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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to leave my baby in the garden to sleep?

676 replies

SashaFierce99 · 14/02/2016 23:44

With three older siblings, it's difficult for baby to nap uninterrupted at the weekend/in holidays. She's just over a year old so still needs at least one long or two short naps per day. When her siblings are off we tend to walk/scoot/skate/bike to the park before her nap and she falls asleep in the pushchair on the way home. I then leave her in the front garden in front of the kitchen window and DCs and I paint/bake/draw in the kitchen so she's in sight at all times.

Today we did the above but there was a knock at the door ten minutes after we arrived home. It was a neighbour advising me that it's too cold and too dangerous to leave her unsupervised outside. I explained that I can see her and she's well wrapped up (full body vest, outfit on top plus jumper, double socks and full snow suit and hat) so she's fine but the neighbour kept saying I should take her inside. I politely declined and said I needed to get back to the other DC. She muttered about how I'll end up 'getting reported to someone'...!

AIBU to leave her outside?

OP posts:
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8
StillStayingClassySanDiego · 15/02/2016 10:07

No. It is not my opinion as a parent
It is not healthier to sleep outside than it is to sleep inside.

So what are you basing your opinion on?

Doublebubblebubble · 15/02/2016 10:10

tough exactly - they are wild animals. They do what wild animals occasionally HAVE to do. If people are occasionally are attacked I is very much an act of desperation/fear on their part.

x

Ditsy4 · 15/02/2016 10:10

My babies slept outside in the front garden. I had big pictures windows and some very nosey neighbours. The back garden had a low fence and " wins" gorse bushes and sand dunes. Which was safer?

People on here are thinking about where THEY live! No one knows where the OP lives ( maybe a couple) and should not be assuming the area or how unsafe the front garden is!

My friend is in Children Services I shall be asking her tonight. Judging the case load she has had lately I think on further questioning of the caller they would be unlikely to visit. I'll report back later.

Re the cats. I did find a cat on my pram after baby had been taken into the house. I always had a cat net on due to " mother" and was then grateful although the cat had sat on the netConfused

Foxes - have only once seen one in the day when it was being chased by the local hunt. Hedgehogs ha nocturnal and hibernating now.

Babies outside shops- I once took a baby from outside a shop!
My friend had just had her third child and left new baby boy outside the bakers and went to the Post Office then walked home. We lived in a tiny village with two shops next to each other. I went in and said" Elsie I'm taking baby C home as J has forgotten him. So tell her if she phones." I left him in the garden and shouted through
"Did you forget something at the shop?"

N " Yes, I forgot the bread."
"What about baby C?"
She was mortified and wanted to know how many people I had seen on the way back...yes several and they all knew! I hadn't told them ( they worked it out for themselves) but it was the laugh of the village for about a week. I don't think a stranger would ever have been able to take a child in that village!

FelicityFunknickle · 15/02/2016 10:10

Of course fresh air is healthy.
That doesn't mean that sleeping outdoors is better for health than sleeping indoors.
Why don't you ask some of the people saying it is healthier for infants to sleep outside to post some links to studies supporting their position?

PaulAnkaTheDog · 15/02/2016 10:15

In assuming it was some of my responses you didn't like bleach. I'm my defence, I was at least being jokey, the other poster was downright nasty. I know which I'd see as more of an issue. Hopefully she's had some water this morning...

SheSparkles · 15/02/2016 10:16

Did it all the time with my 2 who are now 13 and 18, and alive and well last time I checked.
My mum used to put me outside in the winter with a hot water bottle in the pram 😄

Birdsgottafly · 15/02/2016 10:17

I'm a former SW, for me there would be four considerations:
The environment that you live in. I live in a rough bit of Liverpool, I've had armed arrests in my back garden, shootings, dangerous driving, fights in the street etc. It isn't the same place, that I left my baby outside the shop, in the 80's. A twenty min drive away, these things aren't issues.

How well the baby is at controlling their own temperature. I had 'over-heaters', mine could have ran around naked in winter. But wrapped up, I had to keep an eye on them. I was told permanently to 'put a hat/blanket' on them. The OP knows her own child at this point.

The type of pram. At just over 1, the SIDS risk is still there, if they are sleeping in a upright buggy, rather than a 'lie back'.

The reason why. The OPs reason is a valid one. I deal with families that put the kids out to get stoned etc in the house, that's when SS intervene.

