To not want my mother to park my son in the garden?

[Qally]

Okay, my mother is ace. I don't mean to imply anything else. But after taking my 16 week old out for a walk, so I could get a nap, yesterday, she came in via the back alley and left him in his pram in the garden so as not to wake him up. There's easy access to all the terrace's back gardens from the street, and the alley isn't overlooked by any of the houses in question. She couldn't see or hear him from inside the house. The houses around here get burgled worryingly often.

I appreciate it's important not to molly-coddle kids, and that independence is a Good Thing. I also appreciate that abduction is really rare. However, I can see no benefit to the risk involved here - it's not like I was refusing to let a 7 year old pop to the local shops, and thus clipping his wings. The baby is far too young to know wtf is going on. Am I being pfb beyond reason in suggesting she was on crack, or is my mother being a tad casual?

This is very much a generational thing.

My mum was a paedaetrician before she retired and she used to see a lot of toddlers who were behind in speech and activities because they were solely looked after by the grandmother whose definition of a good baby was their ability to sit motionless/asleep in pram for hours on end without any other stimulation.

I'm not suggesting that this will happen to your DC, but YANBU. It's not so much the leaving outside but not in sight or earshot is v worrying.

Agree with other posters though, be nice when talking to your mum as it's great that she is willing and able to help.

Outside is OK. My mother used to do it to me at 5 am as I would only sleep outside.

However, she used to be very worried about the cat as it once came and slept on MY FACE and nearly smothered me. I have heard thay do this - so it was not just my Mum's paranoia.

I would only do it near the backdoor with a secure net over to stop bugs and cats.

I'd have no problem with baby being outside at all (I did it with my own). Friends of mine regularly left their babies asleep in their cars on their driveway, which I thought was very odd.I would have a very big problem with leaving baby where you can't see or hear him. Absolutely not acceptable.

I used to live my DS outside the back door under the lean to if he was asleep and wrapped up after a walk. But given where you live yanbu to worry. It sounds awful, can you move?

YANBU

I think it's lovely for little ones to be able to nap outside when it's safe, but from what you have said, it doesn't sound safe where you are!

I would be very p'off that Mum thinks it's not safe to leave the dog outside but happily left DS out there!

S & her baby were fine - he's 4 months older than mine, and completely gorgeous.

I really wanted to move when DH and S had been mugged, but it used to be a lovely area, and in many ways still is. Mix of families and students live here, mainly, and there are lots of small independent & ethnic shops and a genuine community feel. But a pub on the main street was being run by a dealer. It's been closed after it was raided and a large stash of coke was found in the safe, and the police are very on top of trying to reverse the damage, but that pub became a magnet for all the petty criminal addicts in the city, and unfortunately so did this area. I hope it'll calm down and return to how it was, but so far, it hasn't. I do see why Mum can't get her head around it being dodgy, because we lived in Brixton in the 1980s, and this is just a provincial city.

Mum is great with my son - lots of stimulation etc. and plenty of love. She just isn't crash hot on risk - never was with us, either, which had benefits as well as downsides. I really wasn't sure if I was being ott. And I like him to be picked up as soon as he starts to fret while he's so tiny, and you can't if you can't hear him.

Qally, I think you have every right to say this is not on at all. OK, it was standard practice in previous decades, but not today unless you live in a safe area and your garden is secure/you can see and hear the baby from the house. If she wouldn't leave the dog, she has no business leaving your baby.

My mum and I do this at her house only though, not at my house. Her back garden is secure and we leave DD by the french doors in the back living room. We sit in the living room with the windows or doors open. She loves to sit out there when awake too.

If you are not comfy with it ask your mum not to do it again.

I don't do this with DD at my house as we also have a shared access back ally and I cannot see or hear her from the room.

Not crash hot on risk, totally understand what you mean. My parents house is awash with rusty shears sticking out of hedges, cups of boiling hot tea/coffee balancing on multipile copies of the daily telegraph, up to the minute butchers block in the centre of the kitchen, knives dangling, tantilising your average toddler. Broken crockery just sitting on the side waiting to be put in the bin, petrol cans next to the kitchen door (for the lawn mower), matches, lighters, candles, the fire all accessible.

I hate it.

One incident, really awful, at their house when my son (18 months at the time) dropped a lead weight on his bare toe, doesn't even bear thinking about.

But you grow with your children. Not much help I know. But my DH cannot believe that my sis and I managed to make 18 relatively unscathed. They've simply forgotten!

I hope that the area you live in does come up, but it's sad isn't it that you felt safer in London than in a provintial city and I totally know what you mean!

(Grand)Parents!!

my mum used to put us out in the pram - with a hot water bottle at the bottom of the pram if it was abit chilly!! .............. but................. she could see us from the house and the only access was the back gate which was bolted shut - it was also over 30 yrs ago.

My HV did tell me to do this when i had had enough of ds1 crying but i never had the confidence (afterall in that split second i wasnt watching him he might stop breathing ).

My mum has left both my boys asleep outside at hers (gate locked) but she was MOST insistent on cat and fly nets being firmly attached.

Now i am of more rational lind i dont see the problem with it AS LONG as it is safe and the baby is not in danger, but the fact that the dog isnt allowed out there along tells me that it is not a safe area to do this in

rational mind!!

and alone

sorry!!!!!

She's brilliant in terms of being fun and loving, and actually far better now than she was when we were small as she was very young (gave me a backy on her bike when I was 3, no childseat, which ended, inevitably, in Casualty and 6 weeks in plaster/bandages), but she still tends to be a bit more laissez-faire, iykwim. For example she thinks I'm nuts to insist on her not having dozes on the sofa with the baby, or to think that co-sleeping still needs the baby on his back or side, not spreadeagled, prone, on a sleeping adult. But I'd rather be having those arguments than the ones with my Granny about how a bf newborn should be on a strict 4 hour feeding routine, never picked up when crying, and co-sleeping is Always Making A Rod For Your Own Back. It's like I have Gina Ford and Sheila Kitzinger slugging it out, at times!

Glad I wasn't being unreasonable - she's been so magnificently supportive with the baby that I feel awful telling her not to do stuff. I try only to intervene when it really matters to me, and this did.

My eldest was a summer baby so she would sleep quite a lot in her pram in the fully enclosed back garden, but my second daughter was born in the middle of winter so could not do that kind of thing.

I think you are a bit YABU and PFB...but I can understand where you are coming from....

As a nanny I have done this with one of my charges who was fast asleep in her pushchair - but could see her from the house (parked her in the garden by the glass doors. Also worked at a nursery where they did it - I don't have a problem with it - as long as they are wrapped up and you can see them from where you are.