Ex left toddler in hotel alone to go bar, so wrong?!

[Nothappy83]

Hi all, feeling really sad (and bit shocked) my ex let slip that during his access last weekend with our 3 year old son, that he left him in the hotel room alone (asleep) so that he, my ex, could go and join the lads for pints at the bar in the same hotel.

I really don't feel happy about this -- for one everyone knows any old staff have duplicate keys to hotel rooms, could've been abducted (unlikely but still) also could have woken up, he does wake up from time to time still, so could have been scared and or got hurt, any number of scenarios.

Ex says he was checking on him every ten mins -- I don't believe that, he doesn't draw breath for that long when having a drink with friends. Plus anything can happen in that time.

I just keep thinking of him alone in room & ex downstairs laughing & drinking & I feel so, so crushed.

I'm so confused as to why he would do this as he seems such a doting dad otherwise. Is well educated, from a lovely family, professional job etc.

Some background, I also caught him once nipping to the corner shop opposite our house when son was just a newborn (he had left him sleeping in Moses basket argued it was minutes). Also, on holidays with his friends there has been conflict as they all wanted to leave kids in tents etc whilst they drank in other area of campsite -- I disagreed and stayed back with ours.

He has also tried to blame my anxiety (pretty low) I pointed out it's against law (?) To leave kids who could be at risk, so not my anxiety at all.

I feel like I want to ban him from taking him away again as feel he's broken my trust 💔 plus with shop gate as newborn not the first time.

Do people think I'm overreacting, or is it just plain wrong?

Sorry for long post! Just can't get it off my mind.

I've stayed at hotels with baby listening. It depends on the size of the hotel surely? And yes this sort of thing was common when I grew up. My parents were loving ad caring.

Our first wouldn't sleep with anyone in the room so I had to wait outside the door in the hall while my husband got us takeaways and beer and then we had it in the bathroom lol. I thought about going to the bar as it was so close but I couldn't do it out of fear. So yeah he's being really unreasonable.

I worked in hotels as a receptionist 25 years ago & was made to do the “listening” service as part of the job. We all hated it, was completely ineffective as basically we had to call room & parent would answer then both leave phone off & we would pick up phone every few mins & listen, however often we could get very busy on reception and could mean every 20 mins or more and even though no noise the child could have got up & done anything in the time we didn’t listen, if worried we were not allowed to leave reception (obviously would have in an emergency- stuff management) but had to page a duty manager or concierge to go check but that could take a while if there were busy. That was five star city centre hotels!

For me, the thing here isn't that anything bad is likely to happen. It might be only a small likelihood, if the dad was checking on him. (I very much doubt that he really did it every 10 minutes, though.) But there was a strong likelihood that the DS would wake up and be terrified at being alone In a strange place.

The door also isn't locked on the inside, as has been pointed out; he would without doubt open the door and then come looking for his dad.

If you argue on the basis that nothing happened to him, how far will you take it? Would you drive over the legal limit? Not put him in a car seat? (After all, there weren't any car seats for children back in the day.) Will you take drugs whilst in charge of your child?

The answer to these questions is obvious. But actually not if you're arguing that because nothing happened to them it means that his dad wasn't irresponsible.

To all saying he only took a small risk it was a pub & hotel venue he went to the PUB (seperate entrance from hotel & very busy pub) and so no way could hear / see. No staff were aware son was in room so would not be on alert.

If son had woke & come looking for him would have been straight into the car park. I'm think I'm in my rights to flag this with him as serious and get this put in writing by someone in authority as he clearly doesn't respect me.

To everyone else, thanks for support!