To let our baby sleep in a guesthouse in the garden

[Zipfer]

We are in between moves and staying with family. Our family has a guesthouse (a kind of extended shed with a bedroom kitchenette and bathroom) in the garden about twenty metres at the end of the garden. The guesthouse is visible from the house.

In the evenings we have taken to putting our baby (6 months) to sleep in the guesthouse while we stay in the mainhouse. We have a baby monitor and the house is door is locked. We know the area. We are also sleeping on the guesthouse.

DW and I both agree that this is safe as the risk is low. However, thinking about other famous cases (not drawing a parallel), we think it might be odd to let our baby sleep in a different building for part of the evening. Would you consider this sufficiently safe to allow your baby sleep in this situation?

I think instinct works with the unknown. An upstairs room is safer because you feel what is going on, because you're in the house too. You can't just list everything that could happen, because it's what you haven't anticipated that is the worry. Definitely, little creatures going in would be a worry, and temperature. You can't rationalise what you haven't thought of. What is the reason one or both of your parents don't go down there with you in the evening? It suggests its not a very conducive and cosy environment; something a bit too outdoorsy about it.

And none of the posters who are having a flap about this have explained why it is worse than sitting in the garden while a child is upstairs sleeping which is pretty common.

Plenty of people wouldn't do this either tbh. Or would do it when there were others in the house. Or when it was just them or with a partner talking quietly. There are far fewer distractions in a garden than in a house full of other people, so you're unlikely to put the monitor down and chat, watch tv, go to the loo...

No never

The garden to house thing is a false equivalence anyway. The real question is how many people would sit in the summer house at the bottom of the garden and have drinks with their inlaws and leave baby in the locked house for two hours. Not many.

Nope, I wouldn't have felt comfortable leaving my dc like that at 6 months old.
Sitting outside in the garden so I could see access points and leaving it unlocked then yes, locked inside another building by themselves, no way.

When we had a fire in our kitchen the dog woke dh(he was on nights so home alone sleeping in the day). He went downstairs, saw the smoke, realised where it was coming from, pulled on some trousers and left the house calling 999 as he did.
We have smoke alarms in every room except the kitchen, they didn't go off until dh was leaving the house. The fire brigade said he was lucky, our kitchen was in an unusual part of the house, had it been in its original place dh would have inhaled the smoke and probably wouldn't have got out.
My biggest fear was and is fire and this would be an unnecessary risk.

I'm on the fence with this one. Very surprised by the strong feelings on this thread.
As long as you can see what's happening on the video monitor and you are eventually going to sleep in the same building as your baby, I don't see there as being any real risk.

@Mixmeup yeah it probably isn't the equivalent really.

I simply couldn't do that

@ShaneTheThird

Lots of the arguments don’t really make any logical sense. Of course you couldn’t smell smoke from a fire but there is a smoke alarm and you would hear that over the monitor as quickly as you would if in the same house. You wouldn’t be there if the baby started choking but the same would be true if they were sleeping upstairs in another room. And none of the posters who are having a flap about this have explained why it is worse than sitting in the garden while a child is upstairs sleeping which is pretty common.

In an emergency every second counts, so deliberately doing something that delays getting the baby help in an emergency, eg, exiting a building, getting across a garden and fumbling for keys will take a lot longer than simply running upstairs.

I did say that in my post. But you could make that argument about a lot of different situations. For example you wouldn’t buy a big house because it will take you longer to get to your child’s bedroom or DH shouldn’t have gone out for milk this evening because I’ve hurt my knee and it would take me longer to reach the kids in an emergency. I do agree with you it wouldn’t be something I’m comfortable with doing but rationally I can see that doesn’t really make any sense.

What is the reason one or both of your parents don't go down there with you in the evening? It suggests its not a very conducive and cosy environment; something a bit too outdoorsy about it.

OP has said the garden building is a bedroom and a kitchenette so presumably the reason they don't all gather there in the evening is that they'd be in the same room as the baby and wake him up!

To my previous point as the op is asking for what people think, what op, do you think thr emergency services would say if for example a fire broke out in the guest house and you couldn't get in and you have to admit your baby is locked in the guesthouse alone. Or if a fire breaks out in the main house and you are evacuated and have to tell the emergency services you need to get to the garden house to get your baby. What do you think they would say?

