So when do you leave them alone in a hotel room?

[meditrina]

with the holiday season coming up, I was wondering what is the MN consensus on when children can be left alone to sleep in a hotel room, say in these scenarios:

a) you are staying in a hotel with a "secure" perimeter (everyone has to pass reception to go in or out, fire doors cannot be opened from outside and are alarmed), you aren't leaving the hotel and there is continuous monitoring eg baby alarm?

b) same, but it's occasional phone monitoring, or the child has to ring down to reception for attention?

c) same, but perimeter not secure

d) you want to leave the immediate premises, even if it your destination is nearby?

i left dd in a hotel room at a wedding when she was just over 1. she was tired adn the reception was really smokey . she survived

Erm, full of people saying never? I make it roughly fourteen posters in a thread of 252 posts. that's not 'full'. And a lot of them say 'not young children but teens would be Ok'.

never

Another absolute no here.

I have to say though, I remember my friends staying in a hotel with their 2 yr old and going downstairs for their meal using a baby listening service (he was an excellent sleeper).

I thought nothing of it, infact I thought it was a brilliant idea and I would do the same when I had kids.

I had my first child a few weeks after Madelaine McCann went missing .

I vowed Id never do it from then and I won't now but it's that case that changed my mind.

I think I would have found it very far fetched to imagine someone breaking into steel shutters and stealing a child until it actually happened.

I think everyone is more scared of this now and even though it is still so very unlikely, there will be much fewer people doing it.

They didn;t break in through steel shutters - they got in through an oopen window.

And it has happened once in countless thousands - no, millions of times a child was left asleep.

And the parents were not in the hotel, they were down the road.

And the children were tiny.

It is silly to say you wouldn't leave a 12 year old watching TV becuase once ages ago a toddler was taken from a hotel room.

If you have ony tiny children you can have no idea what older ones are able to do.

Amen to that Seeker!

Still wouldn't leave mine though.

Will you be following them to Halls of Residence when they are students and bedding down next to them?

At what precise age is it okay in your opinion? 45?

or Never?

Just been on holiday and scenario was secure perimeter but no monitor. Left 8 and 10 yr old in their room when they wanted to go to bed and we didn't. Would have done the same if they were a bit younger too, maybe age 6 minimum? Our 1 yr old just came everywhere with us though, and slept in the buggy.

I am beginning to think that we are talking at cross purposes and when people say 'never' they mean they would never leave their DCs at the moment-I can't believe they mean 'never' as even when a teenager.

I think they do mean 'Never' and lack the foresight and imagination to realise that things change

But then I am in a bolshy mood atm

I just have the picture of end of August won't leave in a hotel room alone, beginning of October take 120 miles away to a strange city and leave in a Hall of Residence! I just wonder where they learn to cope. Maybe no one sees beyond 10yrs.