would you do this?

[nappyaddict]

if you worked nights and your child was always in bed and asleep before you went out and never wakes up, would you give your neighbour who was wellknown to your child the baby monitor to keep an ear out on the offchance that they do wake up and a key to get in on that offchance rather than giving up work? (a babysitter costs more than i earn an hour)

NA but they are looking after children in the same property. It is different.

It is perfectly possible to be irresponsible at 49. Most people aren't, but not your neighbour, by the sound of things.

i can't know how i will feel unless i do it but i have felt fine going down to eat dinner in a hotel for 3 hours using a baby listening service.

I was being very specific to the situation you've described as well.

Feel free to tell me what I meant though, that's fine.

NA, you will do what you want, I suspect, won't you?

Imagine the thread:

"My childminder has bought the house next door and is putting DS into it for his naps. She has a baby monitor, is this OK?"

Where do you work?

Could you not renegotiate your hours?

Message withdrawn

"But if you are there, you can't be lied to about the circumstances of any of these tragic events.

So you can't be told, "I went as soon as I heard the crash".

And you'd always think, "If I'd been there, I'd have known something was up and gone and checked the baby" - you wouldn't be able to live with yourself, just as you wouldn't if something happened when you went to the post box, or used a baby listening service."

To me that implies you would never even use a babysitter/cm whatever even without their own children in the equation.

Kerry - are you really 45 ????

Mother funk - you were ACTUALLY within the house...were you not

That is bloody different to leaving a child ALONE in a house with NO adults what so bloody ever

MotherFunk

There is something about regular and habitual here. We all take risks - me fewer than most - but we all do take risks.

If we habitually take risks, risks that most people would not take, then our parameters of what is acceptable and normal behaviour have moved into somewhere dangerous.

MF - you are there to assess the situation, and make decisions as and when a situation arises/changes. IT's entirely different, IMO.

nurseries and childminders often use 2 houses/buildings next to one another. but they usually have an assistant. would you not use a cm if they had a reeeeeeeally big house?

so being within a house where the bedroom is say 40 metres away from where you are is ok, but being next door in a living room less than 10m away is not?

Message withdrawn

Nurseries and childminders adhere to the National Standards for under eights daycare and childminding. Which means that children are never left on any premises alone Very few of them actually use two properties next door to one another (I used to work for Ofsted by the way).

Nappy addict i serously think you need to get a reality check here!

This is NOT normal or acceptable behaviour or parenting

You mean really big like Buckingham Palace?

I'm not sure many CM's have REALLY big houses.

Folks with REALLY big houses, often have aupairs or nannies

ok well i've got everyone's opinion now .. thanks.

NA, no, that's not what I meant, but I guess if you extrapolate wildly, you can make it mean that.

I meant that if you have a woman with her own five(?) children next door, and you leave your DS next door, across bedtime for all five, there's a fair to middling chance that she wouldn't go and see what was up on the first whimper or bang. Well, she might for the first couple of weeks.

It's a bit different from a babysitter - who I meant as an evening babysitter. It's a bit different from a CM, who is looking after children in her own house, because she hasn't got to find the key to the house next door (which one of the other children may have taken off to play with, or her DH might've thought was his car key and taken it with him, absent-mindedly, etc, etc).

Unlikely? Maybe. But usually when you have a shitey thing happen, cascade failure means that Lots More shitey things happen one after the other, compounding the original event.

NA, sweetheart, please dont consider it. Your 49 year old neighbour is being incredibly irresponsible suggesting it. AGE is nothing to do with this discusison, and totally digresses from the important subject of wether or not you should leave your 19 month old son, in a house, on his own for an evening while you work, baby monitor or not this is the reality of what you are suggesting.

You simply CANNOT leave a baby of that age ( or any ) alone in ahouse for that period of time. Its NOT on!

WOuld your neighbour put her hand up, and admit responsibility should something terrible happen, unexpectedly, and say to the police, "yes sir, I was in charge of him, throught the wall nad behind 2 closed doors" ? would any one? would you?

Come on NA, you are a bright, intelligant person, you love that little man, more than life itself, imagine how you would feel if SS knew of this and did something, or, if something happened, how owuld you feel for the rest of your life? really?

Our life is not full of certainties at all. We never, any of us know whats round the corner. All we have to rely on, is common sense, gut feeling, imagination instinct and learned knowledge. you have the benefit of many peoples common sense, instincts and imaginations here.. use it fully and properly, and don't take the risk. PLEASE ?