Active discussions

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Original poster

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

264 replies

meditrina · 17/04/2011 09:36

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?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Set a reminder
Original poster
meditrina · 17/04/2011 14:44

I'm finding the answers really interesting!

My eldest is 12 and goes to school by himself, so has to deal with traffic, strangers and random events then. The middle one is 10 and is sometimes going out alone on agreed errands as training before big school, so again is being trusted to deal with certain risks himself. The youngest is 7 and doesn't yet go anywhere alone. But they're all together for the last couple of years we've left them together - but always scenario a (with baby monitor) so we can hear what they're doing (and we'd checked that we could actually hear clearly). I was wondering about not taking the baby monitor this year.

OP posts:
TheGoddessBlossom · 17/04/2011 14:44

We have just booked a skiing holiday - ruled out lots of options that featured hotels over chalets, as there is no way we would leave DSs (4 and 6) asleep in their room, while we ate dinner downstairs in the hotel dining room, even if there was a listening service. We differed from my sister in this view but there you go. DH in fact was even going to have himself sleep in one twin room with one DS and me in the other as he wouldn't sleep in a separate hotel room from the boys.

Francagoestohollywood · 17/04/2011 14:47

Never. We once left ds at 14 months old fast asleep in a locked hotel room to have dinner downstairs. The friends who were with us did the same with their dd. It was a small hotel and felt secure etc, it all went well, but everytime I think about it I go "What was I thinking? Shock.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

Families General parenting
Francagoestohollywood · 17/04/2011 14:51

Also, 9/10 sounds like an ok age to start leaving them for a while. Also school trips and summer camps.

PixieOnaLeaf · 17/04/2011 14:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

desperatelyseekingsnoozes · 17/04/2011 15:14

I think a summer camp or school holiday is different. All of our children go on those. However the thought of going on a family holiday and then saying to kids "By the way look after yourselves we are off now" seems quite odd.

Perhaps that is because DH and I try to go away on our own for long weekends throughout the year so when we have a family holiday we want to do things as a family. We also do lots of camping holidays and the kids go off and do things so again in the evening we want to be together.

monkoray · 17/04/2011 17:12

Go and stay in a hotel that has a baby sitting service, Never leave your child in a hotel room. You are not the only person with a key. And you don't know who else has one.

mrsravelstein · 17/04/2011 17:19

we went away for the weekend recently and stayed in a small hotel in the cotwolds, only about 15 rooms and fairly off the beaten track... left all 3 kids in the room while we went to dinner within the hotel, so a 3 yr old and a 1 yr old asleep with a baby monitor on which goes straight to hotel receptionist, and 9 year old awake watching tv with a mobile. we were out for about 1.5 hours. i wouldn't do it abroad or in a bigger hotel, and if we hadn't had ds1 with us, i'd have got a babysitter to sit with the 2 little ones.

therealmrsbeckham · 17/04/2011 17:22

Summer camp/ school holiday is completely different. Children are with friends and responsible adults and aren't left alone. They are well supervised the whole time.

SauvignonBlanche · 17/04/2011 17:26

I did it for the first time last year and went down to the bar, dcs are 13 & 10.
Wouldn't have done it any earlier.

Butterbur · 17/04/2011 17:32

We have a dilemma this summer. We have three hotel rooms, a double, and two twins. DD, who will be 13, wants her own room, leaving DSs, 17 and 15, to share. I'm not sure I'm happy with this, but the alternative, letting DS1 have the room by himself also makes me shudder. I'm not sure who he'll be inviting in. Or whether he will stay in it himself, or whether he'll be off partying with other teens, going for drunken swims etc.

