to leave my baby in the garden to sleep?

[SashaFierce99]

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?

Yup Zoe they will eat your baby. And cat.

I disagree with felicity but would say that she didn't say it was unhealthier to sleep outside, only that it wasn't any more healthy. That's a bit different.

Our garden is a wildlife superhighway - deer, badgers, foxes, squirrels, and occasional buzzards and kestrels trying to pick off the smaller birds en route to the birdfeeder. None of them attempted to make off with my son when he slept out in his pushchair. I hadn't actually considered yetis - or whether frenzied mole activity might have opened a sinkhole in the lawn - however, and now I realise I was irresponsible.

Am I the only one who would think it was cute if a cat jumped in the pram and cuddled up with my baby? Yes? Only one? I'll get my coat.

Fwiw, I am the youngest of 7, in the 50s and 60s we were left outside to sleep all the time and my parents lived in a 2nd floor flat! There were no private gardens, just communal drying greens/concrete areas that were completely open to the street. We were also always left outside shops - my mum regularly forgot to take us home and would have to go back to the shops when she finally did a head count :o

The world really isn't any more dangerous now than it was then in most cases - except in our heads.

Cotton you had better concrete the whole lot over and build a nice 10ft wall around it otherwise fake social workers will come and take your cats

That was in a rough council estate on the outskirts or a large city.

sleeping in the garden is fine if fully supervised and wrapped up but if you're baking/painting/drawing with three older dc she certainly isn't in sight at all times.

Ok Felicity, there isn't any hard studies confirming whether or not sleeping outside is healthier but lets consider what we know about the differences between inside and outside. Inside you can control the temperature with heating/air conditioning. Outside you cannot, but you can control the temperature of baby with clothing and blanket layers. Inside you have germy air. Outside you have clean fresh air unless you live somewhere with lots of air pollution. Inside there's no risk of wild animals or pram rolling down a hill or stranger nicking your baby. Outside there is the infinitesimally small risk of those happening. On the balance, I'd say there isn't a great different in health inside or out but outside does provide extra access to fresh air.

What we also know is that babies sleep longer outside, and sleep is very important for health, so bearing that in mind it stands to reason that there is a health benefit of letting baby nap outdoors. Any health benefits of napping indoors?

squirrels you say!

i.ytimg.com/vi/wL-NNWoblxI/hqdefault.jpg

When ds1 went to the university nursery the babies all slept in big old silver cross prams outside, it was the only time he had a daytime nap the little sod never slept for me.

I actually have a bench in my front garden as I somwtimes sit out whilst the madthings play out there, I guess I may sit out whilst madthing6 sleeps with a mug of tea and a book! But there will be times when I will have stuff to so ie prep dinner but I can do that with baby sleep in front of kitchen Window. I Imagine this baby may spend quite a bit of the summer sleeping out front tbh, we have big trees so the garden is nicely shaded.

Cotton you had better concrete the whole lot over and build a nice 10ft wall around it otherwise fake social workers will come and take your cats

I have the cement mixer going already.

Has anyone suggested these beauties yet? 1930s 'baby cages' intended to stop offspring in flats with no outside space getting rickets.

All 3 of my DC's slept/sleep outside in their pram. Where they are isn't visible from the street, they're well wrapped up against the cold and they have the raincover on to protect against rabid wolves or, more realistically rain.

There are some massively OTT responses here. OP fwiw I think YANBU and as long as your DC is secure and wrapped up there's no issue.

"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."

I genuinly can't.

hahahaha I love that picture!

I also canMt understand why people get so wound up by the "baby cages".

In lots of countries people live in flats where the only outdoor space is a balcony. And people routinely fence in the balconies to make them safe for children to play. Can't see the difference.

Meant to add that for both DD's, the only place they would/will sleep is in the pram during the day and they always sleep much longer than if I tried to put them down in the cot.

sleeping in the garden is fine if fully supervised and wrapped up but if you're baking/painting/drawing with three older dc she certainly isn't in sight at all times.

Does this also apply to sleeping in a cot?

Because if we can eliminate hawks, foxes and aliens, what is the difference between a cot in a bedroom and a pram outside that requires constant supervision for one of them?

juno

Did you know that not that long ago children not being put in gardens in their prams to sleep was considered to be indicative of possible other problems with in a household?
If you didn't do it people wondered why and what was wrong with you. If I recall correctly it was seen to be a possible indicator in some areas of potential health problems.

And I'm not even going far back enough to not have much of an understanding of stranger danger.

These days many nurseries often outstanding and good ones have babies outside usually viewable via a window for nap times it's quite fashionable.

And the whole babies sleeping in gardens has over the last few years come back into fashion. Even tho it only went out of fashion for a very short time.

If you would seriously think this warranted a visit based solely on the baby sleeping in an enclosed garden without anything in addition to that being added like not wearing clothes, not checked for significant period or parent being incapacitated or other such thing, then you need to seek advice and support from more senior more experanced colleagues because that is troubling.

One of the flats I lived in had a glassed in balcony - that was my baby cage

What does "fully supervised" mean?