Hotel advertising their restaurant is within range of baby monitors

[Teakind]

Hello,

I was looking at booking a short break in the UK and found a hotel along the south coast that offers 'baby breaks' as their rooms are close to the restaurant and so most baby monitors would work. AIBU to think this is odd and irresponsible?

I can see the argument that it's a small hotel and so the distance could be similar to being in your lounge and the baby being upstairs but it just doesn't sit comfortably with me. Any weirdo could also see parents sitting at a table with a baby monitor and know that there is a baby/child alone in a room somewhere.

Just interested to see what other people think and I do have a tendency to over worry!

There are clearly security risks as PP have eloquently pointed out. As a parent you make risk assessments and judgements that you feel are adequate to keep your child safe. I would not leave my child alone in a hotel room, whether I had a baby monitor or not. A 'listening' service even less adequate IMO. However my individual tolerance of the statistical likelihood of something happening is zero tolerance and others might reasonably find that unnecessarily cautious.

In the case of Madeleine McCann, there is no way on earth I'd have left those children. Not because I thought abduction was likely, but because falling out of bed onto tiled floors, vomiting and choking, older child hurting younger child and various other things are possible.

Being able to hear noise does make this situation very different to that, but for me, not risk free enough.

I used to work in hotel management while still at uni and I would have been horrified.

But that's entirely due to the fact that hotels are notoriously paranoid about fires and evacuate on a more or less regular basis (usually due to false alarms or small, easily extinguished actual fires) and because I would have been extremely stressed about the evacuation plan having to include getting unaccompanied babies out of the place. I wouldn't have been particularly worried about them actually burning to ashes (hotel fire is an exceedingly rare cause of death), more about losing my job in the inevitable event of evacuation due to a judgment call not corresponding to whatever upper management's opinion would have been.

To be fair, though, the hotel room stranger danger issue I really wouldn't have freaked about - a) because, statistically speaking, the greatest danger to kids are not strangers but friends and family and b) because it's hardly the most efficient way for a stranger to access children.

I wouldn't leave a baby in a hotel room and take the baby monitor to the restaurant with me, but really it'd mostly be because I'd feel I was imposing on the poor staff.

I wonder what the statistics are for children abducted/assaulted from locked hotel rooms compared to children abducted/assaulted from unlocked rooms in own/family's/friend's home.

I wonder what the statistics are for children abducted/assaulted from locked hotel rooms compared to children abducted/assaulted from unlocked rooms in own/family's/friend's home.

Being abducted or attacked aren’t the only risks of leaving a child unsupervised.

I would and have used services like this. If the child is asleep and safe, the room secured and not too far away and the monitor is being monitored then I think it's fine. If the room is within baby monitor distance then it's not going to be far from the restaurant. Having said that, we all work to our own comfort zones. If you don't feel happy then don't use the service.

I have friends who’ve done this a few times. They have great sleepers who amuse themselves for a bit upon waking. We have awful sleepers who scream for us when they wake up and would panic. We wouldn’t do it but I completely understand why they do. I think the risk of child abduction is very very small in that situation (they’d have to manage it silently!), it wouldn’t be of concern to me.

I just don't know why for the few years this matters for you would just book an apartment so you can be together or just eat early. Surely no meal is worth the risk? Or get the hotel babysitters?

Re Madeline McCann I thought the room was quite far away and not secure? I think they were also doing it night after night so someone was observing?

I'm on the fence on this one, I can see how you could do it but also why you wouldn't too. Depends on the hotel set up etc. I think the point about staff is interesting but is that thought then applied across lots of other settings where you leave a child? I.e nursery, schools etc

They are obviously catering to those people who want a holiday where they are able to leave their children unattended. Sadly many don't see anything wrong with this.

It's not something we would do and tbh it would put me off booking the place.

When we stayed in the hotel I was talking about it was pre video baby monitors so it would have been sound only. 1-2 people on Reception were in charge of the ‘listening service’ for all the people who wanted to use it. They also had to do the normal Reception jobs like answering the phone etc. This was quite a large hotel with 6 or 7 floors, so no I don’t think this was safe, which was why we didn’t use the service x

Ninoo I assumed you meant they were offering to listen to monitors on reception. Yellow. I don’t leave an awake child unattended but when she’s asleep she’s unattended at home anyway. I don’t sit in her room watching her! It’s not like the parents are leaving the building. So we’ve accepted that the idea of a member of staff kidnapping/abusing is a bit unrealistic. Fire is the only potential risk I can think of other than that and I definitely feel more safe in a hotel than at home. We don’t have a fire escape plan at home. In a smaller building if there were a fire in the night you are far more likely to be blocked from exiting. I don’t check my carbon monoxide/fire alarms daily or even monthly actually. For all this obsessing over risk, sadly when true freak accidents and tragedies happen it’s usually something totally unforeseen.

