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.

Spero

I'm sorry you appear unable to accept that really crappy stuff happens in life to children.

I feel genuinely in awe of the breath taking arrogance it takes to assume you know what happens to every single family away from home everywhere in the country.

Hells bells kids get abused in broad daylight on aeroplanes surrounded by other passengers and yet its such a stretch to imagine that stuff can happen when parents are away from the room. Wow just wow.

It was not asked and answered. You talked about two cases of abuse. I asked how it had been possible for a baby to be abused silently, and how it was found out. You didn't reply. You talked about accidents- and said that anyway you suspected, but didn't know, that the parents were not in the room, even though they said they were. Completely different. What sort of accident could a non mobile baby have?

Curlew - I wasn't suggesting all the reasons given for not leaving a child unattended in a hotel room are irrational or based on paranoia. I was referring only to myself with those terms.

I was actually trying to say none of the reasons given for leaving a child are good enough for me personally to leave my child under those circumstances and actually I would rather adjust my lifestyle than take those risks.

I have anxiety therefore my thought pattern is often irrational - that does not mean every reason I choose not to take a risk is pure paranoia. I am not mentally ill to the point of not being able to assess risk and how likely those risks are to become a reality.

I feel you picked up on those descriptions as another way to goad the people making the same choices as myself.

You know what?
I totally understand if people don't want to leave their kids in a hotel room with a baby monitor. It's just such a shame that some of those people don't respect my choices on the subject and resort to reacting as though you've suggested putting your child in a blender.

Last attempt to explain the associated risks:

Worse case scenarios are
a) abduction
b) fire
c) baby injuring themselves

Right so let's look at abduction. Can anyone remember the last time a child was abducted from a hotel room with a baby monitor? No? Has it ever happened? Has a child ever been taken from a hotel room when there was a baby monitor?

Does anyone remember that case of the child being taken from her bath after the intruder came into the house whilst the mother was preoccupied? Here is the case the only child snatched from a hotel room apart from Madeleine McCann was a boy who was taken by a woman his father had invited back to the hotel with him.

So by that analysis, your child is more at risk from being left in the bath whilst you are in another room than in a hotel room.

Fire. Hotels have to comply with fire safety regulations. Now a minority of hotels don't and we all know that, but the risk of a fire in a hotel is less than the risk of a fire in your home. Yes the hotel has more electrical equipment but they are less likely to have open fires, faulty wiring and broken smoke alarms. So the risk is roughly equal to that of allowing your child to sleep in a friend or relative's home whilst you sit outside in the garden. If a fire started, in a domestic house the chances are that if you are downstairs and the fire is upstairs you might not reach the kids. If a fire starts in a hotel you would get plenty of warning from the smoke alarms, the sprinklers would activate and there are fire escapes you can use if the main stairs are blocked to reach your room.

Baby injuring itself. Well again blinds are not common in hotels because of the associated risks and most only have windows that open so much, so a child will not be able to open that window all the way. If you have a monitor you'll be able to hear your child if they do start to move around whereas in your home you wouldn't necessarily have a monitor on and so wouldn't necessarily hear if your baby discovered how to climb out of the cot for the first time.

So you see how these perceived risks, when you analyse them suddenly become less of a risk?

In fact I'd say that allowing children to walk to school alone poses more of a risk. Children make up the majority of pedestrians killed on Britain's roads. If your child plays outside or walks to school they are in more danger than a child sleeping in a hotel room alone with a monitor.

Yet many posters may do the former but not the latter because they perceive the risks of the former to be greater when actually the opposite is true. April Jones was playing outside when she was abducted, so do we hear people campaigning and getting their knickers in a twist about children playing out? No. Which is why it's trite to keep bringing up Madeleine McCann as ONE example around 8 years ago.

So for the last time, can't we just accept each other's decisions as parents and show a little respect?

I wonder what checks you have to have to be a baby listener at a hotel

Just goes to show that even if a fire does break out, no harm appears to come to babies left sleeping in their rooms..........

Hotels are probably better protected than many homes as they have good fire precautions, but once they go up, they go up (if you do google Devon hotel fires you will find three such fires in the last 6 months). However you can't say no harm will ever happen to a baby if they are in such a situation and it is quite bizarre to claim this as no risk on the basis that it is not common, it's precisely because they are buildings of multiple occupation where people don't know their way around and that contain different people all the time that they have to have such tight precaution

I know I never made any risk assessment (I don't approach parenting like H & S) when I chose not to go out for dinner but to stay with my under a year old child, it just felt natural and sensible and what I tend to do at home (check frequently, leave doors open to hear any noise). I can't say the thought of going to dinner staring at a baby monitor and running back to the room frequently appealed but it was not a big deal and I wouldn't have cared if other parents did want to spend their evenings like this, I just didn't and neither did my husband so there was no conflict between us.

