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!

it depends on your moniter but my digital one has very bright lights and it has a vibrate setting if i wanted i could clip it onto a belt! but the lights flash all across the front of the moniter you cant miss them, i had it close to. the wedding party had music but not disco lights, i kept it on a table where i and my parents could see it.t here was no background humming hotel room, i tested the moniter out thoroughly before the evening to check if i was happy with the signal and the noise it picked up, it has a button on it to press so i can amplify the noises quickly if i need to hear it, and the lights flash up in arch and the more noise the more lights flash up etc. as i said i tested it out i was less than a minute away and we took it in turns to go back and check on the childrne every 20mins as well.

would i do it in all hotels? probably not but i knew the hotel, it was a small hotel, i booked a specific room and made the room safe,tested the moniter, same floor, less than a minute away.

and even in regular 2 storey houses you can still be further away, i mentioned my friends farmhouse and the layout of it upthread (or maybe backa page)

and yes some poeple have been made unkind comments about helicopter parenting etc i have not.

and pumpkin i have said what i think of the neglect comments already.

and yes driving is different but its still a risk and one that many happily take yet there are far more deaths and injuries likely to occur doing that than leaving a sleeping child less than a minute away. you see one risk as perfectly fine and yet call the other neglectful, i see them as risks that have to be assesed and judged individually, one is not more neglectful than another.

"so that comparison doesn't add to your arguement/defence at all, yes it IS similar, but no I don't agree with getting pissed in a garden while children sleep 3 floors away inside either, so what's your point?"

Again who said anything about getting pissed.

I fully admit that I don't NEED to have a drink without the kids. I CHOOSE to do so based on the risk assessment I illustrated earlier.

I am HAPPY to that and I am also very happy for you that you would not choose to do that.

I would also, even if I didn't have to, CHOOSE to go to work. Because that's a large part of who I am. I CHOSE to put my kids into pre-school when I wasn't working so that I could have a morning to myself. All unnecessary things that I chose to do. So shoot me now.

As for a wedding reception, I thought we were talking about quiet drinks at the bar with your dh or a meal? If you want to bring it back to the OP then you also need to include the fact that she later posted that the hotel was a small family-run establishment that would be taken over by the wedding party and upon reflection she had decided not to do it.

I have not attended a wedding reception with a baby monitor so I am unable to answer your questions about the effectiveness of a monitor in that situation. I can tell you however that if the reception was noisy with lots of lights then if I could not get hold of a video monitor I would probably either leave the kids with a babysitter or bring them to the reception and just suck it up.

All based on sensible decisions dependent on the circumstances at the time.

And there you go PerfumedLife and Pumpkin - that attitude from CockPants is exactly what I am talking about. I have the right to answer shit like that from someone who has obviously not read the thread.

Because not one person has talked about getting drunk. Posters have implied that this is what this is all about. It is not. It is about spending time with your other half away from the kids. Drinking is neither here nor there.

But for that matter, yes I do drink at home when the kids are in bed. Just like many other parents. That does not mean I get drunk. I don't.

I agree with CockyPants

'Leaving a child alone in a hotel room is an unacceptable risk, '

Not necessarily. It depends on:

-the size of the hotel. Is it a small family one or the Hilton in Park Lane?
-how long you're leaving a child. Quick meal or three courses plus coffee in the bar?
-where it is. Small village where everyone knows everyone or in the middle of a city?
-whether you're planning on drinking too much.
-whether you have locked the door. How you have locked the door. How many people have keys.
-how old your children are.
-how well they usually sleep.
-whether they are in good health when you leave them.
-whether it is well-maintained.

You do a risk assessment based on the above.

I have another question- People that do this, put yourselves in the childs place- imagine you are them, how scared, isolated would you feel left all alone?
Just think about it for a sec, how do you all feel?

Absolutely you do.

So pumpkin from saying that you have not called anyone neglectful, you now would agree with cockpants that we should not have kids.

Nice.

I think anyone reading this will soon discover for themselves who are the ones with the reasoned argument and who are the ones who just like to jump up and down hurling abuse.

Debate I can tackle, but not insults and certainly not on that level. Not when it comes to your children. That's pretty low. I'd rather be called hysterical.

they are along every night in bed, well except dd who co-sleeps! and i made sure i could be there in less than a minute as i woudl be at home and as i said i actually checked on them at the slightest sound, whereas at home i would be more inclined to wait to see if they actually cried etc.