I did say that in my post. But you could make that argument about a lot of different situations. For example you wouldn’t buy a big house because it will take you longer to get to your child’s bedroom or DH shouldn’t have gone out for milk this evening because I’ve hurt my knee and it would take me longer to reach the kids in an emergency. I do agree with you it wouldn’t be something I’m comfortable with doing but rationally I can see that doesn’t really make any sense.

Yes but the point is you would notice something was wrong faster in the same building. By the time you noticed something was wrong in the other building it would possibly be too late to do anything.

I wouldn't. If there was an emergency how quickly could you get from the main house, across the garden, unlock the guesthouse and get to the baby? It wouldn't be quick enough for me to justify it.

@Mixmeup

Lots of the arguments don’t really make any logical sense. Of course you couldn’t smell smoke from a fire but there is a smoke alarm and you would hear that over the monitor as quickly as you would if in the same house.

How much smoke do you think baby might have inhaled by the time the smoke detector is triggered and the adults get out of one house, across 20 metres of garden and into a locked and burning house?

They would probably have inhaled about he same amount of smoke as if a fire had started upstairs near a bedroom and the parents were downstairs. A good quality smoke alarm will detect smoke before you would smell it from a different floor.

I don’t really know why I’m defending this because as I’ve said I wouldn’t do it. It would go against my instinct. But I’m a scientist, trained to look at things rationally. And rationally these arguments don’t make any sense.

No way. You are worried enough to look a door? Then your worried enough to not do it AT ALL

Logic definition: reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.

Rational definition :based on or in accordance with reason or logic.

Its very logical and rational to consider things going wrong and how long it would take the parents to react and act. For one thing fumbling for keys adds more stress, it adds additional time and is something easily avoided. There is nothing irrational about people pointing out this set up has risks and many parents wouldn't willing put their child in a risky situation.

Hmm, I think you would find a lot of people IRL would actually be fine with this.

I think I would struggle with this now however the risks of fire, choking and so on mentioned could be exactly the same as in a house. The risk is probably 1 in a few million of something going wrong and there's a much higher risk getting into a car with your child everyday.

I probably would have done this with my first baby too, we did the hotel listening service which I would never do now, although she's lived to tell the tale and now 5ft 2. I used to be much more relaxed!

I mean, we've sat in our next door's back garden while our baby slept in her cot, with our baby alarm, in full view of the house/door.

We wouldn't have a problem with your setup at all.

@ShaneTheThird

Logic definition: reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.

Rational definition :based on or in accordance with reason or logic.

Its very logical and rational to consider things going wrong and how long it would take the parents to react and act. For one thing fumbling for keys adds more stress, it adds additional time and is something easily avoided. There is nothing irrational about people pointing out this set up has risks and many parents wouldn't willing put their child in a risky situation.

I agree that the locked door adds time and I think it’s the reason I wouldn’t do it. But really it’s a very small risk. Many of us take car journeys with our kids which are non-essential (for a day trip out for example). That’s probably a bigger risk but we don’t think twice about it. Of course we drive safely, use car seats etc but it would be safer to stay at home.

Thats true about risks like driving. This one seems different to me though some how. I think for me life is negating risks so if you drive, you would get a safe carseat, drive the speed limit, avoid dangerous situations as much as possible but this seems a bit... You could put the baby upstairs or sit out in the garden with the door unlocked but they choose to lock the door and sit in another building. To me i feel that even though the risk is tiny i couldn't justify it. Although im not judging op for doing it i just personally wouldn't. I would also be worried about someone reporting me to ss if they found out.

Oh dear god absolutely not.

Goodness no no way. Wouldn't be worth the risk. I'd prefer to have my baby and even my child with me than in a guest house alone.

No way. Aside from the fact that a monitor doesn't solve everything, it just feels wrong. We went away a few weeks ago, DS is just over 4 months. He either sat on my lap and played, or I wore him in a sling or just held him in my arms while he napped. Closer to bed time I put him in the pram carrycot and wheeled him through the house when we all went to bed together, and he stayed sleeping in there or came in with me.

DS is not a good sleeper by any means, but I'd rather have him with me. He sleeps bizarrely better being able to hear us speak and he likes to be held. Why do you need to lock your baby as far away from you as possible?

The bedroom was ground floor, by the way - I didn't leave him sleeping in his pram at the bottom of the stairs. 😂