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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To leave our DCs in our house while we go next door for dinner?

321 replies

Tapewormuprising · 22/09/2014 12:58

Our neighbours have invited us for dinner next week and i was wondering what people's thoughts were on this.

We live in a semi-detached house on a quiet road. Our DCs are 8 and 15 months. 8 year old will be in bed reading and will fall asleep at about 8.30 and our 15 month old will be asleep with a baby monitor (we will be able to get signal next door. There is also a movement sensor). We'll be one room away really.

So, will we be awful parents if we leave them?

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 23/09/2014 21:22

yes

StripyBanana · 23/09/2014 21:22

Yup. I was in a flat above a shop. I wouldn't go down to the newsagents to buy things if baby was asleep. Went through my mind, but no. the locked door is the hard limit for me.

MrsMcColl · 23/09/2014 21:24

Why though? If we'd been rich, we could have owned whole house and kids would have slept upstairs while we spent evenings downstairs. There's something I clearly don't understand.

TheRealAmandaClarke · 23/09/2014 21:25

Yes MrsMcColl

TheRealAmandaClarke · 23/09/2014 21:29

Being in a large house is quite different from being in a different house or home.
For one thing, in a large house there is unlikely to be a locked door between me and my children. In separate homes there is a locked door (or an unsecured one with public access if its not locked) dividing us and also a kitchen etc on the other side of that door.

TheRealAmandaClarke · 23/09/2014 21:31

Being next door is not the same as being in your own home.
Really.
I don't consider that i am as aware of what my neighbours are up to as the people in my house. Or that i could get to them as easily as if they were in my sitting room.

wtffgs · 23/09/2014 21:33

Anyone else think that:

"I won't do X because it might get me reported to SS" is setting the bar very low in parenting standards?

I don't base decisions on my kids' welfare on what I can get away with in terms of SS approval Hmm (and we have a family SW anyway for another reason).

I base my decisions on keeping my kids fucking safe. This does not make me neurotic or paranoid. It makes me an adult.

MrsMcColl · 23/09/2014 21:34

I'm okay with it.

MrsMcColl · 23/09/2014 21:35

My post was in reply to Amanda.

AnyFucker · 23/09/2014 21:37

Internal doors are very different to external doors. Hav esome people not noticed that ? Confused

You wouldn't put an internal door on the outside of your house. Have a think about why that is.

PerpendicularVincenzo · 23/09/2014 21:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ACheesePuff · 23/09/2014 21:44

And the significance of the door is what? Are you not the owner of the front door with the key? No-one is asking you to break it down.

ACheesePuff · 23/09/2014 21:47

I bet you lot all sit inside on summer evenings guarding the house from fires while your dcs sleep.

Mushypeasandchipstogo · 23/09/2014 21:48

Sorry but it's a NO from me. I simply wouldn't do it.

Stillwishihadabs · 23/09/2014 21:49

We used to do this (very small terraced house) but with just ds aged one or two asleep in his cot. Infact when I went in to labour with dd we gave the neighbours the monitor. This was all pre-Mcann we also used to eat in hotel restaurants downstairs with the baby monitor. I have heard others on here say they wouldn't do that. I don't know what we'd do now.

AnyFucker · 23/09/2014 21:51

I attended a fire awareness course the other week (yes, mandatory training, yawn yawn)

they showed a video of a house that caught fire from a faulty phone charger left plugged in

yep, phone charger, such a ubiquitous un-noticable object

the house reached critical "smoke mass" inside 5 mins ie. the point at which anyone inside would die from the inhalation of it

still sure you would notice, run out of one house, down the drive, get in and rescue your loved ones before the fire brigade could even get there (without also killing yourself in the process) ?

I'm not.

AnyFucker · 23/09/2014 21:53

on summer evenings I sit on my own patio with my own patio doors open to my own house

your point is ?

oaksettle · 23/09/2014 21:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

grannymcphee · 23/09/2014 21:53

I would not do this. If you asked Madeleine McCann's parents the same question, what do you think their answer would be???

MrsMcColl · 23/09/2014 21:56

The McCanns weren't exactly next door. Or with a monitor. Not sure it's a meaningful comparison.

AnyFucker · 23/09/2014 21:58

Of course there is a comparison. I assume the McCanns would like to know some lessons have been learned from their own tragic and terrible mistake.

EssexMummy123 · 23/09/2014 22:00

I tried this once, we have a state of the art smoke / heat detecting alarm system with several sensors - a two way baby monitor with video and yet we just didn't feel comfortable, spent the whole time staring at the monitor! so subsequently have invited neighbours round.

MrsMcColl · 23/09/2014 22:02

Don't want to turn this into an extended McCann debate - but they were really quite far away from their children.

AnyFucker · 23/09/2014 22:03

Yes, they were. But the comparison remains. Leaving children alone in a locked habitation for the sake of a few hours of child free eating and drinking. Why risk it ?

FabulousFudge · 23/09/2014 22:10

It is not worth the risk and the fact that you have to ask means you know that I think. I can't see why the neighbours can't come to you for dinner. If I were them I would report you and I would not send my child to a childminder who thought that it was acceptable to do this with her own children either.