Is it Ok to watch your children sleep on a video monitor whilst you go out to dinner

[Jzee]

Whilst on holiday? I can't really believe that someone I know seems to think this is an Ok thing to do? Personally, I think it's pretty selfish and when I've been on holiday we've allways taken DD out with us either for an early dinner or taken the buggy so she can sleep. In the light of recent news events I can't believe some parents are prepared to take these chances?

Similar set-up to the McCann thing, I wouldn't even consider it. If in a very small family-run hotel where the set-up and distances involved were the same sort of distances as would be involved at home, I would (example: went to FIL's birthday dinner (group of about 20 family and friends) in one small hotel. DS was in our room which was up literally 8 steps from the private room where we were having dinner, with door of bedroom in plain view, and I listened in on a monitor. When he woke up I went and got him and brought him in for half an hour or so before retiring early with DS. I shall now ritually disembowel myself in shame. Or, perhaps, I shan't.)

The "don't ever take your eyes off your kids until they turn 18 for a split second in case they spontaneously combust or are snatched" attitude can also be annoying.

And you can, last time I checked, hear the ear-piercing noise of a smoke alarm over a monitor. And you can, if you don't stay in places with working smoke alarms, bring your own portable one with you (you shouldn't be staying somewhere without a working smoke alarm anyway, even if your child is permanently superglued to your side. Unless you have a supernatural ability to avoid being suffocated by smoke in your own sleep, or you never sleep).

But fire kills in minutes, seconds even. At leastif you are THERE you can drag them ot of the builidng in those moments - not be trying to gET to the buiklding!

Someone I know went to the Maldives, paid a local woman a pittance to look after her 1 year old child so her and her husband could "get a much needed break and go diving all day together and actually have dinner together and have a proper conversation without little bubba spoiling it".

Poor loves, my heart bleeds.

bit off topic I know but illustrates the "kids are soooo inconvenient" point quite nicely I thought!

It isn't something I would do.

When we are on holiday we either all eat out together, or we eat in. This is one of the reasons why we never choose hotels for a family holiday. We always choose villas or cottages. Thens ome nights we can choose to out DD to bed a bit ealier, and we eat in - can enjoy more wine that way to

dividedself -- as I said, I would do it in the same building if it were small and the distances involved similar to those we'd be looking at at home or when staying with relations, but I wouldn't do it in a different building or where the distances were larger than that. I don't refuse to put DS to bed at my mother's house and watch television or have a drink downstairs because I'm afraid the house will catch fire, after all.

I wouldn't, but that's not to say I wasn't tempted when I discovered that my baby monitor's range extended to the very nice restaurant across the street from my parents' house...

Never.

If you are paying enough attention to a video monitor for it to be even almost safe, you may as well have them there with you surely?

Kbear - I am stunned

Maybe this is my realy warped sense of logic but if you go on a family holiday it is exactly that for all of the famly not for parents to have time away from kids. If thats what the parents wanted isnt it better to ask a relative to have them at home and them go away by themselves??

Cory lets her mind wander fondly back to memories of holiday meals shared together: Chinese takeaways eaten in the hotel shower (to save posh upholstery), French cheeses suspended on a piece of string from the hotel window, chantarelle and cream sauce scoffed by a happy toddler while Mummy sat by eating the Kiddie's meal... And many many happy conversations.

Well, I'm not entirely of the "you go on a family holiday you do everything as a family" mindset. The best "family holiday" we went on was with my mum and step dad, who looked after our children for us for the whole of one day, and part of another, so we could go diving and to the spa .

But I wouldn't leave them unattended. Full stop.

well I just went on a holiday in a hotel that slept 100 people and my kids were left to the babysitters outside their doors.

TBH I wouldn't leave the building in all honesty, but I would certainly leave hem in their room.

It depends on comfort factor tbh.

I would be more worried about things like fire than abduction to be honest.

dont think i explained what i ment to well. maddona by leaving your kids with family for a day it is still a family holiday iyswim. its leaving them with babysitters or putting them in kids clubs all day everyday i dont understand really.

Aren't we discussing two fundamentally different things here.

