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.

No way!Get a babysitter or miss it for one year!Too risky

I really think people are overreacting here. I think this is pretty standard practice outside the twitchy, paranoid World Of Mumsnet. And how often do you hear of sleeping babies being natched from their hotel rooms/burnt alive while their callous wicked parents part-ayed dwonstairs?

Never, that's how often.

And believe me- if it did ever happen, you'd read all about it in the DM.

sassy if I were you, I'd ask some of your other more sensible friends

I've done this before several times with no problem. Like you say if you get a room close to the dinenr then you can get there very quickly in an emergency.

When I go skiing (with a family friendly company) all the parents have baby monitors at the evening meal.

This discussion is a good example of the well known phenomenon that when people think a possible outcome is really terrible they over-estimate the risk that it happens. So because it would be unthinkably awful if something happened to someone's baby in a hotel room everyone is reacting as if it's really likely.

But a small baby fast asleep in a cot who is well is really not at very much risk! Most people alive in the world today managed to get to their current age without a parent hovering over a monitor 24/7 every minute of their childhood. The human body works quite well and gets on with living and growing most of the time. We don't need to be over-anxious parents to keep them alive - it's really really really likely that your DD will sleep for three hours in the hotel room and be alive at the end of it!

So sassy, don't fret, you sound really sensible and all this 'oh no what a terrible thing to do' can be safely ignored. We often left our DCs asleep in hotel rooms on the babylistening service when they were little, and of course we ran back and forth to the rooms checking them constantly, and of course we had our fair share of meals ruined by a child who wouldn't settle, but we also got to sit and grin inanely and mildly drunkenly at each other across the table and remember what it was about the other that had got us into the position of having babies anyway. New parents need to have adult relationships with each other. It can't all be about the baby all the time. You are thinking it through and taking sensible precautions to offset risks. This is fine.

BUT I do think you'd have more fun with a babysitter on hand in the hotel as then you would be able to relax more.

Yeah Citizen, why worry about things? If I go into Tesco to do a big shop and leave my toddler asleep in the car on her own, she's unlikely to be snatched, catch fire, overheat in this weather, choke, hit her head and bleed to death blah blah. Great, that will make tomorrow's shopping much easier as it's too much hassle to arrange a delivery or wait for dh to get home.

No wait, I can't do that because that would be stupid

I did it when DS was about 7 months and nothing alarming happened. I also left him sleeping happily in a tent and went and sat on the clubhouse veranda with mates when we were camping out - I was all of 50 feet away, with the monitor - again, no problems at all.
Some people do take the approach that parenthood, especially motherhood, means constant self-sacrifice and no more enjoyment ever - these do tend to be people who never had a clue how to have fun before they had DC. YOur precautions sound pretty sensible to me.

Sorry, not read the whole thread, but YANBU, mainly because of the (admittedly remote) abduction fear. And I'm not norammly paranoid.

Rockbird- see the post above yours. Working It Out has put much more sensibly than I could manage.

Will it be dancing round the baby monitor then?

Don't you know any other people with babies who could babysit one night?

I wouldn't do it but it's up to you. It's not a completely terrible idea.

My parents once left me and my sisters in a b and b in blackpool for a night out of the hotel we would have been aged between about 8, 6 and four. The receptionist occassionally popper her head through the door. We all lived through it and are not scarred for life. I would actually leave the hotel, like my parents did. But might do what you are suggesting. Depending on the Hotel and how safe it felt.

Have you been there before? If it's huge and you baby will be miles away I'd say no. If it is relatively small and you are able to book a room close, the rooms are secure, with no access from outside through windows, then I think you'd be okay. If you can relax that is.

Maybe the Hotel offer a babylistening service? Have you asked?

Wow, I never expected so many replies, thanks all! (even the scary ones).

pyjamalama - after DD goes to sleep around 7.45pm she sleeps soundly til about 3 or 4 normally, so doesn't need feeding all evening anymore

My parents are not that keen on sitting for my two sisters' kids who live down the road from them, so am slightly loathe to ask them really....they only live about 2.5 hours away but have only visited us once, just after DD was born.

DD would no way sleep in a sling or pram at the meal, and would just be very loud and upset. As some others have pointed out I don't think I could leave her at home at this stage with sitter who wasn't family or very close friend either, so looks like DH will be going by himself.

