asleep upstairs in a B&B for 20 minutes while they scoff down a gastro-burger in the bar below with a baby monitor on FGS!! Its not like people are discussing whether its ok to leave them without a monitor on the ground floor of a villa while they go to a bar on the otherside of the complex! But each to their own - threads like this are never going to end in one big universal acceptance of the right or wrong way to do things. I would feel extremely nervous of letting anyone except me of DH drive our DD anywhere because I only trust our driving - thats probably extremely protective whereas on this thread I would be considered a prime candidate for social services!

5madthings Sick? oh dear, my DD wants nothing more than to watch my DH wee at the moment.....I'd better stay away from that thread

you had best not mention that your dd likes to watch her dad wee bewler i mean she will grow up knowing how big her dads penis is and yes that is the kind of comment that has been made, shock horror my sons will grow up knowing how big my boobs were......

and yes everlong they could take the child with them when they scoffed down the burger, but not all parents want to or have a child that wil be happy staying up late etc, i think this has all been covered, you dont want to leave your child, fine, but others are ok with it and thats their call.

bewler america is a bit mad in that you can own a gun etc but they can arrest you for ordering a drink when pregnant in some states!!! and some of the proposed changes to abortion legislation are quite shocking tbh :( ie taking away womens rights to abortion.

5madthings well the fact that DD and DH had a bath the other day and I overheard him saying "no darling, dont touch Daddy's willy, go up the other end and play with your ducks!" is prob enough to get us put on a list! (she is only 20 months I might add). The Bewler household is clearly inappropriate.....

As for America, that is wack.

The rhubarb- you calling people 'hysterical' because they don't want to leave a tiny baby alone in a hotel room (to which god knows who else has a key) is a bit rich when you won't let your 8 yo go into a gents changing room!!!!!!!!

which we do every night of the week, and on the odd occasion we go away to a hotel ie 3 times in the 12yrs since we have had children we have once used a babysitter and another time we paid for my sister to come and stay and babysit and the other time, last year i used a moniter as it was in that situation, ie room very close to where i was, small hotel all booked by family etc, fine in my judgement to do so and we did eat together and they played fora bit then went to bed and went and joined the party and had a drink, with moniter and myself and my parents taking it in turns to also go and check on the children.

you wouldnt do it fine but just because i would does not mean i love my children any less of that a burger is more important than my children.

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that parents leaving their children are using a monitor?

I don't leave my dd in a hotel room without due precaution.
I have a very sensitive monitor, we ask for a room near the bar area, when small she was in a travel cot, now she is older I know she is sensible enough not to get up and stick her fingers in plug sockets etc (just the same as she doesn't at home). We check her every so often. She is 6.5.

We don't leave her to sleep in the room because we are valuing our time alone and can't manage without it, we leave her to sleep because she is tired and wants to enjoy the next day without being grumpy. Have done the staying in the room with her several times when it hasn't been suitable to leave her, ie too far away from bar, or b&B without one, and she is a nightmare to get to sleep with us present as she wants to chat too. When on holiday for a week in a hotel it would be senseless for DH and I to lie in the dark with her every night when we can sit in the bar area and have a drink or two- we are all better for it! I think if you told most people you lay in the dark with your child from 8pm every night for a week, when the bar area is just a few doors away from your room they would think you were mad(except on mumsnet).

Next time we do this I will think of all the mumsnetters, lying on their beds in the dark talking in hushed voices while their dcs thrash about in their beds trying to get to sleep, and I will enjoy my drink even more, (along with all the parents in the real world which do this too, only mumsnetters find it so horrifying, it has always seemed perfectly acceptable in our experience.)

Your child is 6.5 years old. Do you understand that 6.5 is very different from 18 months old?

Exactly the same for us IsabelleRinging....DD sleeps in the dark cursedthanks to GF blackout blinds--and wouldnt have slept through us ordering room service or watching telly or even reading with the lights on. The times we left our DD in a hotel room we put her to bed, hid in the bathroom so she couldn't see us, waited till she fell sleep and then snuck out, LOCKED THE DOOR, took our monitor and had our supper while she slept and we enjoyed an hour to ourselves. Absolutely NO CHANCE of anyone entering the room without us knowing. Either doors were locked with a key which makes a sound when turned or an electonic key card which would have beeped and NO WAY someone could have carried DD off into the night without a sound. We calculated abduction risk as being zero and fact that she is a baby and cant get out of a cot means zero risk or getting out of bed, falling face first down the toilet and drowning herself or arriving at some other such calamity! It was a CALCULATED risk. I appreciate some people wouldnt dream of doing this but I wouldnt dream of trusting a stranger to sit in a darkened room alone with my DD babysitting her.....not a chance.

Arguably the older the child the most risk that they would let themselves out of the room and go looking for you? I wouldnt leave my DD once she could get out of bed my herself as I would feel there was more chance she could have an accident or something but thats a whole other debate