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

[Tapewormuprising]

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?

I'm particularly sensitive to the smell of smoke, so no i dont. (not that i have a child yet), and if someone was walking down the stairs in my house yes i would wake up, if someone slipped in the bathroom and knocked themselves out i would wake up. so my 8 hours a night are still in tact (until babies here anyway ;)) And to the pp who asked yes there would be consequences if social services were called in including an in depth risk assessment and heavy questioning of the adult/s in charge as to why they think it is appropriate to leave two YOUNG children alone on a separate property, SW would then make parent aware of said risks, OP would be offered (rather persistently) parenting classes. Thats best case scenario, unless you have a more watchful social worker who thinks children are being neglected and they spend a short while on the at risk register therefore damaging your career and future prospects in childminding or anything that requires being around children, whether they are on there long term or on the register for the duration of the assessment only until it is decided they are not at risk and no further action is taken where they are then removed from the register but the fact you had a child on the register due to neglect would stay on file and could impact your career. I am by no means a professional, But it is what I assume they would do. it would be helpful if someone who is a professional in this field corrects or confirms this.

Just saw comfy's reply. feel free to ignore me now OP.

Just don't know why you'd bother taking the risk, rather than just bundling the children up and taking them with you, or getting a babysitter.

Even if nothing happens, is it worth being reported and possibly losing your livelihood over?

No, don't do this. I can't believe you're even considering it. The monitor will not give you the same awareness of what is going on throughout the home.

I wouldn't use you as a CM if I heard you did this, OP. And the fact that you sound snarky about it (with reference to comfy's warning re consequences) makes me more uncomfortable.

Both your babysitters are away. So find another one, have them round to you or don't go.

My concern would be that you couldn't listen sufficiently closely to the monitor with four adults socialising and (I assume) drinking together. Not the same as being in the relative quiet of your own home.

How about taking baby with you (sleeping in buggy) and leaving 8yo with instructions to call for you via monitor (silence means go home).

There are so many "what ifs" - what if fire breaks out between you and DCs when you are in same house? All you can do is assess the risks and go with what makes you comfortable.

How can anyone be sure they would wake up? How on earth does someone getting out of bed in another room while you are in your deepest sleep wake you up? Maybe I was right, maybe you really are all so paranoid you lay awake listening for accidents?

I wouldn't op.
I live in a terrace down a lane with lots of friendly neighbours- we have been tempted to do this but never have . It just feels wrong . 8 is too young ask to take on this responsibility .
I

Because i live with 2 people and am an extremely light sleeper, not everyone is obviously but i can be sure. if my FIL sits up in bed to have a sip of water kept by his bed (7ft hallway and 2 shut doors between us) it wakes me up. thats how I know. cant speak for everyone though.

Same here random, I wake if other family members do.

I stir if my children go to the toilet. Only for a second, might all out "are you ok?" and then go back to sleep. I don't think that's unusual.

But how do you know that there aren't times when your child has a drink of water and goes back to sleep? You surely only know about the times you have woken?

acheesepuff seems to think we are all lying.

Yes, I too often wake wake when dd goes to the loo, or gets up for a drink, or when the cat or DH stir, but I can't 100% ever profess that there has never been a time when they have got up and I haven't heard.

I wouldn't. However, I did grow up in an enormous house and was regularly separated from my parents by a distance of several hundred feet so I suppose you would be closer than that!

The fact that a stranger on the internet has come onto the thread and claimed to be a SW doesn't change my mind in the slightest. I don't believe that SW in the UK truly would make time to investigate parents popping to an attached part of their house for a short time with monitors activated. SW barely have enough time to investigate the many, many cases of actual neglect and abuse.

I stand by what I said about some children being trustworthy enough to handle this, and others not. Mine are perfectly fine with this sort of responsibility. To be fair, though, neither one is a baby and I might have a different response if one was.

I wouldn't do it. I know that the Philpotts started the fire deliberately, but they made the assumption that if a fire started in their house downstairs they would easily be able to save the children inside via the windows as they waited outside in the caravan for the fire to take hold.

I believe some of the Philpotts children were around 8 or older and they couldn't escape through the windows. A 15 month would have no chance in those circumstances. I know you wouldn't deliberately start a fire OP but you can't guarantee there won't be an electrical fault or an accident.

Locally to me a couple of months ago a fire started downstairs in a family home when a phone charger developed a fault. The mother and grandmother of the family were downstairs, five children and an aunt were upstairs and they all died. The grandmother died trying to get back in and rescue them and the mother was only saved because neighbours held her back. She lost all her children bar one adult son and her mother and sisters and she was in the same house, not even next door.

I just wouldn't take the risk with my children, they're too precious. And look at the McCanns too. If something goes wrong the results are potentially absolutely catastrophic to deal with. Is an evening out really worth taking the risk of ending up like these people? Their lives have been ruined.

I absolutely would not do this.

If you were my childminder and I knew you had done this with your own DC I would never leave my children with you again.

I can't believe there has been such a difference of opinion on an issue I thought would be a unanimous YABU. Shows how much I know. I still couldn't do it though.

I wouldn't. Like somebody else said, we lived in a large house and my bedroom was the far end of the house and down two flights of stairs so my parents were regularly far away from me but we only had that arrangement when I was a teenager (can't think why!), until then we had adjacent rooms.

What if, what if. We'd all go mad if we spent our time imagining unlikely scenarios. I'd do it, OP.

Personally, I can think of many situations and scenarios that would have had a better outcome if the people involved had asked themselves "what if"

My 8yo would crap himself at the thought of this arrangement. My friend's 8yo would probably set the house on fire or flood it. 8 is far too little. Can you ask anyone to babysit?

V true, AnyFucker, we could all sit in our homes 24 hours a day in case anything bad happens.

If the McCanns had thought 'what if' they would still have their daughter, you're supposed to think through potential dangers so you can take precautions to protect your kids. It's basic parenting.