to consider leaving 5m DD in hotel room witgh monitor while we go to DH's work Xmas meal in the hotel?

[sassyhopper32]

As the thread title says, my DH's work is having a Xmas meal in a couple of weeks at a nearby hotel. The only way that we could both go would be to book room overnight and have DD in the room and take monitor. I am going to find out from the hotel exactly where the meal will be so that we can specify room as close by as possible and we would also check on her periodically as well as using the monitor. They don't have a baby listening service or babysitters etc.

We don't have any family nearby who could babysit and the only people we know locally will all be at the same function. We haven't been out together without DD since her birth and I haven't been out at night at all. Is it totally a no-no to even consider this? DH has no reservations, but I think it's maybe different for blokes.....and one of his friends and wife have also said that they're doing same thing, which doesn't make it wrong or right IMO.

Hi, sassyhopper32, so sorry to not have read through to see that you were not going. The 12 pages of posts kind of put me off (probably why other people went on assuming you were going to go).

However, may I repeat my post of a few minutes ago, that you could go to the hotel, have dinner in and wine, then have breakfast the next day and go to the spa while DH babysits.

Hope you enjoy yourself, whatever, and have a nice Christmas season

Come a bit late to this, but some years ago I did leave ds and dd upstairs in a (v small) hotel with baby listening whilst dh and I had dinner.

After the MM tragedy, I come out in hives thinking about it.

But - my niece is a hotel manager. She says that you have no idea how many people have access to a room in a hotel. In a large hotel, many many people are able to enter the room - from the manager to chambermaids down to maintenance people. Obviously the chances of some maniac being on the staff are slim, but it's really not worth the risk.

many people use nannys from sitters and only meet their babysitter on the night

why dont you contact an agency/look on your local scetion of netmums under childcare and see if there is a nanny near you who can babysit

as event is in a few weeks time, you can meet her before hand, she can come to your house and babysit/have a chat to you

obv check refs

You would have to be bonkers to leave a child in a hotel room on their own.

What if there was a fire? You wouldn't hear it on a monitor would you?

Not to mention how many people in a hotel can get into your room.

Could you live with yourself if something happened whilst you were downstairs?

Sometimes we have to sacrifice heaps of things if we have kids and this is one of those times.

Two words...Madeline McCann

I read the thread title and wondered how long it would be before I saw the words "Madeleine McCann"....opened up the page and guess what?

If its any help, I would do it, as would a handful of other MN'ers, but we are definitely in the minority

You will get flamed by 99% of the Mumsnet population for even thinking about leaving your DD alone - what it really boils down to is
a) how confident you are in the likelihood of your DD sleeping rather than screaming whilst you are out
b) being prepared to end up spending half the evening in the room because sods law this is the one time that DD doesn't settle
c) having a decent babymonitor that will work through hotel walls (be warned: most monitors won't stretch far enough. We bought a special 'walkie talkie' style one made by a specialist telecoms company for exactly this sort of thing)
d) you and your dh deciding you are comfortable with the situation

FWIW I regularly left my ds in a locked hotel room sleeping, with the monitor on, to have dinner with my dh and family, on holidays and weekends away for a long time. Now he is 4.5 and DD is 2 I won't do it, but that's because he can get out of bed etc and that presents far too much of a risk.

If you're really not comfortable with leaving your DD in the room alone and you still want to go, you could always ask the hotel if they can provide a babysitter? I preferred not to leave ds in the room with a stranger, but that is an alternative option...

Maybe Kate McCann came on her before Maddie's awful situation and said 'AIBU to leave 3yr old and infant twins while we go for a quick bite to eat just outside and check on them every 30mins?' Maybe people said yes, maybe people said no. Irrelevant. This isn't about scare-mongering. This is about risk evaluation. Simply and utterly not worth it.

what if your child vomited and choked? what if she ate something and choked? what if she got her head stuck in the cot sides and was strangled somehow? This is without all the other risks of people letting themselves in.

You have got the rest of your lives to enjoy nights out- wait until she is older or you have a proper babysitter.

Worst case scenario: Baby stolen and never to be seen again....Is it worth it?

Could you not look on-line for a list of registered babysitters in your area? I do know the frustration of not being able to have a babysitter (as I had 3 children under the age of 2) but it really isn't worth it. The chances are that nothing will go wrong, but how would you feel if it did?

I've done a similar thing, only with an older baby but didn't rest for a minute - only in a bar downstairs but ended up going up and down all night. It is very difficult to hear and there is always the risk that the signal could fail or be interfered with by electronic equipment in the hotel. You would be far better organising a babysitter - even then you might want to keep going up and checking

I wouldn't do it. no no.

PMSL @ baby being stolen. Sorry.

Sassyhopper, hopefully everyone now understands you aren't doing it.

Def book a sitter next time and go for it though - sounds like you need a night out.

My brother and I were snatched by an old guy and taken to his house when we were kids on hols in Greece. We were standing by my parents in a tourist shop looking at postcards, not in our beds whilst parents were partying downstairs. Luckily someone noticed him taking us and dragged us out of the house. Didn't stop my parents taking us out again though think they kept us closer than before. Bad things happen, but very very seldomly.

Its not helpful bringing up Madeline McCann every time someone tries to ask for advice like this though....

I would never ever ever do that. It is wrong IMO.

"what if your child vomited and choked? what if she ate something and choked? what if she got her head stuck in the cot sides and was strangled somehow? "

what if aliens landed in a spaceship and abducted her?
What if fairies creeped in under the hotel door and cast a spell?
What if the baby spontaneously combusts?

reading a bit of this thread, I can't help but wonder how these posters can be on MN. Surely if they are using the computer, they are not constantly observing their children?

what age are you Avril?

what a daft post

anyway the op isn't going to leave her baby alone, so she doesn't need to worry about fairies and aliens and spontaneous combustion

It is about as likely and as grotesque as the notion of a five month old climbing out of her cot to get hold of something she could eat, or managing to get her head stuck in the side of a modern cot and somehow strangle herself. I am disgusted by the lurid imaginations of some posters here.

I suppose you never leave your children alone in their bedrooms?

leaving them in their bedrooms and leaving them in a hotle is a totally different option

I have babysat in hotels when the baby is sleeping and suddenly a hotel worker came in to check the air conditioning as he said it had been reported as faulty. many workers have keys to the bedroome.

only dh and I have keys to our house and I walways know who is in it.

but the chances of a hotel worker, with access keys, being a child abductor looking to snatch babies are vanishingly small

I suspect that you are more likely to be struck by lightening, while crossing the hotel car park

and much more likely still to be involved in an accident on your way there

OP has made a good decision. Is a shame that she is missing the works dinner, but hey ho (I for one would be delighted).

It is just not worth bothering about just for a works paryy tbh. Also, OP would probably get a few comments and madeleine McCann comments during the dinner which would probably mcuk up her evening anyway.

Some posters have suggested taking the baby to the dinner in a sling. What a daft idea. Surely nobody has done that at a works do, surely. If they are they are mad.

Please excuse crap grammar and word repetition on that last post

GetOrfMoiLand - yes, I don't see how you could take baby to something like this in a sling either! In the daytime yes, but not at night.

Side issue - seems to be the general feeling that people would rather chew off their own arms than go to DH/DP work do, but I have been to quite a few of them and they're usually good fun and much better than my own work Xmas dos, which are usually utterly dismal and my work is too tight to include other halves anyway!