Babysitting in hotels

[Chloe55]

DH and I are going to our good friends wedding in August and they will be having the evening reception in a hotel which is about a 50 min drive from our house. Our ds will only be 5 months old at this point. My dilemma is, do I:

a) Go, organise a familiar babysitter at our house, not drink and drive home? (Most sensible option no doubt but after over a year of not drinking would be nice to have a few IYSWIM)

b) Go, book a room, organise a familiar babysitter to sit at the hotel, pay for their taxi home (Would prob be about £50 in taxi fare)

c) Go, book a room for us and book a room for familiar babysitter (Not cheap rooms - are £80 each)

d) Use the babysitting service the hotel offers.

My point is has anyone ever used the babysitting facilities in hotels? How reliable/safe would you say they are? I remember a thread being on this a few months ago but it wasn't an issue for us then so I don't remember the majority views.

I have used babysitting faciities in both hotels in this country and abroad in both venice and Portugal.
I have never had a problem-all the hotels that I stayed in were 5 star and the babysitters were employees of the hotel (ie.reception staff)
They have all been women with their own family who I have felt comfortable with immediately.
Also I have always been spending the evening in the hotel so not too far away to go an check periodically that all is well

I have used hotel baby sitters twice - and fine on both occasions. I was b/f so it meant I could enjoy myself and pop back to teh room to feed. One hotel used one of their employees, the other put me in touch with an agency.

Thanks for your replies, I have emailed the hotel to see what type of facilities they offer. I am just not sure how comfortable I am leaving my child with a stranger - some places do like a baby monitor service, don't they? We will only be downstairs in the hotel anyway so I will be able to do regular checkups. DH suggested taking it in turns to sit in the room all night, I am impressed with his protectiveness but am sure that the services will be more appropriate.

if you stay in the hotel, would a babymonitor work? we have solved many a babysitting problems this way - even if you give the monitor to reception staff and ask them to alert you if they hear anything?

We have used babysitters in hotels many times but mainly abroad, we had one 'disaster' in Ireland but looking back I should have trusted my instict and sent the sitter home as soon as I saw her!

Would it be an option to have your ds downstairs with you? We've been to a few weddings and done this (they've been too far away for us to organise a babysitter we know, and the hotels haven't had this service). DS just went to sleep in his buggy in the corner quite happily Maybe you'd have a better time with a babysitter watching ds, but I've never found it to be a problem, mind you ds was a very easy baby.

Chloe you aren't in Glasgow are you?

If you are I'll do it for you!

Yorkshire I'm afraid but thanks for the offer!

where in yorkshire are you? I'm near sheffield and I'm a qualified experienced nanny. I could babysit for you depending on where you are!