No, it isn't a massive deal to miss some random Xmas do, but have been to DH's dos in the past and know the people quite well and it would have been fun! And nice to have a night out together. But not if we can't get proper childcare sorted.

Will definitely start looking into registered sitters for the future, as suggested by many

agree completely with workingitoutasigo although the deal breaker for me would be the proximity of the room to the dining room, i'd want it to be on the same floor or just above.

as for the "i didn't leave my dcs until they were x old" type statements, that's really so NOT the norm amongst any parents we know. With both dcs we've been out for a couple of hours from a few weeks old, granted within walking distance and only for a short time. being a parent should not stop you from being a partner/friend/sociable creature.

And both of ours slept upstairs alone quickly too, the evenings are our time, child free as much as possible.

saying all that for peace of mind it might be a good idea to go to a reputable agency and get a sitter or approach local nursery.

Thanks CitizenPrecious am new here and appreciate the nice words!

I wouldn't.

I think a 5mth baby would need someone v nearby if they woke up.

Maybe older children understand/can manage a longer response time, but not at 5mths.

It all boils down to personal opinion though

Lots of things are a risk but would you cross the road without looking? No, you look, but it is still a slight risk.

Leaving a baby alone is something you don't have to do ever, so it is taking an unnecessary risk.

And who are all these people leaving babies alone while they eat/drink?

Anyone ever done it and now think they were wrong?

FWIW, I agree with WorkingItOutAsIGo - but then dh and I were pretty Zen about ds.

We did something similar to this when ds was about 9 months old and we went to a wedding - only we didn't even have a baby monitor. However, by then we knew that ds was a brilliant sleeper in any location and we checked him regularly (and neither of us got drunk).

Actually, there was one occasion at home when ds (aged about 7 months) did throw up and we found him lying in a pool of vomit. However, we didn't find out until about 2 hours after it happened, as we had a rule about not going into his room until he had been crying for over 5 minutes and he stopped after 4.5 minutes. We commented at the time that it was unusal for him to cry - but had then stopped - so only fund out the reaosn why when we were accosted by the smell of vomit when we went at 10pm!

(BTW: ds is now a healthy 9 year old! )

No. I wouldn't do this.

www.sitters.co.uk

or normally even.

no way
too small nad i am normally v relaxed about this

No I wouldn't I would get a baby sitter and I think how likely something bad happening is is irrelevant.

Yeah I'm getting that. Of course things are unlikely to go wrong and by your reasoning we shouldn't worry too much about them. Fine. So where do we draw the line? As I said, my toddler is very unlikely to come to any harm asleep strapped in her car seat which she can't undo and I will only be inside the next building for about half an hour so why don't I do it? It's no more risky than what the op is suggesting, less so actually because I am the only person with a car key.

What's the difference? We make decisions as we go through life based on possible outcome. It's unlikely to end badly but the outcome if it did would be so terrible that it's not worth the tiny risk. For a glass of wine with work colleagues? Wrong priorities as far as I can see.

I have never ever mentioned them before on MN as I don't generally go with all the hysteria that surrounded this, but how much are the poor McCanns kicking themselves now? That tiny tiny risk they took... 99.9999999% of the time it's fine. But I could not live with myself if it wasn't and it was my judgement that failed.

So you'll be in the same building, jsut a different room? Same principle as being at home, when you're in the sitting room and dd is in her bedroom then - just a bit bigger and probably a fair bit moisier.

Don't see the problem, if you're using a monitor. Does yours light up when there's noise? Mine does - meaning it doesn't matter how noisy the party might be, you'll still know if your child has woken up.
You can always pop in and have a look from time to time, in any case.

Breadandjam at the risk of taking the thread off track, if you are trying to come across as an expert on aspirational pneumonia, you need to get the facts correct. One of the biggest risk factors is intoxication, but DD wasn't intoxicated when it landed her in intensive care. In fact, she had none of the associated risk factors. So my is in response to an innacurate statement by you that babies don't choke. When they very clearly do. So have another for good measure sweetie

please don't. it's not worth the risk and really, would you be able to relax and enjoy the evening if you did? I don't think so.