You can't say it is always 'bad parenting' to leave children a short distance away with a small monitor, but once you factor in other things (parents drinking, doors locked from outside, others entering the room) it does have more potential for trouble than if you don't do it. I can't see that as massively controversial and if you are happy with the quite small risks, that's fine, but to state there are pretty much none (not even fire, not even theft of goods, not even toddler having an accident) is really quite odd.

And- children do unexpected things, having never done them before. I found that out the hard way (and am still traumatized) and so am more risk-averse and would never say 'she can't climb/reach/wakes up' because they might learn to do it and create merry hell that particular day. I have known someone spark a missing child hunt and a child set light to a house exactly like this- and it was indeed amazing they did these things for the first time that day but not in a good way!

Hamilton - I have worked in child protection for over 10 years. I am not senior enough - thank fuck- to be instructed in the worst kinds of cases where the children die but I have seen enough pictures of injuries and read enough medical reports on how bones get broken to be truly sick and horrified about what PARENTS can do to vulnerable helpless children.

Maybe it is my work that has given me a valuable perspective on life and the reality of risks to children.

Leaving my daughter in her cot for two hours presented a minute risk of harm to her.

If I am wrong about this, I would expect the police or social services to take action against me. They have not.

I trust my own judgment, I don't make sweeping statements about anyone else's children.

Your beliefs are obviously sincere and passionate, which does you credit.

Your manner of expression however, does not and that sadly detracts from your argument.

I will now go and google hotel fires in Devon and if my hotel is there I will come back and eat humble pie with egg all over my face etc.

Btw there is a distinction between saying 'small' risk and 'no' risk.

I wasn't aware ANY one on this thread was saying leaving a child was 'no' risk.

In my opinion nothing in life is 'no' risk. But there are risks so small that to allow them to dominate your life is not sensible,

I can only fine one relevant story from the US about children left in a hotel and that related to an aunt and uncle who left 2 children alone (the room was not locked as they were wandering around the hotel lobby) whilst they went out to casinos and strip clubs. They were also habitual drug users. The story is here

I can find no other instances of children left alone in hotel rooms but I can find plenty of children being killed by cars.

So far found three fires in Devon hotels this year. No fatalities at any.

Luckily for my peace of mind and continued credibility, my hotel doesn't ever seemed to have suffered fire but I concede Devon hotels do seem quite flammable this year.

Still waiting for non fire related statistics on babies dying unattended in rooms.

MumsyBlouse I have covered fire and toddlers having accidents. Theft? Well again, a monitor would pick up the noise of someone entering the room and tbh your home could also get burgled whilst you are in there fast asleep. Does the burglar then kidnap your children? Not usually no.

I will say it again, I can find no reference to any comparisable case of a child coming to harm in a hotel room with a baby monitor.

None.

But Spero this just doesn't work in a risk analysis- I know some parents are terrible parents and injure their children (and lots of children get injured in accidents too) but I personally am of no risk of injuring my own children in this way. So- the risk isn't 'leave baby with person likely to injure them in a malicious way' compared with 'eat downstairs leaving baby on own and monitor on', its compared with 'baby stay in room with loving parent with no intention of harming their child' or 'eat downstairs leaving baby on own and monitor on'.

You have to manage your own and your child's personal risk, you can't control the risk of others who have shit parents!

You don't need statistics on that, because it's a rare event- there may be none. So is child abduction, murder, dying in an air crash etc a very rare event, possibly 1 in a million. But they are catastrophic, and many people would prefer to minimise the risk of catastrophic events in relation to small babies and children.

'Maybe it is my work that has given me a valuable perspective on life and the reality of risks to children.'

I think there's a lot of truth in this.

Curlew

It was asked and answered. Its ridiculous to expect specifics of legal cases on an open forum, its unethical and certainly one case in particular could indeed identify me so you'll have to be content with my opinion based on my experience. Or not.

For the record I never said anything about silently, you are making presumptions about cases you know nothing about.

As to the accidents, please show me where I specified non mobile. Apologies of course if I did.

And- I get you think it's fine. I just instinctively don't. No amount of statistical analysis will convince me because I'm making an emotional decision based on being in a strange room in an environment which I can't entirely control (e.g. cleaners coming in) unlike my own home. It doesn't matter if it has never happened in the history of ever to me, it just wouldn't feel right to me, but it would to you. It doesn't need much more analysis than that.