Firstly the video monitor. Do you know, and I'm sure I'm going to get roundly lambasted for this, I'd probably do that provided it was in the same building and I'd checked the room was fully locked and it wasn't a huge place. It's a safety issue and yes there is a small chance of a potential fire and an extremely small chance of abduction.

However on that basis you would then think that those parents who chose to use a babysitter are taking wise precautions, but oh no apparently you have to be well acquainted with the person, which is fairly difficult if you are abroad or away from home.

I agree a family holiday is one you spend with your kids, but I can't quite see how I'm a negligent or "middle class" mother because I choose to spend the day with my child and pay a qualified person to look after him so I can enjoy a civilzed dinner at a normal time with my DH.

re kids clubs - doesn;t it depend on whetehr you see your childrne all day normally? I mean I work so my holiday is a zhance for me to spend more time with my DS. My sister is a SAHM and her kids quite happily went into kids clubs every morning I can;t say I htought it was such a terrible thing to do - now they are teenagers they seem as mad as all teenagers-- pretty well adjusted.

Like Portandlemon - I would (and have) left DS in a smallish hotel using a combination of monitor and checking in person for dinner. I can't afford to stay in hotels often - maybe you think its a more middle class thing to do because more middle class people can afford to stay in hotels.

But no, to answer OP, I wouldnt go to another building - I wouldn't be able to relax.

I think it is a "family" thing. We are a family, we do family stuff together. I don't want to be without my kids on holiday ever and I am perfectly serious.

Me and DH want to do stuff all day with them and then eat early and sit in the tent or caravan drinking wine while they sleep or, as we will be doing in a few weeks in Florida, sit and watch tv and eat pizza while they sleep in the next bed. For us that is a holiday, not everyone agrees and it's their call but I want to be with my kids on holiday and could not in a million years relax having left them alone in a hotel room, and the main reason is what if they woke and needed me and I wasn't there?

I am the mum, I have to be there.

When they are 16 they won't need me there and then DH and I will eat dinner at 10pm under the stars and the kids can roam and we will catch up on those conversations!!!!

But shelleymum some of us don't have appropriate relatives to leave dc's behind with IF we do need some childfree time or wouldn't want to leave them for a whole weekend/ week.

For me and dh our ideal is a lot of our holiday time with our ds but a small amount of it without him - with him in the creche for a few hours every other day and/ or a babysitter some evenings. I think that's a whole lot kinder than leaving him at home for a week with a grandparent (not that we have that choice) whilst he misses us.

I have left ds in a separate building with baby listening on in a 'family friendly hotel'. Not sure I would now - post mcCanns.

I would and have since however left him asleep in the hotel room whilst I've dined about 30m away in the same hotel's restaurant on an outdoor table steps away from our room and in view of it and with a movement monitor that alerts me if he is taken out of his cot. I don't think that's so bad. It's no different to being downstairs in my house.

Downstairs in the same hotel doesn't really bother me, as people say, that's the same as being in your own house and you don't keep your kid at your side when you're at home. But leaving the place, even with a monitor is pushing it a little I think, the joy I'd get at having an hour at a quiet meal is nothing compared to the sheer grief of knowing that meal has ended in tragedy of some sort, you'd just never forgive yourself if something happened.

'what if they woke and needed me and I wasn't there?' wekk you'd hear them on the monitor and be there within 5 mins, just as you would if you were out in the garden on a summer evening and they were crying in bed.

Am I am inadequate mother for thinking that DS isn't going to self combust for waiting a few minutes for me to arrive?

I supose I don't see that you need to be together 24/7 to be a family. I love my DS and want to be with him but I do like having some time to myself even if only an hour or two.

You're not inadequate and I don't intend to make you feel like that Kew. It's just a difference of opinion. You might feel I'm over-protective by not leaving them alone, I'm just saying, I don't feel it necessary for me personally to leave them alone and that 5 mins crying in a hotel room isn't what I want for my child. They are 9 and 6 now so different anyway, they are up later but I think lots of people aren't willing to sacrifice their intimate dinners for two when they have a baby. But it's their decision.