I still haven't decided what to do.

zippy539 · 17/04/2011 17:37

I'm a bit shocked by the reactions to this question tbh. I'm a hyper-vigilant, worst-case-scenario, control freak but ds is 9 and I would leave him in a hotel room while I went down for dinner. (Because I am a control freak I would make sure he could call my mobile/find me in case of an emergency). Like someone mentioned above - what about cub, scout, brownie, guide trips? How close do we need to be to our kids at all times? At what point do you allow your child to walk to school? Go to the corner shop? NEVER? Ds's friends are starting to walk to school themselves and I feel like the spoil-sport because I don't let ds join in because to do to so he'd have to cross a horrible road with no lights/crossing patrol. However if I thought he could walk to school/cubs safely by himself I would let him do so around now, so surely I should happy about leaving him in a hotel room? I just wonder if we've gone a bit nuts about all this stuff and are rearing a generation who won't know how to tie their own shoelaces until they are 36.

zippy539 · 17/04/2011 17:38

Butter - I would like to reconsider my stance when dcs are proper teenagers - that's a whole new ball-game. :)

expatinscotland · 17/04/2011 17:38

I wouldn't until one's about 15 or 16 at least, which means youngest would be 10 and it will depend on how sensible they all are.

We've only ever stayed in a hotel a max of 2 nights. Get adjoining rooms or you camp out in the bathroom whilst they sleep.

Otherwise, we use self-catering accommodation and either stay home in evenings or rotate who goes out.

Ours are 7, 5 and 2. They've never spent the night with anyone when we weren't there excepting their grandparents and my sister's house.

PixieOnaLeaf · 17/04/2011 17:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

rosie1979 · 17/04/2011 18:30

I cant imagine ever doing it - in their teens I would maybe consider it but they would then be old enough to come out in the evening as well by then.

A couple of years ago I was on a business trip in the Far East, zonked out on the first night I ordered room service and crashed with earplugs, eyemask the works. A couple of hours later I woke, instinctively knowing someone else was in the room - it was the room service waiter(who had left my door on the latch) going through my bag...it was the MOST terrifying moment ever - imagine that happening to a child/teenager....I still get scared staying in hotels now.

albania · 17/04/2011 18:35

Occasionally if we're only at the pool my eldest will get bored/tired/dizzy from the sun and want to go up to the room, we'll leave her there on her own for an hour or two.
However, wouldn't leave either of my teenagers alone if we were away from the hotel, they're 17 and 13.

PixieOnaLeaf · 17/04/2011 18:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

exoticfruits · 17/04/2011 19:15

Never- seems odd to me. What happens when your 17yr old wants to go off on holiday on their own abroad? They can be married at 16yrs-off to Afganistan and you won't leave them in a hotel room alone?!!!
As Pixie says, they will be alone in a strange city at university.
At 18yrs they can go off where ever they like, if they have the money, and you can't stop them. It seems irresponsible to have not prepared them before they do these things.
When we have stayed in hotels the DSs(when eldest a teenager) have shared a bedroom and it never turned out to be next to us.

exoticfruits · 17/04/2011 19:16

The mind boggles at them having a gap year in Peru etc at 18yrs and you haven't left them alone in a hotel room at 15/16/17. Scary stuff!!!

LetThereBeRock · 17/04/2011 19:41

I'm with Zippy on this. A sensible nine or ten year old is not going to spontaneously combust if they're left alone for half an hour to an hour,if they want to rest,while you have dinner.

exoticfruits · 17/04/2011 19:43

As long as they are 9 or 10, happy to be left, and can get hold of you I can't see a problem-not for half an hour.

albania · 17/04/2011 19:50

Oh no, she was 15 the last time we went on holiday.
She's 17 now.

therealmrsbeckham · 17/04/2011 19:53

Zippy I disagree. My DD aged 10 walks with her friends to school and goes out and about in our village with them but that is completely different to leaving her alone in an unfamiliar environment however sensible she is.

Also as I said earlier, on camp and school holidays the children aren't left by themselves - I have no issues with DC going away on arranged trips as I know there will be responsible adults present.

As for leaving DC on their own in an unfamiliar hotel room - not a chance.

onepieceofcremeegg · 17/04/2011 20:00

I would possibly consider this at 11/12, especially if we were on holiday in the UK. Many children by this age are travelling to and from secondary school on one or more buses, then letting themselves into the house and being alone for a short time.
I would have to still be in the hotel and regularly checking though. And if any of us (dh, me or the dcs) felt uncomfortable, we wouldn't do it.