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.

Paradise, what about my points that the most risky things for my daughter to face in my care, are being in a car with me, and a step father?

Both these things are quite dangerous for children, much, much more dangerous than being left to sleep in a hotel room for a few hours.

Yet the vast majority of people on this thread will almost certainly be driving their children about probably every single day.

To take your argument to its logical conclusion, the only good parent is one that literally never lets the child out of a padded room.

The statistics for harm from accidents at home are worrying. How many people on this thread had a cup of tea whilst caring for a toddler? That is a much much more dangerous activity than the hotel room scenario.

Define 'regular basis'.

I did it once in nine months. Is that ok? Is once a month not?

Tbh, I'd rather order room service and enjoy some quiet time, with my feet up (preferable in a bubble bath) while my DDs are sleeping! But that's just me.

Just because something is lower risk than something else, doesnt mean we ignore it or not think about it, or anaylise it , does it.

Posters who would do what is in the op.
If your child was abducted, or assaulted, would any of you take any responsibility for it at all?
Genuine question.
[yes I know it would be the assailants fault]

I haven't read the whole thread but has anyone advocated going out and leaving the baby with no listening service/monitor? If not then why all the references to the Madeline MCaan case?

That is absolutely not the logical conclusion. It's quite a bizarre suggestion.

Risks are every where. Absolutely. We take risks every time we get out of bed. I'm not risk averse.

Some are just unnecessary and baffling. Why even assess a risk that just does not need to be taken at all, ever and is of no benefit to the one person you are putting at risk - your baby.

YANBU - my god what a silly woman!!! Has she not seen all these stories/documentaries over the last few years on child abductions, children accidentally strangling themselves on blind cords etc etc!!!

I wouldn't dare leave my children in a room alone in a hotel :-0

Spero and Buffy - those were points I made yonks ago but some people just don't want to hear them

It's perceived risk that people are scared of. They don't stop driving with their kids - even though they could choose not (to re-use the language that certain people have used, "swanning off to the shops/child minder in their cars when they could just have stayed at home/used online shopping/walked to the local shops/worked closer to home" ) - but because of what might happen in a hotel room, those of us who know our own kids (good sleepers/ small hotel/baby monitor) are bad parents if we choose to go to the restaurant.

Ss would look at how often you felt the need to leave a baby on it's own in a hotel. If you continued to prioritise your child free meals without making adequte provision for your baby then that would indicate a problem.

Hi Buffy! Like the name btw, been hoping I would be able to say that!

The point I was trying to make, is that some posters would abdicate all responsibility if something went wrong on this issue, either small or large [and there has been a poster on here who I think said that.]
Though I often wonder if on the surface, no responsibilty, but underneath is a different matter entirely.

Agree about your point that people can assess risk differently to others on the exact same issue.

Sorry pretty bird, I just dived back into thread after seeing comment that no one had admitted leaving the hotel. Glad to see the argument has already been made. You are right about the perceived risk, and it is so dangerous.

People perceive the risk of child anise for eg to come from a stranger when overwhelmingly your child is more likely to be abused by friend or family member.

Bloody hell, it would be a really daft burglar who takes a baby (or jewellery) from a hotel room with a baby monitor left on.

And btw my 9 month old baby, in a gro bag, in a travel cot, could no more have strangled herself on window blinds than she could have played the ukulele.

Had she been a mobile toddler I would have made a different risk assessment.

I don't know if anyone read my post a few mins ago. As I said I've stayed in a UK hotel where quite a lot of families do what the OP is talking about. I don't suppose the hotel would offer such a service if parents were at risk of SS questioning them over it (would they?). It's a pretty expensive hotel with a good reputation. Are all the families that stay in this hotel and use the listening service for their kids irresponsible? Would ss question them over leaving their kids 5 nights in a row to go for a meal downstairs (as we did). If so this hotel better change it's policy!

I only made the comment about people leaving the hotel after seeing the roasting people who were downstairs in the same building were getting! Waiting to see now if anyone comes forward to say they've done it with no monitor/listening service!

Unfortunately I think it will take a horrific incident before something happens and the law is made more definitive on this issue. Obviously I hope this never happens but by God can you imagine a raging fire with all these babies in locked rooms, trapped?

When were baby monitors invented? Surely a lot of our parents were left alone in rooms with no baby monitors because they didn't exist?

We have improved cot death statistics because of putting babies to sleep on backs, not smoking etc. I don't know but would be interested to learn if anyone has compiled stats on how many babies have been saved from choking because parents heard something on baby monitor.

Paradise. Modern hotels have things like fire doors. And alarms. They take strict precautions. They know what to do in an emergency. And they have access to all locked doors.

I think you are over egging the pudding now.

'All those babies in locked rooms, trapped?'

Perhaps the law should also be changed to stop people locking their front doors at night, in case there are trapped babies in private houses?

And there must be stats on fatalities in hotel fires in UK in last ten years. Struggling to think of any hotel that's burned down, but a tower block in Southwark caught fire not long ago and I think a child died in his mothers arms.