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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To leave the children at home while they’re napping?

453 replies

ParkLife123 · 17/10/2019 16:43

Please hear me out.

House has a driveway outside, and then the street. On the other side of the street is a playground which my DS aged 4 loves. We go out there to play as often as we can but usually all four of us (me, DS, his younger brother aged 2, and newest addition our 5 month old baby).

I’m considering, in order to be able to spend a little quality 1:1 time with DS, taking him occasionally across the street while the other two nap. House is alarmed. I have baby monitors looking into their cots - the two year old cannot get out of his cot yet and in any case there’s also a baby gate at the door.

But really any sign of movement or noise from either of them and I get an alert on my phone.

The time it takes to get back home from the playground realistically is around 1 minute.

Is this a terrible idea? I’ve thought about the risks of them choking or something but also think that I would be able to get back home in the same time as it would take me to get to them if I was for example in the shower!

Does it sound fine or is it a risk no one else would take?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
8
Redspider1 · 18/10/2019 16:49

You can’t leave an under 6 month old to sleep alone?
My DDs are now 19 and 15. They were upstairs sleeping from 2 months. Is that not allowed now???

Abraid2 · 18/10/2019 16:52

Based on the photo I can’t see that it’s different from being in the garden. The road doesn’t seem to amount to much. Not like crossing the North Circular!

Redspider1 · 18/10/2019 16:54

As for something happening to you, something could happen to you in the house! At least in public you might get help!

AngelzEye · 18/10/2019 17:04

Could you take them out in prams to nap outside with you maybe? Give them all some fresh air?

ethelfleda · 18/10/2019 17:10

Gosh it's clear why childhood mental health issues are on the rise when children are being raised by mothers with such extreme anxiety

Actually, mental health issues in children are FAR more likely to be due to abusive or neglectful parents. Not parents with anxiety... idiot.

Redspider1 · 18/10/2019 17:11

Common sense should prevail op, ignore the panic pants responses.

Graphista · 18/10/2019 17:31

“Ah well having only one child who naps for just 20 minutes is not the same as having multiple children who take long naps. Surely you can see your experience is not universal?” If that’s referring to my posts you clearly haven’t read them properly. I clearly stated I also cared for multiple children who napped too, I certainly wasn’t posting only from my experience as a mother but also as an aunt, eldest cousin, nanny and childminder. I’ve looked after loads of children at all ages and stages.

“My DDs are now 19 and 15. They were upstairs sleeping from 2 months. Is that not allowed now???” It was contrary to sids guidelines even then, my dd will be 19 in feb so not much younger than your eldest and it was certainly covered in the antenatal classes I attended.

Redspider1 · 18/10/2019 17:34

Ah well I didn’t go to ante natal classes. My DM was one of 6, DGM one of 12. I wonder how they coped? I prefer to use my common sense. I always regularly checked my sleeping babies.

Graphista · 18/10/2019 17:41

I went to antenatal classes as I've a gynaecology condition and had some concerns re giving birth (which I was right to).

Also as ex was army and we were fairly new to that location so I wasn't familiar with the hospital/how local maternity services worked and it was also a way to meet and make friends with others at a similar life stage.

I was fairly happy and confident generally around caring for a baby but I also knew guidance does change eg around that time start of weaning age had been recently increased to 4 months. The course also included paediatric first aid which while I'd already done courses in that again the knowledge and guidance changes regularly, it's good to know the latest information.

Redspider1 · 18/10/2019 17:45

I had baby care books-Dr Miriam Stoppard I think. Plus Gina Ford.Don’t remember reading anything like that. How are you supposed to get a baby into a sleep routine if they sleep downstairs until 6 months.

ThatMuppetShow · 18/10/2019 18:23

My paediatrician told me it was fine to put baby in his own bedroom from 3 months, so what do you know!

