to think you shouldn't leave my 3 soon to be 4 year old niece asleep in the house on her own?

[R2G]

My brother in law has to take my sister to her early morning job (7.30am) sometimes 7am. They just told me they leave my niece in bed rather than wake her up. She is 3. He would be out of the house for 15 minutes. Think that is outrageous and said so. Said they could always call me a few minutes before they leave I would drive round and sit there for ten minutes at that she is too young to leave. They didnt really say anything but flounced off. Is that unreasonable to think, and is it unreasonable to have said so?

She's 3. At that age she could climb out of her cot and fall. Or climb out and then have a go at the window.

One off is ok, as a calculated risk. But every weekday you say?

Nah. Not great.

Rhubarb, Are you a windup? Not everyone has done something like that at least once. Most people have never done something like that. If I thought my sister was risking my neice and nephew's lives and ignored my objections I would have no qualms in reporting her.

Doing the lottery once or every week still means you've a chance of becoming a millionaire.

"Everyone has done something similar at least once though."

Rhubarb, that's just complete and utter rhubarb. I have never left my DCs alone like that. Seriously I have never met anyone who has.

I wouldn't leave a 3yo, no.

R2G, I think you were absolutely right to voice your concerns to them, however judgemental or school marmy it appears. It is a risk, a very small risk, but if something happened....
My brother and sil regularly didn't bother with their kids seat belts/car seats. It used to get me very very angry. When a frind of theirs had a small bump with seatbeltless child in front, going extremely slowly on a quiet road, and the child got a nasty bang, they realised.
Sometimes it takes a jolt to make them see, but often it's too late.

I dont know anyone who would leave their young child along either

Def keep a close eye on them and if you think they might still be doing it tell your Mum.
2 voices telling them they are wrong might have more impact.
They say that they lock the door and dont leave any keys so she cant get out. That also means that she couldnt get out if there was a fire and the fire brigade couldnt get in easily either!
Makes me shudder to think about what could happen. You must be feeling so worried with it being your niece.

I'm not on my own, I'm just the only one who admits to having done it.

What you might see as risks and what I might see as risks are different things. For instance I don't take the kids out in the car without seatbelts. At all. Never. I never leave them in the bath on their own until they are 6. I would never ever leave a toddler with a baby even for a minute alone together. I would never leave either a cat or a dog with my children alone.

But yes, I have left a sleeping child to nip out to get something.
I have left dd (then 6) at home asleep on the sofa whilst poorly whilst I collected ds from nursery.
Of course if I had someone who could have popped in then I probably wouldn't have. But I didn't.

We've also left our children in their beds asleep with the baby alarm on whilst we went across the road to sit on our neighbour's veranda and have drinks.

But in France, like I said, they are very much more relaxed about that kind of thing. Which is why I understand the McCann case, if everyone is doing it you do get lured into a false sense of security.
I wouldn't have gone as far as they did, but I could understand why they did that.

I can see your point Rhubarb - I've popped to the postbox when DS has been asleep (admittedly it's only about 50 yards, but still), but also on holiday on Sark, we went to the hotel restaurant and left DS asleep in our room with the baby alarm.

Sark is a very small island with no cars on it, no boats off the island after 5pm, and the restaurant had french windows all the way down the side from which we could see the door to our room across the courtyard.

But this was about a month before Madeleine McCann was kidnapped, and looking back I suddenly think.....but what about the french windows in our room? Someone could easily have got in there. We did have the baby monitor so we would have heard someone getting in, and there's very few places they could have gone to with him on such a small island, but it still makes me nervous looking back. So I probably wouldn't do that again.

(Having said that, after day 2 DS decided he didn't like this arrangement either and insisted on staying up with us every night in the restaurant )

I think what happened to the McCanns was very unfortunate indeed. Abductions are incredibly rare. They had more chance of winning the lottery 5 times in a row than have her abducted.

It's all about calculated risks. To my mind, there is more chance of my kids being mauled by someone's pet if I left them in a room with a so-called "friendly" dog, than they would be asleep in their bed whilst I'm across the road with neighbours, keeping my eye on the door of the house.

Yet others have no problem leaving their kids alone with family pets, despite warnings and tragedies that far outweigh child abduction cases.

I have been very tempted to leave dd in her cot asleep and get ds from preschool over the road.

But the thing that puts me off is the other mum's asking where she is - and knowing that I would feel guilty telling them the truth suggests to me that on some level I am not okay with it.

Also the preschool teachers are always late coming out and it usually takes 15 minutes....

Shame Posie - can another mum not drop yours off, surely some of them must pass your house?

YANBU. I'd never leave my 3yo (soon 4yo) for even a minute just in case something happened to me and I didn't come back. I can't stand the thought of her frightened and alone not knowing what to do.

TBH (and I know this won't go down well) if it was a smaller child who was in their cot, and they definitely couldn't get out, I would leave for a few minutes (15 too long though except in emergency). I do leave DD in cot and go to postbox, do front garden etc. I have jokingly said to DH that once she's down we could go to pub for 1/2 hour and it would be fine (wouldn't though obviously).

I think that at 3 though, if they wake up and start wandering around there are a host of dangers. That was what I found odd about the McCanns, if the children had woken and got out of bed, there were probably hard tiled floors for tripping and falling, sockets, and a swimming pool. These were the risks that I would have thought meant they shouldn't have been left alone.

Which is why I think the Op's family are BU.