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 used to leave mine out all night.....didnt want the little tykes waking me at 3am wanting a feed....tough sturdy men now.....all moved to alaska to get a job on ice road truckers

I'd just keep thinking of William Tyrell, the little boy who disappeared from his grandmother's front yard three years ago and hasn't been seen since. I could understand letting them nap on the back patio in an enclosed backyard, but not left in the front garden.

The incident with fixes that one poster referred to happened inside the house actually . A back door was left open and a fox came in , went upstairs and attached a baby in a cot . They have no idea why it attached but thought it may be due to the nappy / urine smell. The baby was badly injured . This was an urban fix and it happened in north London not far from me

Urban fox

Wasn't the William tyrell case a parental custody issue?

Junosmum Sun 14-Feb-16 23:52:36

'I'm a social worker. If someone reported this to us you may well get a visit'

Ye gods Really? Truly, REALLY?

Despairs.

Baby P and all the others so immensely failed by 'the system' including rafts of social workers, and the bollocks excuses being understaffed/over-stretched/couldn't overstep/had been passed on to X,Y,X 'they were dealing with'/over the line with not evidence so could do nada - yada yada bloody yada

Yet there is someone (presumably honestly) here asserting themselves to be a social worker and equally asserting that 'you may well get a visit'... to check on your loved, warm, fed, cared for child

WTAF?

Talk about priorities being skewed and poor kids like Peter, Victoria C., and so so many others with obvious fucking neglect and injuries yet falling through the chasms cracks whilst all the time, apparently gifting your baby beautiful fresh nap time securely in their pram and within an enclosed area that no-one can see into (hence neighbour only being able to see as she was curtain twitching nosy her house overlooks said place.

Here you go lovely caring social workers (I've yet to meet one of those btw, a lovely caring SW - as the only ones I've ever met were thick as shit and were more worried about political correctness than they were about anything actually child-centric; they certainly didn't help me when I needed them), have a giant box of [biscuits to share]

OP given what you say you are doing in the kitchen with the others and your obvious care of this baby, I think you sound like a bloody fantastic parent

'they were dealing with IT'

i wonder if baby Ps mum or Victoria C 'aunt' left them in the garden in their prams....maybe their neighbours should have informed social services if they did....seeing as baby Ps mum(who let her lovers torture her child) and Victoria c 'aunt' (not her mother who sent her to the uk for a better upbringing-to an aunt that actually wasnt her aunt- how careless is that) were less than perfect 'parents' and only wanted the money that came with having a child, then the problem lies with not only SS but with friends, relatives, neighbours etc of the less than perfect parents who must have known something wasnt right.....social service are only as good as the information they recieve....anyone who has never met a caring social worker is usually the type of person who is being investigated and think they have done nothing wrong....its not only poor uneducated people who are inept parents...affluent educated parents can be inept too....i would never leave a baby in a pram unattended anywhere, ever!

My dads social worker was amazing, one of the few only consistent professionals who actually committed to helping him. Damned if you do, damned if you don't....

Agree MaryZ.

Outside; fine.
Front garden; depends on circs.

You hear your baby when it wakes, shit, you pre-empt it.

Ffs there's a wee bit of a difference between letting your baby continue it's nap and leaving it to die in a bathtub in a bin-liner at 9 years old, potato.

Sorry, 8.

My babies - now teenagers- were born in Scottish Highlands. My GP advised me to let DC1 sleep outside after becoming congested with a cold. They advised it as something to do long term. My babies slept out in the pram properly wrapped up in the snow and in weather hell of a lot chillier than today. They slept out every afternoon all year round with the exception of extreme weather. Never ever ill.
The only difference to you was that it was on our back patio.
Ffs. People are so bloody judgmental. Your neighbour sounds like a right interfering dogooder. I expect if you get reported to SS then they'll advise against it out of ignorance as to the lack of health issues and more to do with covering their backs and ticking some ridiculous h&s box on some paperwork.

God knows how the children of Scandinavian children thrive and survive.

Norduc napping is a genuine thing.

My DS was regularly left in the back garden in freezing temps (well wrapped up) - we used to refer to it as a 'Scandi nap'.

I wouldn't do it in my own front garden as it isn't at all enclosed (although he did sometimes sleep there in the locked car whilst I was in the house).

I personally wouldn't. When ds was little I'd take him into a room, close it off and open all the windows. We'd both be wrapped up and I let him sleep in there for a nap.

Outside alone no, just doesn't sit right with me. Unfortunately the children I know with multiple siblings get the short shrift when it comes to naps just due to necessity.

Wow, how many mnetters live in a world where the outside is full of mad rampaging cats, dogs, foxes, and baby snatchers

I'm stuffed re the cats anyway OP as I have two of my own. In any case I hardly think DS would be traumatised if one of them happened to jump in his pram.

Cats jumping into prams suffocate babies Maybe. That's why cat nets exist.

(I think about 85% of the UK population live in urban areas if that helps with your first question.)

There has literally never been a recorded incident of a cat suffocating a baby. It's hysteria.

Most cats stay the fuck away from babies.

Re: your second point, um, I live in London. Have done my whole life. Dogs, cats, foxes everywhere. Mad rampaging ones, not so much.

Urban fox attacks on babies are more common, I'll grant you but yes they are small risks.

OTOH I live in a part of London where parcels left outside (even recycling bins and petrol caps sometimes) are stolen, so leaving a baby in the front garden sounds most risky to me because of an awareness of how widespread and bold crime can be.

Do you leave much of value in your London front garden then?

I am sooo glad someone mentioned Lindy Chamberlain's dingo.

William Tyrrel hasn't been found, if it's a custody case then police haven't stated that.

My DB, DS and I all slept outside and none of us were attacked by dogs, cats, dingoes, foxes, Roos, snakes, spiders, jellyfish, bunyips or dropbears.

I haven't got one, but my mum leaves all sorts of stuff in hers, as well as the front door wide open in summer.

I think someone nicked our wheelie bin once.

The OP says in any case she can see her baby at all times, so I don't see how it's relevant.

OP, there is nothing wrong with what you're doing.