following on from the leaving small children downstairs whilst sleeping upstairs thread

[nappyaddict]

do any of you do this with your 2 and 3 year olds? and by that i mean them being the only child or oldest child - not with older siblings to keep on eye on them? and if you do are you actually asleep or are you in bed but awake?

omg!!! my son are 14,12 and 7 and they never come down first and nor have i gone to bed and left them downstairs or slept on the sofa whilst they were awake and i worked nights and had the children during the day,i just wouldnt be able to sleep

yes, but we live in a bungalow so we are practically in the same room as them

they would not go downstairs without our knowledge. firstly we have an alarm that would go off if they opened the kitchen or lounge doors and also , we have two dogs, who bark as soon as the kitchen door is opened. so they never go downstairs without us.

No I do not allow this. DS makes things a lot, he would alos let the cat upstairs or pull at the cat or even hang the cat....who knows what he would do.

No No NO.

Sort of:

Weekdays DH gets up at 6am, and children tend to wake 7-7.30am. He doesn't leave until 7.45am. So he tends to bring them downstairs, get them in their seats (booster on floor for eldest 2.7years, and highchair for youngest 10mo), and puts Cbeebies on. Gives breakfast.

He comes to let me know that he is leaving, and I tend to go down within 10 minutes of that.

BUT -I can hear them as door is open and it is a small house.
-We have stairgates at top & bottom of stairs, across kitchen doorway & across porch doorway.
-Wouldn't dream of leaving them downstairs if DD1 wasn't in her booster seat (i.e. pinned in!), and DD2 hasn't yet started crawling.

Having said that, I came downstairs two weeks ago, about 15 minutes after DH had left, and found the lounge missing a 2 year old. I checked the lower house, bearing in mind that I had just been upstairs and all was quiet. I then went through to the porch, and the stairgate was open. We live near to a busy main road.

I went into a flat spin, and called my parents, a mile away, crying that she had gone. I was torn between going out and searching for her and the fact that if I did that I would be leaving my 10mo old. I kept running in and out of the house to check on 10mo and search for 2 year old.

During my screaming for her, I heard her cry, but couldn't work out where from. It turned out that she had slept in! She was in bed all the time. (We also have a stairgate on her bedroom door!)

That was NOT a good morning.

nappy - Yes, I go to sleep, proper sleep. And I started this when he was around 2.5, before that I would sleep on the sofa in the living room, but now, I want a decent sleep so I actually go to bed.

Never did that. They are older now so I can. Ha!

And no I never left them to go out for dinner, and nor did I leave them in a hotel room with a baby listening service. It was a long 10 years, I can tell you.

DSM - how old was he when you started the sofa thing? and were you proper asleep then or dozing?

btw do you mean 2 years 5 months or 2 and a half - not that it makes much difference!!