It makes me laugh, when I move more than a few inches away from my GD, in the supermarket and my DD/younger women panic.

merseyside · 15/02/2016 10:18

Because, Felicity, I'm interested in what studies you have been looking at which say it isn't healthier. Or is it just your own opinion? Which is fine, obviously, but I'm interested which it is.

Natsku · 15/02/2016 10:19

More fresh air is always better than less fresh air Felicity. And babies sleep longer outside which is good, especially if you have a baby that doesn't sleep well.

Natsku · 15/02/2016 10:20

And its certainly not less healthy than sleeping inside as they wouldn't still officially recommend it here if it wasn't.

FelicityFunknickle · 15/02/2016 10:23

I have read around this subject extensively.
Other posters have siad it is healthier for a baby to sleep outside.
I have never read anything supporting this statement.
I have rad many studies which support the current sids advice on a sleeping wnvironment being neither too warm nor too cold.
Any neonatal textbook will inform the reader of the fact that babies have an immature and suboptimal temperature regualtion system.

FelicityFunknickle · 15/02/2016 10:24

more fresh air is better than less fresh air
Well, who can argue with that kind of empiricism? Hmm

LoisWilkersonsLastNerve · 15/02/2016 10:24

Call me sad but I've just had a quick look round my street and there is one pram out! Its cold here but I'll assume baby is wrapped up or as a hot water bottle Grin

EnjoyTheSimpleThingsInLife · 15/02/2016 10:25

Personally, I wouldn't leave a baby outside to sleep, but of course that is just my opinion. You know your dd is safe so I don't really see what the problem is.

About cats: when my first dd was born, we spent a lot of time at MIL's house, she had 4 cats then. Not once did they try to hurt the baby or suffocate her ffs, I don't believe most cats would even try to be near the baby.

Also, I am TTC dc3, we have now got 3 cats of our own, if we do have another baby I won't be worried about the cats suffocating baby or any other ridiculous things they apparently do!

DisappointedOne · 15/02/2016 10:28

Feel free to do your own reesearch (much of which has been conveniently collated by the lullaby trust and packaged into helpful advice) and then you'll be fully aware.

Looked extensively. Couldn't find anything on the lullaby trust (or other documents that reference them) relating to babies sleeping inside v outside.

FelicityFunknickle · 15/02/2016 10:28

I'm not sure about the cat-suffocating thing tbh. Don't think that is an actual valid risk.
Unless you have a particualrly fat, friendly cat lurking.
But I have seen a couple of babies over the years with nasty woulds to their faces from cats. I suspect that most of us always supervise our kids around animals.

FelicityFunknickle · 15/02/2016 10:29

Well that was quick for an extensive literature search.
Does the lullaby trust no longer make metion of optimum temperatures?

Jesabel · 15/02/2016 10:29

I would expect a SW to follow up a report of a baby being left out in the cold. I wouldn't expect a blanket "don't do it again" given as advice though.

My DS's (outstanding, sure start) nursery has a purpose built outdoor sleep room for the babies, where they sleep out in prams. No cat/fox nets either!

Jesabel · 15/02/2016 10:31

If you're worried about temperature, surely you'd never take a baby out for a walk or to the park when it's below 16 degrees?

PaulAnkaTheDog · 15/02/2016 10:32

Lois any foxes prowling?

FelicityFunknickle · 15/02/2016 10:33

Whatever. Be as obtuse as you like.
If you can't see the difference between taking a baby out for a walk in a pram and leaving them swaddled, and unsupervised then I don't have the time or inclination to plough through it.

Jesabel · 15/02/2016 10:33

Personally I wouldn't worry about SIDS for a 1 year old - they are sleeping alone and on their tummies by that age anyway. You do about 100 riskier things a day than not follow SIDS guidelines.

Sparklycat · 15/02/2016 10:36

Ridiculous, she'll come in warmer than you are from being wrapped up in a pram. I used to put mine out in the garden to nap in the fresh air all the time.

FelicityFunknickle · 15/02/2016 10:37

True, I would be less concerned about the SIDS risk in a child over one year.

mummytippy · 15/02/2016 10:39

I used to let my ds finish of a nap after a walk in his pram. I would park the pram up in the back garden where I could see him from inside the house. I lived on a quiet cil-de-sac but still felt he was safer around the back. The minute he stirred, I'd bring him in.

Not sure whether your neighbour was being helpful or not but I'd feel too worried now to leave him there either because she's right or she'll report you. Who needs that?

Park him round the back if you can.

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