Why can't I go out and leave my 3 year old asleep on his own in the house?

[FrannyandZooey]

Don't worry, I am not about to do this. But I have been musing about risk and safety recently and I am wondering if this really is as terribly unsafe as we all think it is. He doesn't wake up and will be asleep for 90 mins or more. Even if he did, he is a sensible child and is not going to fall down the stairs or drink bleach or anything. He would be worried that I was not there (which is my main reason for not doing it).

I know the argument is "what if there was a fire?"

But there isn't a fire, is there? How many fires start at random when there is no-one in the house but a toddler, fast asleep? I can see there is a small risk here - but it seems tiny to me. How does it compare with taking children out in the car? Crossing the road? Air travel? Being savaged by a dog?

As I say, please don't think I am about to go out and leave him - I'm not. But can someone explain to me why this would be absolutely unacceptable for me to do so, because I'm not getting it.

speaking from personal experience of ds who is 2.8yrs I wouldnt be able to leave him. This was revealed more so yesterday when I was changing DDs nappy and in the whole 2mins I was downstairs distracted he had managed to flood my bathroom through to the kitchen where it was pouring through by the windows etc. He has never done anything like that before always been very good with washing hands turning taps off etc but yesterday he didnt. Knowing my luck if I nipped out he would inevitably burn the house down some how.

Although will say last summer when eh was 19mths he locked me out the house and I couldnt see in as blinds were shut and we have no letterbox that reaches into house to shout. For a whole 20mins he was in the house unsupervised while I was outside waiting for someone to bring spare keys. When I got into the house he was sitting on the couch reading a book eating french stick.

We used to have some friends with a dd the same age as ds1. They lived on an army camp and socialised with the other army families in the houses next to theirs at least once a week. When they went round to their friends' houses they used to leave their dd in the house alone (asleep) from the age of about 3 months and take a baby monitor with them. Tbh it totally freaked me out. My friend's response was that she could hear her dd over the monitor and her dd was a really sound sleeper. It still freaked me out but she told me I was overreacting. When her dd was 6 months my friend used to go to the gym (100 yards away) when her dd had her nap and leave the monitor with one of the other mums.

What age do you think it is OK to pop to the local shop (say about 5 minutes) leaving a child in the house? DS is 6 and although I haven't done it because of all the reasons you have mentioned, sometimes it seems to me that it would be so much easier and less hassle for everyone (me DS, shopkeeper) if I had left him in the house. He is very sensible and I know he wouldn't do anything silly - if he were watching the TV he probably wouldn't even move!

I think I agree with Blu, it's an instinctive thing of not leaving an unguarded cub. If you do a rational risk anaylsis, there really isn't a good reason not to pop out for 10 minutes (although i'd argue that there is a good rational reason for making it any longer - the risk that they might wake up). My main reason is that I would just feel very uncomfortable and worried the whole time I was out. Not that I think the child would come to harm, be kidnapped or burnt, or that I would be struck by lightning or run over. Really just that I would feel bad all the time until I got home. And that's nothing to do with reason or risk analysis really.

Am i weird then in not feeling bad because I do pop to the shop ( 5 doors down from my house) when my dd is asleep?

At 6 years old mine goes to the shop himself!
Piglit, why were you freaked out - did anything bad ever happen to the sleeping children that your friends monitored remotely?
I think we have been sent bonkers by companies that frighten us into having more safety products than we actually need. How on earth did we all make it to adulthood without monitors, stairgates & plug socket protectors?
It would be risky to leave your child/baby out of ear shot for protracted periods of time but for a few mins - come on? Really & truly what is going to happen?

I agree with you, F&Z, I don't really see the risk. (Or, at least, I don't see that it's any bigger than loads of other optional risks we take.) We live on a sort of development, and I have gone to the bins etc, leaving one or both kids asleep in the house. Don't think I could bring myself to go to the shops, though, even the nearby ones that are only a few minutes' walk away.

I've gone to postbox/corner shop/takeaway after bedtime -- doublelocking front door, old envelope in pocket in case I am concussed by a drunk, and (crucially) crossing no roads. There and back in 3-4 mins.
No qualms. I don't really get this at all.