Oh, more bollocks from the magical thinkers. Now it's the idea that whatever they like to do is necessary, but whatever anyone else wants to do is not. Most of the time, bad shit doesn't happen. When it does, a lot of the time, nothing you did would have made any difference.

Certainly trying to make yourself into a martyr and a saint won't actually stop your kids having something bad happen. There's no such thing as magic.

Emotionally manipulated arguments are not based in sound logic. They appeal only to guilt riddled parents of which I am not one.

Your argument has no logic. They would have a baby monitor which monitors their breathing and all other sound. Some even have videos.

Babies and tots can wake in strange hotels, B&Bs, friends houses etc and still feel all those things until you go over to them. Which you would do if you saw that happening on a monitor.

Unless you can argue logically then please don't bother as this is now getting tedious and an insult to your intelligence.

This debate/argument/farce will officially be over in less than 13 posts. Thank heavens.

The MacCanns need to be brought into this because it the only known case of a child being abducted from a hotel room. We all know of course there is little comparison between what they did and what parents on this thread have said they do. Pointless.

My dd is not exactly terrified!!!!!, in fact she is a secure little girl, who understands that mum and dad are not far away and if she called we'd be there in a shot, she is perfectly able to articulate her fears (or not).

What do people do when they stay at friends houses if their kids are so scared and lonely being left in a strange room alone? Do you go to bed when your toddler does? and leave the other adults enjoying the evening downstairs?

I agree with you about the magical thinking. A risk doesnt change in magnitude just because you feel comfortable taking it (or feel that you cant take it).

You see a similar thing sometimes in bf vs ff debates.

Bad things can and do happen to all people (i know this all to well) but you dont need a magic wand to tell you leaving kids alone isnt right.
It isn't right and i do not know of one single person who does it, put your kids before your romantic dinner or get someone to babysit its what most people do.

Abra, try telling that to my DH who still has nightmares.

He was left in hotel room with his siblings, he must have been at least 6. He went into coping mde to care fr his siblings. His youngest brother doesn't remember, but the middle child does.

Anther time they were left, woke cried and had a group of adults peering in their ground floor window as they were locked in.

His parents still think this was acceptable.

I also expect they had thought brought your check list.

Again, if you know what happened to Madeleine Mccann, tell the police, if not stop presenting speculation as fact.

Oh FGS, IS EVERYONE FORGETTING THE PRESENCE OF A BABY MONITOR?

Leaving children to fend for themselves is completely and utterly different to leaving them whilst keeping a watchful eye on their breathing or THROUGH A VIDEO MONITOR!

Honestly, you only pick the points you think you can win on and even then you leave out the many pertinent points raised because you do not have an answer for them.

You think it is wrong. You don't stop to rationalise that. Your posts are not rational at all but frankly hysterical.

Not everyone who has endorsed it on here have said they use a video monitor- they have only mentioned using sound & light monitors which can have interference.
We are all stuck in our ways but i will not endorse this as i don't agree with it.

No LeQueen I wouldn't.

Just as I wouldn't be doing that if my child was abused by a babysitter whom I trusted. Because I know that you can wrap your kids up in cotton wool and bad things still might happen to them.

Please don't tell me what I would feel. I know my responsibilities and I also now know what you think of me. I am not however, answerable to you.

Bad shit happens.

Statistics are there but what if your child is that %1?
I hope op has seen sense and doesn't go ahead with putting her dc in unessessary danger, along with all the lurkers thinking of it too.

Telling me that I would be to blame if something (what exactly?) happened to my child is horrendous.

Again, another guilt-inducing argument that doesn't score you any points.

Yes pumpkin, that 1% is always lurking no matter what you do, so should we put our lives on hold because of it?

Well I hope you have rigged your home up to eliminate that 1% because most injuries and accidents happen at home.

isabelleringing I again echo hiveofbees .. There is no known evidence of an abduction. And they were staying in an apartment on a public road, not a hotel room.

And I hasten to add I speak as someone who has studied criminology and is fascinated by unsolved crimes NOT as someone with any opinion on the Mcs. Or their parenting!