to think it's wrong to leave a baby/toddler sleeping alone in a hotel room?

[strawberry34]

When you have a monitor and are still in the premises?my friend says she does it when on holiday, she goes to the bar/restaurant and responds to the monitor if her 2yo dd wakes, I was shocked and said I wouldn't ever want to, I stay in the room and read a book/have a bath. Aibu to think what she's doing is wrong? I don't want to refer to famous cases but to me there's too much risk.

DT and I were brought up by parents who wrote the book on "benign neglect", but they would have baulked at this.

Ok, so you've got a baby monitor sitting on the table, and you're sure if anything did happen you'd be able to dash up the stairs and attend to your DC as quickly as possible. But what if it's too late? What if they've already pulled something over themselves, stumbling about in a dark unfamiliar room? What if a staff member coming in to turn the bed down scares the crap out of them? That's before you even consider the risks of someone entering for nefarious reasons; Micheala McAreavy was in a "nice" five star hotel and was killed when she found her room being burgled. I don't think her killers would have thought twice because it was a 4 or 5 year old instead of a grown woman.

We take risks every day, but for me, I don't think it's worth it. It'll be an early dinner and a bottle of wine on the balcony for us.

Ah no ones answering that one!

Please, anybody its a genuine question.

If you had a multi-million pound winning lottery ticket would you leave it in a locked hotel room in plain sight?

I think you are wrong curlew and that there are many differences.
(1). Your toddler will be familiar with it's own room and less likely to be frightened on waking
(2). Strangers will not be in your home. Nor have keys to your child's door.
(3). You will have ensured that your child's room at home is 'childproof'.
(4). In the event of a fire or other emergency there will not be anyone in your home preventing you from going back to the room.

(5). In any event very few ordinary homes are as big as even a small hotel.
I cannot understand why parents would take such a risk.

But that's exactly my point about judging the situation for yourself. In the situation I described, my DS couldn't have pulled something over himself - I checked there was nothing in reach. He couldn't have stumbled about - he was 8 months old. There weren't any staff going in to the room - the hotel was run by a couple who knew where he was and where we were.

It might be too late to reach your child in any number of circumstances, surely, including in the home? Risk assessment is the key and we all undertake hundreds of risk assessments regarding our children's safety every day, as others have said.

Looking yes.

TheCraicDealer if they pulled something on themselves then what does it matter how near you are? If you have a baby monitor you might hear things that you would not hear if you were downstairs with the TV on and the kids in another part of the house.

What do you not get about baby monitors? This baby monitor is one of the cheapest. "Five LEDs on the MBP8 baby monitor indicate the level of sound activity in the room, letting you keep an eye on your baby's activity by a simple visual representation." So if your child stood up and started to pull something over (terrible parents for leaving something having over their cots) then you would hear them better than if you did not have a baby monitor.

Many people are burgled so let's not leave our homes unless we are burgled. Oh but they can burgle us whilst we are asleep! Panic rooms, it's the only answer.

It wouldn't bother me. I'd make a risk assessment and if, for some reason, I couldn't keep it with me , I'd put it in somewhere not so obvious in the room and lock the room. I also leave my jewellry in the room without worrying.

I do however go through life assuming that most people are actually good and nice and that nasty things won't happen. I find it makes for a happier life. :) In 52 years, that approach has served me well. :)

"that's exactly my point" was following on from TCD, by the way.

In response to your question, LookingForward: I can think of circumstances where the ticket would be safer not on my person. If, for example, I had just won the lottery, and I were going out in a foreign city for dinner (risk of mugging or losing ticket somehow), then I might choose to leave the ticket locked in a room instead. It's not a good analogy for childcare imo.

But if I had a multi-million pound-winning lottery ticket, I would upgrade to a hotel room with a safe

Because you might say oh a lottery ticket has nothing to do with my parenting style...but answer me this.

If you know that you would not leave that object, which would be precious to you (hell its a winning lottery ticket whoohoo) in a locked hotel room in plain sight, because of the chance that someone you don't want to could enter your room.

If you would keep it on your person to keep it safe until you got home (not representative but everyone I have asked today has gone for this option)

If you would keep the ticket with you, but consider it ok to leave your kids in said hotel room...

You need to get priorities straight.

We don't leave our 17 month old on his own at our own house even if we have to go to the loo. There is always someone with him in the room. - seriously - you never, ever leave a 17 month old on his own - do you take turns at staying up all night so someone is always awake? I cannot begin to understand how your child will cope when (if) he goes to play group/nursery or school? Surely you want to encourage independence and being able to amuse himself?

I think the lottery analogy is perfect.

LadyMacbeth

a) I take it that you do not take your child away then? Not to a villa or apartment as they will wake up in a different room and you will be in your room.
b) Fair point although hotel security is pretty beefed up atm thanks to the high risk of the hotel being sued for not providing adequate security. In many hotels this includes CCTV cameras on all corridors and sophisticated card locks.
c) Most hotel rooms are also childproof again because of insurance requirements. In fact they are safer than many homes because they don't have little knick knacks lying around that might be picked up and blinds are pretty much prohibited in hotel rooms.
d) We have already established that it is a myth that you will be prevented from getting your child in the event of a fire and many hotels are safer than homes because again, of insurance. They are required by law to have smoke alarms, fire blankets, fire extinguishers and sprinklers.
e) Yes hotels are bigger than many homes but you are not occupying the entire hotel, you might be on the same floor as your child or just up the stairs which is comparable to someone being in their garden and having to clear their garden furniture and living room furniture to get to their child - presuming that is that they have heard the crisis unfold which they would have if they had a baby monitor.