Hmm, thinking about it, it may be the roads that make me uncomfortable. I can get to the bins, or my neighbour's house, without crossing any roads. I can't get to the shops or a takeaway, without crossing roads.

bluejelly - I wouldn't feel bad either if it were only 5 doors and I knew I could get back within a couple of minutes. I'd feel increasingly anxious after 10 minutes though.

at last some voices of reason

It is an interesting point, and I would agree that Blu has hit teh nail on the head. I would also say that I believe small children (under 5s, say) to be inherently unpredictable, however much of a routine they appear to be in

Albert, FWIW the way I judged it was that I wanted the child to be of an age that he/she could follow instructions on what to do if anything went wrong. So I used to leave ds for 5 minutes when he was 7, while I picked up dd from the nursery that is at the end of the road. My risk assessment was all based on what if something happened to me while I was out - once ds was old enough to understand that if I wasn't back by 1.15 he was to ring granny, or whatever, that was good enough for me. I wouldn't have left him any longer at that age even so. Dd is now 8 and I have never left her because she doesn't want to be left, whereas ds did, so I factor that in too.

I did this by mistake once. Dh took ds upstairs for his nap and said he might have a lie-down too. I was busy downstairs (three storey house so you can't hear what's going on on the second floor and I didn't have the monitor on because dh was up there). After half an hour or so, I remembered we needed some milk so went to the shops. Was gone about 20 minutes. Was walking back down my road when I bumped into dh, who had also nipped to the shops.

Luckily ds hadn't woken up. But if he had, I'm sure he would have been very upset. And God only knows what he'd have got up to.

I have only just worked up the courage to go to the shop leaving dd1 at home - I go on my bike and it is about 100yds away, I always go when I know there won't be a queue and go like a demon there and back....

She is nearly 11 and if quite happy to be left - i just can't cope with it! (needless to say she is not having an afternoon nap though!)

Having said that both she and dd2 (nearly 9) go to the same shop on thier own as they are both very sensible so I know it is totally irrational!

Is it more to do with how you may be perceived by others rather than the possibility of anything actually happening that makes people less inclined to leave their kids for a few minutes?

Was also wondering that - not necessarily for ones so young as 3 but maybe at 6/7 ish? is it because we have had it drummed into us?

Although personally I think that at 6/7 they are still too unpredictable....in fact I kind of think that up to about....22

QE - also agree with that. That's the other reason I wouldn't - purely and simply in case any of my neighbours reported me and SS descended on me and accused me of satanic abuse. Not worth the risk.

Bugsy2 - do you really think it's ok to leave a three month old baby on her own all evening? Monitor or no monitor surely it's just plain wrong to leave a three month old baby on her own?

Why is it plain wrong piglit? You mean morally wrong?

i just feel sick at the thought of any child being left at home on their own, i was constantly left home alone with my older brother and younger sister, my mum would be in the pub, funny thing is my house burned down(main electricity cable had smouldered under the house and burst into flames)when i was nearly 3 (my first memory) but still my mum left us in the house alone about 3yrs down the line

But caligula - if you had done a mental checklist and risk calculation and you felt happy to leave your child for say 10 minutes whilst you nipped to the corner shop for essentials such as milk and bread for the morning, then why would it actually matter what someone else thought of your actions?

Whilst I would know that I was right (having made that risk assessment based on my knowledge of my own kids) I would find myself wondering if it was the right thing to do if, for instance, my neighbour did the same.

Why do we allow oursleves to feel guilty because of what others may think?

Morals have nothing to do with it. I could never ever leave a 3 month old baby alone in a house for 4 or 5 hours while I went out. If it's ok to leave them for 4 or 5 hours then why not the whole night? I'd never forgive myself if something happened. Ok, a house going up in flames is pretty rare but imagine if it did happen? Besides, I know when I get together with my friends we make a bit of a racket - how can you be sure you'd hear the monitor anyway? A baby choking on it's vomit doesn't necessarily scream and shout about it.

I've sat in next doors garden in the evening and had a cup of tea, when DH was away for 6 weeks last summer - semi-detached house, small garden with a four foot fence between ours and next door. And I had the baby monitor with me. How is this different from sitting in my own garden and having a cup of tea when DS has gone to bed?

It's a Brit thing, in large part, I think.

My German cousin goes for a run while her baby has his morning nap. I wouldn't go quite that far, but I can't see a problem with nipping to the corner shop or posting a letter leaving a baby asleep in its cot. I think a 3yo is inherently more risky as they can get out of bed, reach things etc, but I'd still go the corner to post a letter if the child was properly asleep (literally 50 yards down the road).

My mother used to leave me in bed, aged 4, while she drove to the station to collect my father, about 40 mins in total. I do remember waking up once and being sick (very tidily in the bath, so my mother says) and sitting downstairs waiting for her to come back. I don't remember being particularly freaked by it -- I knew she'd come back. Both parents rowing in front of me scored much more highly on my freakometer.

Were we talking about hours? I assumed it was 5 minutes or so, like popping to the corner shop or postbox. Five hours - of course not! Five minutes, hmmmm.....