"Trying to leave my professional experience aside I just think its a completely unnecessary risk for a very poor reason.

As I said I've been involved with parents whose children who have been killed in car accidents and also cases where they have been injured in an accident. That aside, and I accept that some people just can't get their heads around that these things happen, we all know someone who has been in an accident.

Car accidents are pretty common. It's happened to me and several people I know (even though they are careful drivers). Everybody knows this and that's why you have to wear seat belts. Why on earth then would people drive a car with a baby in it? It's just nonsensical to me."

Hamilton75's post re-written from the perspective of car driving. Driving is a far greater risk, yet we all do it without being judged. It is a choice - but society chooses to view it as acceptable. We don't need to go anywhere in a car. We can walk to shops, we can choose to live close to our work, we can arrange for babysitters to come walk round so that the child doesn't need to go in the car if we do need to go further afield. Who says that children need to see their grandparents? Let the grandparents take the risk of going in the car. It's only for a short period after all.

Ridiculous when you put it that way - but no-one thinks less of people for driving their kids many hundreds of miles on trips to see relatives.

I don't judge people who drive or don't drive. I don't judge people who don't want to leave their sleeping children in a room - they do what feels right for them. But don't attack and judge others for making different assessments of relative risk.

"I feel you picked up on those descriptions as another way to goad the people making the same choices as myself."

I honestly didn't. What I mean is that we are all irrational about our children. My dd is going on a 22 hour coach journey across Europe on Saturday, and every instinct I have is telling me that it's too dangerous, and I should stop her going. But the risks are minuscule. Slightly higher than leaving a baby in a locked hotel room etc, but still minuscule. But. Will be a gibbering wreck until she is safely home again. The important thing is to accept that our fears are irrational and not to act on them.

Would say that I think there are about 3 fires in Devons hotels every year.
[I live in that neck of the woods]

Personally I dont rely on my own statistical anaylsis, and taking into account consequences, according to police and ss.
Yes, they might, just might, be a guide to me, but no more than that.
As I have said upthread re cot death, the authorites regularly get major things wrong imo.

"For the record I never said anything about silently, you are making presumptions about cases you know nothing about.

As to the accidents, please show me where I specified non mobile. Apologies of course if I did."

I assumed silently. Otherwise the parents would have been there as soon as they heard the door open over the monitor.

And we have been talking about babies, I thought?

prettybird - I get what you are saying, and the risks of driving a car are indeed much greater than some of the other risks mentioned on the thread. But it is untrue that people don't respond to this- indeed we have legislation that makes wearing seatbelts and putting babies in car seats/older children in booster seats a legal as well as moral obligation. And, some people might be quite incredulous that others ignore safety advice (rear/back facing, buying pre-owned seats). There is pretty much a consensus that to not put a baby in a car seat is neglectful and the police will stop any car if they see this occurring. The fact that you can go to other countries and see babies sitting on their parents laps while they go unhelmeted around on a scooter illustrates these things are cultural variations in risk assessment, but doesn't IMO provide a rationale for ignoring the more safety oriented prevention possibilities. Who would do that?

I have friends who ended up with their kids hanging upside down in a car on its roof. They all stayed strapped in their seats and it saved their lives. I wouldn't have blamed them if they hadn't bothered with seats in a nasty way, but I would have felt sick to my stomach, as would they for the rest of their lives.

No mumsyblouse, I am not saying that because some parents are shit and hurt their children but I am not ergo nothing I do puts my daughter at risk...

What I am saying is that I think I have a wider appreciation of the types of harm done to children so I am less likely to get freaked out about small risks. or what I deem to be small risks. I appreciate not everyone agrees with this, or they make the valid point that the consequences of that risk would be so great they don't want to risk it.

Fine. I don't have a problem with that. I do however have a problem with being told I am 'ludicrous' and 'delusional' for coming to a contrary view.

But car seats/seat belts/speed limits only mitigate against risks. The statistical risk of driving, even with seat belts and car seats or even of being a pedestrian is still higher than the actual risks that are being portrayed of leaving a baby in a hotel room. Accidents still happen - yet we still choose to go out in a couple of tonnes of metal at speed with our children.

People who have said that they do (or did) leave their children have not said that they haven't considered the risks. They've considered the risks in that particular situation, done what they can to mitigate them (eg a travel cot for a non-mobile child) and decided that on the balance of probabilities, they were acceptable. I for one have said that I might have made different choices if ds had had a sibling or if he tended to wake up, for example.

We don't love our children any less or are worse parents than those who take a different view of the relative risks.