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?

I wouldn't do it myself and certainly not in the front garden in Winter. Apparently I was left to sleep in my pram in the BACK garden in the Summer sunshine, but it was a whole different world when I was born. I'm not sure the world is safe enough to leave a child in the front garden now. You may say she is supervised and in sight, but I have 9 children and I know how easy it is to get a sudden drama that takes your attention away. If one child inside had a minor accident or your kids started to argue, then your attention would be diverted from the baby outside for several minutes. I personally would want my baby in my immediate sight and with me at all times or at least within the safety of my own house. Abduction and attacks by animals are rare, but it still happens, so I would not take the risk even if I lived in a quiet village area.

Someone mentioned foxes and yes, I would consider them quite a risk. Where I live in Central London (yes even in the heart of a big city!) they are rife, and run free near the railway lines and big parks. I've seen them in my road, local area and even in my garden several times over the past 7 years.

I personally think Winter months are too cold, however well wrapped up, a baby doesn't move around enough to keep warm and the temp can drop suddenly without a lot of warning. If she is asleep in the pram, why not wheel her inside the hall and leave her safely there - you may have remove some of her clothing risking waking her, but with my one year old I can usually remove her coat and she will carry on sleeping.

I am not surprised someone was concerned enough to say something. I would have worries if someone in the street was doing it. I'm not judging, but I do think it's unusual and I wouldn't do it myself.

Why is the world not safe enough now? What's the evidence for that? Genuinely interested as I hear this all the time but never sure what the justification is...

Vicky Its not too cold in the winter months. Baby doesn't need to move around to keep warm, proper clothing and layers does that well enough.

Abduction and attacks by animals are rare, but it still happens

By 'quite rare', do you mean 'doesn't happen other than in the minds of hysterics'?

I'd be really interested to learn about ONE single example of an abduction by an animal in a garden in the UK. Just one...

I'm gobsmacked though that someone whose child was badly bitten by their family pet would blame it on foxes so as to protect the pet. I grew up with dogs and have a cat, I know how much you grow to love them, but there is no way that I would lie to that extent to protect a pet. What were they going to do with it afterwards? Keep it in the family home and risk it happening again?

The world isn't more dangerous than it used to be (well except for more cars being around making roads more dangerous). But things like abductions and that aren't any more common, we just hear more about it these days. I left baby outside shops in the pram a fair few times with no fear. I wasn't the only mum doing it either.

Watch oot!

Don't see a problem with baby being left to nap in a back garden, covered by a windbreaker etc. when cold. There are so many risks in life, can't foresee everything and life is too short!

I live in London and there have been several reports of fox attacks. So the ribbing in my opinion was in poor taste. Maybe they were false reports, and all of them were coving up for family pets! I don't think that was proven so to fair to those that posted about foxes/cats shouldn't be dismissed and mocked. They just shared an experience. Not a problem to disagree, and that goes both ways. Hate the mocking attitude but that might just stem from being bullied.

Love a laugh though! One of the opening posts:

Mine were out in the back garden at the kitchen window in all weathers -except fog hahahaha, I loved this.

"Abduction and attacks by animals are rare, but it still happens"

Does it? When and where?

And the only alleged fox attacks happened "in the safety of the house"

Did somebody mentions eagles?!

Agree with PP that IMO there's no issue with sleeping outside. Personally I'd only do this in a back garden rather than a front garden, but only you know your house's set-up and can judge on this.

Foxes are not high on the list of things that keep me awake at night where my children's safety is concerned.

I can't believe I would find a thread where I would fully agree with everything BertrandRussell says. Yet I did , right here.
YANBU OP

peiya - can you clarify what was funny about my post (back on page1) regarding fog?

That was on GP advice as being the only weather condition to avoid

'Abduction and attacks by animals are rare, but it still happens'

But it doesn't!!! The world is full enough of risks without making up imaginary ones.

when I used to leave my DS sleeping in the back garden it was generally because he'd fallen asleep on a walk and I wanted him to carry on napping after we got home. Experience taught me that the temperature change would wake him if he was brought inside.

For some reason I always found it necessary to put an extra blanket on him when he was in the garden, even though if anything it was warmer than when we were walking. Intuitively I think because we are warmer when we are moving you think the baby will be too.

Foxes don't steal babies from their prams. I'm sure we can all agree on that.

Advice at the time [when mine were babies] was not to let them sleep outside in foggy weather, what's funny about that?.

Given the statistics, I think there are children for whom being out on the street is by far a safer place for them to be than in their own homes, behind closed doors, where there aren't prying eyes. It's sad but unfortunately true.

Do you think the fog thing might be a hangover from the days of proper smog which was dangerous because of the pollution?

I'm confused too StillStaying!

I thought I'd missed something there...

Because otherwise it's just like cold steam, isn't it? Or is it?