In our case no one would have been babysitting. 1-2 people already doing a different job would have been listening to our child along with 6 or 7 others. 5 floors away from them in a large building. That’s not really what a babysitter does.

What happens if they get busy on the phones? or 1 of them needs the toilet? Several babies kick off at once? I don’t know about you, but my house isn’t big enough to be 5 floor away from my children while they sleep!

ikea, you’re making a moral judgement on what level of risk is acceptable but that doesn’t actually change the level of risk. If you left your child to pop and pick up medication or to pop to the shop to buy cigarettes the risk is still the same. If something happened to your child in that time you wouldn’t forgive yourself either way.

I didn’t say anything about abuse. I’m just worried about the million and one things you worry about when you put a baby or toddler down to sleep. A lot more can happen than that! The risk I’m talking about is people FAR away who are clearly preoccupied doing a different job, also looking after my child. Oh and I wouldn’t hire a babysitter that I don’t know to look after my childten either, no matter how many certifications they’ve got and frankly think your viewpoint is a bit weird. Why go on a family holiday if this is what you want to do?

Haven’t rtft but never mind kidnapping. What about a fire? Although rare, hotel fires do occur and can be catastrophic.

Ninoo I don’t worry about a million things when I put my child to sleep. I think that would mean you were suffering anxiety. It’s not about family holidays. I have done this about once a year when we have found ourselves staying in a hotel for numerous reasons (short break/visiting family) and want to sit down to eat a meal whilst she is soundly asleep upstairs one floor above. I just don’t see the problem with that. My child has barely left my side in nearly 3 years, it’s not like I go away for the night and want to palm her off so I don’t have to spend time with her, she’s asleep!

They are no more unsupervised in the hotel than they are in your own house when you are in a different room.

You'd see someone snatching your child on the baby monitor, seems like a pretty safe idea to me!

We rented a large house (think small stately Home) when DS was about a year old, he was asleep on the other side of the house to us in the evenings, we used the baby monitor as we couldn't hear him from the drawing room or dining room.

I would never be out of hearing range of my child. I don’t even spend time in my own garden in the evenings once they are in bed. My child is the most precious person in my life, why would I leave them unattended?

As for people saying child abduction is rare... it’s not child abduction you need to worry about, it’s people being employed in hotels being opportunist sex offenders who take that moment to abuse your child, film it and sell it. It does happen.

They are no more unsupervised in the hotel than they are in your own house when you are in a different room.

Of course that’s not the same scenario. At home you presumably have a locked front door (and any other doors are presumably locked too). You and your sleeping child are in separate rooms behind that locked door. Only people who you have authorised to have keys have them. Unless you live in a mansion it might take you ten or twenty seconds to get from your room to your child in an emergency.

In a hotel your child is sleeping behind a locked door that could be opened by any number of people who have a key - security, housekeeping, maintenance, reception etc. In an emergency you might have to push your way through crowds of other guests, or up multiple flights of stairs, or through locked corridor doors to get to your child.

People are obviously free to leave their child like this if they choose to, but it’s ridiculous to try and justify it by claiming it’s no different to a child sleeping in their bedroom with a parent in another room in the house.

"I would never be out of hearing range of my child. I don’t even spend time in my own garden in the evenings once they are in bed. My child is the most precious person in my life, why would I leave them unattended?"

Your poor child. They need space as much as adults do.

I did this with all my kids. All survived unscathed but I am a terrible irresponsible human being

Your poor child. They need space as much as adults do.

They need to be left alone at 5 years old without their parents close by because "they need space"? you know the nspcc states that even 16 year olds should not be left alone overnight? 5 year olds do not need their own space, how utterly ridiculous!

LethalDrizzle me too! Last night me and DH went out and for some reason probably not unrelated to Dry January I got royally pissed. DH was drunk too though not as bad as me. Then we got home and went to sleep. What if my daughter had had a crisis in the night?? And now I'm parenting hungover so she's watching Go Jetters while I slouch on mumsnet. What a terrible mother I am.
Was thinking too, I leave DD in car sometimes if I just need to nip in somewhere. Does no one else do this either?