Never heard once anyone telling me that I had to be in same room as sleeping baby at all time! Not even antenatal classes.

crispysausagerolls · 18/10/2019 18:41

Obviously, as with medical care, advice improves as time goes on and more is learned about a specific field. Eg SIDS. Just because your child didn’t die of cot death as you didn’t sleep in the same room, doesn’t mean that the new advice is incorrect. It’s quite irresponsible to peddle old fashioned SIDS advice, actually.

ThatMuppetShow · 18/10/2019 18:54

just because your child didn’t die of cot death as you didn’t sleep in the same room, doesn’t mean that the new advice is incorrect.

my youngest is 4 years old... Hmm

FizzyIce · 18/10/2019 19:02

@MyDcAreMarvel Grow up?
Great response 👍🏻

yummychoccy · 18/10/2019 19:03

@ThatMuppetShow if your baby is 4yo then you were definitely going against SIDS advice then.

Malvinaa81 · 18/10/2019 19:08

Stupid idea.

Sockmonster23 · 18/10/2019 19:33

No way! Wouldn't even consider it at all. Terrible idea. Anything can happen in a minute.

Redspider1 · 18/10/2019 20:32

If you’re worried about a minute, are you saying you stand over your sleeping children and keep watch? Get a grip!

MyDcAreMarvel · 18/10/2019 20:44

@Redspider1 really Gina Ford! You really think a sixth month old should have a sleep routine, oh dear.

Redspider1 · 18/10/2019 20:52

Yeees I do and it worked a treat. Happy, sleeping babies from an early age grew into good child/teen/adult sleepers who are high achieving. Shocking parenting eh?

stophuggingme · 18/10/2019 22:35

Threads like this always go the same way.
The fact is that people do what they want to do. The question in this context is whether you can live with yourself if the outcome was an utterly tragic one.

I believe there is a saying you do what you’ve got to do. I have to go to the toilet. I don’t have to leave my baby alone in the house in order to entertain their sibling or get a change of scenery without them. And at one point I had three under four so I know it’s bloody hard.

Seems got to is a broader church for some than others and I sincerely hope that it never comes back to haunt anyone. Not in direct reference to the OP.

Thehop · 18/10/2019 22:38

What if you got run over crossing the road home?

PomPomtheGreat · 19/10/2019 05:13

To those saying your five or six month old child should always nap in the same room as you, did none of you ever do the hoovering while they slept, or go downstairs and put the wash out on the line etc? Nap time was the only time I ever had to catch up with repairing the chaos of the morning before the chaos of the afternoon started. I sometimes wonder how my five ever made it to adulthood!

INeedNewShoes · 19/10/2019 07:18

I sometimes wonder how my five ever made it to adulthood!

When people say things like this it sounds really quite unpleasant. Are new parents supposed to disregard the current guidelines in order not to set off the 'well when I was a parent we didn't do that and my children are still alive'. I hear similar shite from people ridiculing parents for using rear facing car seats.

The advice given in our NHS antenatal classes, by the community midwife and by the SIDs experts is that baby should sleep wherever you are for the first six months. Mums who are trying to do the right thing have a choice between following the current official guidelines or making their own calculated decisions not to follow it. Some parents really feel the need to follow the advice they have been given and I don't think it's helpful for other parents to sneer at that.

I followed the advice for the first 4 months in that if I was going to be upstairs DD napped upstairs and if I'd be downstairs she'd nap downstairs. And yes I got on with things like having a shower while she slept in my bedroom and vacuuming downstairs while she was in the hallway etc. And sometimes she slept in the garden while I did jobs inside but my house is small and wherever I was she could hear me. Having read various studies and finding that one factor is them slipping into too deep a sleep if left in silence I took from this that I didn't need to be right next to her the entire time. All my Antenatal class friends bar 1 did follow the advice more closely and took baby in the bathroom while they showered etc. It's not how I did things but I still managed not to roll my eyes or to say things like 'well DD is still alive even though I leave her in a different room sometimes'. That would have been a pratty thing to say.

ethelfleda · 19/10/2019 08:20

Ineednewshoes
Great post - and sounds like your attitude to risk is similar to mine. I did much the same when DS was a baby

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