Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To let our baby sleep in a guesthouse in the garden

644 replies

Zipfer · 12/07/2021 21:52

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?

OP posts:
Disfordarkchocolate · 12/07/2021 22:44

I think you're mad. One of you should be with the baby.

Recessed · 12/07/2021 22:44

Nope. I had my babies in their own rooms at three months, didn't do co-sleeping/baby wearing, actively hated them being attached to me all the time in fact. Was so glad to escape out for dinner when my first was a couple of weeks old. Went on holiday for 10 days before my youngest turned one. Suffice to say I am NOT over-protective of my children but I could never do what you're doing.

MrsKoala · 12/07/2021 22:45

There has to come a time when you put baby in their own room, and the nhs says that is from 6 months.

I don't think the NHS says you have to put a baby in their own room at 6 months. I think they are saying that it's unsafe to do so before 6 months. I also don't agree that 'there has to come a time'. You can keep your baby in with you for as long as you want.

Thadhiya · 12/07/2021 22:45

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

UnsolicitedDickPic · 12/07/2021 22:45

It's a no from me. I wouldn't even let DD sleep on a different floor to me, and rearranged the entire house to ensure we didn't have to. PFB though, so margins will vary!

buzzing · 12/07/2021 22:46

Would have absolutely no problem with this, MN is a strange place sometimes.

Saxineno · 12/07/2021 22:46

I couldn't. I wouldn't relax and I'd worry like mad.
But I wouldn't judge someone else for doing it.

Is it a video baby monitor? If baby was chocking on sick realisiticly how quickly could you get to them? Especially if doors are locked.

We have an office in our garden, very secure etc, big six foot walls all around with anti climbing measures. No way into garden except through house. I'm trying to imagine letting my children stay out there, and my eldest is 11, but nope not without an adult no way.

Divebar2021 · 12/07/2021 22:46

An extended shed… as in a wooden construction ? And you’re sitting in a brick built house? Because if that’s the case the risk of fire is far greater in the shed than the house. And you’ve compounded the issue by locking the door. I can just imagine smoke pouring out the building and you frantically trying to get the key in the lock. I would put the baby in a travel cot in a bedroom and transfer it over at bedtime.

Babymamma192 · 12/07/2021 22:47

No way would I do that I'd be in the guest house with my baby!

Original poster
Zipfer · 12/07/2021 22:47

I am assuming that the baby goes to sleep in the annex during the evening but that you all sleep there together during the night?

Yes, that’s the set up. And at most it’s been maybe two hours. The baby doesn’t always go to sleep at 8. Tonight, I think the baby was probably alone in the guest house for maybe half an hour. During the day, we are all inside with the main house with the baby

OP posts:
Jennylou88 · 12/07/2021 22:48

What if he chokes? What if he rolls over or moves so that he can't breathe properly?! Personally I just wouldn't risk it, I have a young child and have had nights where the sound on the monitor has accidentally been turned down low, but I've heard him cry because I've been close by.
For the sake of 2hrs I'd just pop him upstairs in one of the bedrooms until you all go to bed.

Hardbackwriter · 12/07/2021 22:48

@Thadhiya

You want to put your baby to sleep in the fucking shed? Jesus Christ I hope someone spots you and reports you. Tart it up all you like, calling it a 'garden guest house', it's a shed and you need to really consider your bond as a parent at deciding your baby belongs in a shed while you stay in the home. Like, really. See a therapist.
They sleep in the 'shed' too!

I honestly think lots of people have misunderstood this and that's why the replies are so bonkers extreme. I think it would be really different if the baby was in the guest house all night while they slept indoors but OP has repeatedly stressed (including in her first post) that this isn't what's happening. The baby is in the guesthouse without them for a couple of hours in the evening, not all night.

WeatheringStorms22 · 12/07/2021 22:48

Uh nah.

Even if minuscule risk, a totally unnecessary one.

ouchmyfeet · 12/07/2021 22:49

Some serious melodrama on this thread.

I'd probably do the same as the OP. It's no different to leaving the baby upstairs and sitting in the garden

DrManhattan · 12/07/2021 22:49

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Ohhyeahright · 12/07/2021 22:49

Hope this isn’t real

Cap89 · 12/07/2021 22:49

@MrsKoala

There has to come a time when you put baby in their own room, and the nhs says that is from 6 months.

I don't think the NHS says you have to put a baby in their own room at 6 months. I think they are saying that it's unsafe to do so before 6 months. I also don't agree that 'there has to come a time'. You can keep your baby in with you for as long as you want.

You’re right it doesn’t say that you have to do it from 6 months, but I think the vast majority of parents follow the widely accepted advice that 6 months is an appropriate age to do this should you choose to. And of course every parenting style is different, but me and my husband were certainly of the view that our child would have to move into their own room eventually. It felt healthier for us. But each to their own.
Sirzy · 12/07/2021 22:50

Has this shed gone through all the appropriate fire safety checks and things to be accommodation?

Original poster
Zipfer · 12/07/2021 22:50

An extended shed… as in a wooden construction ? And you’re sitting in a brick built house?

No, I could have been clearer. It’s a brick house in the garden, perhaps the size of a garden flat (70 square metres)

OP posts:
FrangipaniBlue · 12/07/2021 22:51

For the sake of 2hrs I'd just pop him upstairs in one of the bedrooms until you all go to bed.

Struggling to understand how baby on a different floor of the house is any less risky than 20m away in a garden guest house if I'm honest?

And I'm a bit Hmmand the posters who never leave their baby alone in a room - come again??

DrManhattan · 12/07/2021 22:51

Yeh own room, not some pimped up shed.

stealthbanana · 12/07/2021 22:51

Oh god. Objectively there is absolutely nothing wrong with this but my stomach lurched just reading it. No way in hell. Totally irrational but there you go.

OP you shouldn’t actually listen to the results of this thread, reality is that the chance of anything happening to baby is infinitesimal. But you will get lots of people like me telling you there’s no way they would do it. (Which I wouldn’t. But I accept that’s a bit weird!)

MrsSkylerWhite · 12/07/2021 22:51

Probably safe.
I wouldn’t though.

Original poster
Zipfer · 12/07/2021 22:52

Has this shed gone through all the appropriate fire safety checks and things to be accommodation?

Yes. It doesn’t have gas, but it was professionally built around 20 years ago

OP posts:
Radio4ordie · 12/07/2021 22:53

@stealthbanana

Oh god. Objectively there is absolutely nothing wrong with this but my stomach lurched just reading it. No way in hell. Totally irrational but there you go.

OP you shouldn’t actually listen to the results of this thread, reality is that the chance of anything happening to baby is infinitesimal. But you will get lots of people like me telling you there’s no way they would do it. (Which I wouldn’t. But I accept that’s a bit weird!)

Nice to see a balanced response