These sort of threads are interesting to look at people's understanding of risk. It seems much of it comes down to a gut reaction, whereas other risks are more accepted.

Mortified and Looking it is not a perfect analogy.

You are comparing a thief with a paedophile. If someone was to enter your room, you are presuming that they would be after stealing your child.

There are problems with this.

1. You would hear them on the baby monitor.

So the question you should be asking is: Would you be ok leaving a lottery ticket in plain view in a locked hotel room with a baby monitor.

My answer is an emphatic yes. If I had valuables and I was that concerned about them and the hotel did not have a safe, I would simply put the baby monitor on.

I think, for the sake of your own arguments, you are completely bypassing the merits of a monitor.

OK, so if someone happened to enter your locked hotel room for an unexpected reason and saw a winning lottery ticket on the bed on the spur of the moment, there is a risk that they will take it - if they are predisposed to theft.

If someone entered your locked hotel room for an unexpected reason and saw a baby in a cot, there is a risk they will take or harm it - if they are predisposed to child abduction or abuse.

If you can protect your child by using a monitor and being within very close reach, then you are mitigating adequately against an already small risk, imo. I would say again that it's best to judge on individual circumstances - age/ mobility of child, nature of hotel, quality of monitor and proximity of parents being the key factors. Whereas the lottery ticket is a temptation to anyone who might see it, a child is a very different sort of 'precious object', surely?

I'd be more concerned about me losing the ticket than it being stolen. That's the only reason I'd keep it on me.

With the one exception I have never lost ds . At 2, he was safely constrained within his travel cot and sound asleep. Just remembered another occasion when we did when we were at a wedding and he was about 9 months old. Never had any qualms.

I honestly don't think that there are people waiting around the corner looking for an unattended lottery ticket child to steal. I honestly don't.

The point I'm making is that the surroundings are unfamiliar; you might know what the hazards are in your own home, but a hotel room you've potentially only been in for a number of hours is completely different. Most people would take reasonable steps to baby/toddler proof their own homes, but you cannot expect all hotels to take the same precautions. At least if you're in the room you can say, "darling, it's not a good idea to pull all the drawers out of that unit to reach the telly".

Many people are burgled so let's not leave our homes unless we are burgled. Oh but they can burgle us whilst we are asleep! Most peoples' homes do not have keys or key card entry that can be accessed quickly and without difficulty by literally tens of people in close proximity. You can have the whole room full of baby monitors if it makes you feel better, but unfortunately the people who might wish to access your room wouldn't know this and would still try to get in, if that's what they want.

I dealt with a fire in a hotel recently with work; it was an electrical fire in a laundry, completely unforeseeable. All rooms in the vicinity suffered smoke ingress, the corridors leading to the rooms were caked in smoke residue. After seeing that, and imagining how difficult it would have been to access the bedrooms in that area with that level of smoke without breathing apparatus, I wouldn't take the risk. If you're in the room already at least you can try to get the kids out through the window or something. I wouldn't do it.

I'm not comparing a thief to an abductor.

I was talking about the risk of anyone entering your hotel room that you did not want to?

Whether it is a thief or the other it would scare the crap out of your children and obviously put them at risk.

I fail to see how a monitor would prevent this?

I was just wondering. Because when its something like a winning lottery ticket people become a ton more concerned about a stranger entering their room.

I was just wondering why it was risky for the ticket but acceptable for children to be left in the open in a locked hotel room.

Leave a bag of cash in the street and chances are someone will take it. Leave a child in the street and chances are someone will report it.

In the cases were babies have been abandoned by their mother, either in the toilets at Gatwick or on a doorstep, those babies have been handed in to the police.

Looking a monitor would enable you to hear someone enter the room. Now if they were quick, they would snatch the lottery ticket before you were able to get there. A baby is a little more difficult to just snatch away, particularly in a hotel full of people.

You are also forgetting that many hotels have CCTV.

TheCraicDealer ditto. Monitors do not prevent crimes from happening but they do enable you to hear if someone has entered the room.

Why do you think hotels are full of baby snatching paedos by the way?

And yes, fires do happen. I'm not denying that. But I am saying that hotels have a far better system of dealing with fires than your average house.

The risk of your hotel setting fire is miniscule, the risk of a paedo entering your hotel room and snatching your baby is less so.

A fire could happen here at home. I do not have sprinklers or fire extinguishers or fire exits. My smoke alarm is not connected to the local fire station.

My children could die in their sleep, I would never know. When younger they could have got out of bed and choked on a Lego brick and I would never have known. They could be sick in their sleep and choke on it and I would never know. Yet I still chose to put them in their own rooms at night whilst I sat downstairs watching TV.

And fwiw I never childproofed my house. My kids learnt. Shoot me now.

See this baby monitor? It has a video on it and is less than a hundred pounds.

If you were that worried about your lottery ticket, with this set up I'm sure that even the most paranoid person would be happy enough to leave the lottery ticket in their room and dine downstairs.

Actually, leave a bag of cash in the street and the chances are that someone would try to find who had left it or take it the police.

I have chased after someone who left the bank counter without picking up their £100 (a fortune over 30 years ago - and I was an impoverished student), losing my place in the queue. I have had a dropped purse returned to me. People help me to find the diamond in my engagement ring when it popped out in Lidl.

But as others have said, a breathing crying wriggling child is a totally different proposition.

And in terms of drawers, plugs, blinds, windows, the risk inside a travel cot is the same whatever room that travel cot is located.

If you are using a monitor then you will hear everything untoward and return to your room!

actually the biggest risk would be leaving your unattended lottery ticket near your child

you would hear the child destroy the ticket via the monitor but it would be too late to stop them