Would you leave your baby/child sleeping in bed..........

[Flumberrysauce]

........... to go and pick someone up?

I ask this because my SIL used to do this about once a week to go and pick my brother up from a bar. They live in Japan. She's Japanese and said it took about 30 mins in total, she wasn't particularly happy about it but wasn't any other way for him to get home and taxis crippling over there. She didn't seem to think it was that big a deal though.

But I spose if they never wake up..... I dunno, I can't decide if its ok or not.

I've nearly popped out to shop before when baby asleep then remembered at the door that we have a baby and she's asleep in other room!

I'm also with the Swiss.

I think as a society we have got overly paranoid about all the things that might go wrong - and as a result risk not giving our children the chance to learn responsibility and independence.

Petesmum, doesn't upset me, wasn't me that did it. But no I won't lecture them about it, its their life and their culture.

His wife is Japanese their culture is to always rock babies to sleep and when they are older the mother takes the children up to bed and stays with them till they go to sleep. She originally thought I was cruel letting my baby go to sleep on her own. But doesn't now as it takes her about 2 hours to get her daughter off to sleep but it takes me about 10 minutes. She says when she has next baby she will 'do it the English style' and put baby to bed at a regular time etc.

It did surprise me a bit she left baby on her own though as the Japanese do create a 'dependant' culture among children to instill the value of family whereas in the UK we/most parents try to instill a level of 'independance' in our babies relatively early on by encouraging them to sleep alone and go to sleep alone etc

i do wonder what our children are making of this? clearly there's a widespread perception of danger, not just lurking in the world beyond the front door, but also within the home. and since children pick up on ALL our anxieties without fail... can it really be good for them to be exposed to this sense that nowhere is safe?

call me irresponsible hey, call the social services but i really can't see the harm in leaving a sick child tucked up on the sofa, or a baby asleep in a cot, for a 5-min hop to the shop... as long as the child in question understands not to put head in oven/fingers in sockets/key in door.

(please note, I'm not advocating 30-min trips in the car, or afternoons at the hair salon or in the pub, though)

Isn't it ironic though that we want them to be 'independent' when babies i.e. go to sleep alone asap, when we won't let them out of our sight when older and perhaps deprive them of the opportunity to learn independence when, arguably, it matters more.

DD would love me to leave her alone just to nip to the shops. We've talked about how it would work - I'd take phone, be back in an agreed time and if I wasn't she should call. If she couldn't get hold of me or someone turned up saying I'd had an accident, she could ring various friends and relatives to come round before she opened the door to a stranger.

Good point SueW. V. ironic. I don't think I am overly anxious with baby, probably a touch on the laissez faire side. But I had a lovely 70's upbringing with lots of freedom. I walked home from school at 7 too - and once me and my friend who I was walking with through a wood were flashed at. We weren't upset though - we thought it was funny.

And I was a latchkey kid from about 10. And beat this my mum bought us an electric deepfat fryer so we could make ourselves chips when we got home.

Can you imagine...................

She's a great mum though, just very relaxed with us. Not sure how we survived though.

As a final point as I know I'm talking to myself here. I don't think most people are actually that paranoid I think its just natural motherly protective instincts. We brought them into the world and we want to keep them safe until they are adults as that is our job.

I don't spose other animals want to leave their young, but they have to to go and get food so they do. And sometimes the young are gone when they get back.

My mum was saying just the other day that she took me to school on the first morning but that was the end of her school runs! She said she never could have managed it with two others under 3 but many mums do today (but lots take the car!)

School was only a few minutes' walk from home and she could see me most of the way from the front window if she'd wanted to. But I suspect that, like in Switzerland, there were so many other children walking, we all just joined up together - kind of informal safety in numbers.

yes, SueW, that's exactly what we've lost, the sense of a confidence in our communities.

oh, too depressing!

I'm absolutely against the idea. I worked as a nanny for 10 yrs before having my first child and I was horrified by the number of parents AND nannies who used to leave a younger child asleep while collecting their sibling from nursery. This could take anything up to half an hour round trip. I reported the nanny next door to me for doing this and she was fired! I felt awful but there's no way that I'd have done it and she was PAID to look after these children. Now I have 3 of my own and am 7 months pg with 4th and even tho some days I feel like I could happily walk out the door LOL I wouldn't be able to risk it. I panic when I'm hanging the washing out as I can't hear them... good excuse for my backlog of laundry!!
Staar