Under what circumstances + for how long would you be ok with leaving the house while your dc are sleeping?

[thesleepingbeauty]

I have a (rare!) girls night out coming up in October, and I've decided to get the train into town as I'll be having a few drinks.
Dh will be looking after ds, and probably dropping me off at the station, or I'll walk (only 10min).

Coming back is a bit of a problem though, as dh doesn't want me walking home on my own at that time of night (even though I'd have no problem with it, unless it's pissing down with rain!).

Anyway, do you think it's an option for dh to leave ds sleeping and pick me up from the station? Or is that a complete no-no? It would mean he's out of the house for 10mins at the most. I admit I've left ds sleeping while I go down to the utilities room to put a wash on or hang a wash up and been gone longer than that, but somehow that doesn't seem such an issue.

What do you think?

PS Cabs are not really an option as there aren't any cab firms in our village, and the few times I've tried arranging one have ended up with me standing outside the train station on my own waiting and waiting and waiting...I could have walked it in that time!

You DH should lift DS into the car with a big snuggly blanket. He might not wake, if he does, its ok, he'll fall asleep again and he might even sleep a little later in the morning. I'm not one for waking sleeping children but in this case, definitely. You need a night out!! May as well make it right for going forward

My GOD NO, you should not even be contemplating it, does your partner agree.

I think it does boil down to speed of response for me. The irony is we actually do have a monitor that would work at distances (not the one we use normally) as it works via the mobile phone. We bought it because we had to stay in an old Inn one night for a family do and were concerned that the normal monitor would not work because of thick floors/walls. (As it was, our room was above the lounge and I could hear DS without any kind of device ). My sis therefore borrowed it for her two as their room was further away from the dining room. It worked a treat, but I would never use it to go to the shops or whatever (fire scenarios etc.)

In answer to the question I would pop out to put the bin away or pull the car onto the drive while 17mo DS is asleep.
Lots of people haven't really read the thread though, the OP is now asking whether there are really people who don't let their DCs out of their sight for a second? I agree with this as DS plays in our room while I shower, plays in his room while I nip to the loo (door open) - are there people who really wouldn't let there DCs play out of eyesight for a second??

I would say take no chances. Never leave a child alone, anything could happen - it doesn't bear thinking about.

I'm sorry Green7, I disagree with that "anything could happen" attitude - I think it's important to think what could happen, and how likely it is to do so. In this case, I think most people have agreed that this is probably not okay - i.e. the child is too young, and the parents would be too far away, for too prolonged a period of time. But to take a blanket "take no chances" attitude is IMHO taking things too far - life is all about taking chances surely, or we'd never get out of bed in the mornings?!

Elffriend, we did the same too, ie went next door with the babylistener and went back every 20 minutes to check too.
Interestingly, we have a newborn now (older dc 8 and 5) and I wouldn't do it now and wonder what we were thinking of! Perhaps it is the madeleine thing (for we to used to stay in hotels with babylistening service and so went down to eat while children were asleep in the room). Again, I couldn't do it now.
Perhaps things change quicker than we think?

Bramshott - When I said take no chances, I didn't mean in life, I meant when it comes to your child. Sure life is about taking chances, but when it concerns the safety of a child, in my opinion that's just unacceptable.

But if that's your attitude, when does it change? When do you allow them to play in a room unsupervised for 5 mins?

my aunt lives on a sheep station in Oz. One of their worker families left their sleeping boy for a 3 minute drop off drive at the end of the drive (big sprawling farm) - he woke up found matches, big fire, he died. It takes seconds. Why would you risk it?

Mathematically, do you think the risk of leaving baby asleep in cot in locked house for 5 mins MORE RISKY or LESS RISKY than taking him on a car journey?

Just out of interest!

(not that I'm condoning it, but statistically the latter would be more risky yes?)

Egypt, I think you are almost certainly right - taking him on the 5 minute car journey would be more risky than leaving him in his cot. (Obviously you should not give him matches to play with in said cot

I did not have the heart to say it then but earlier posters have pointed out that there could be a terrible accident while the OP's DH is bringing her back from the station and nobody would know where her DS was. If my DH and I are ever in a terrible accident I would sincerely hope our DC are NOT in the car with us. Even if it takes hours for them to be found.

Car journeys are the most risky thing we ever do with our children - no? And of course we do them every day.

I can't believe you are even contemplating this. It is unbelievable! I am a single parent of a 5 year old and never once left him alone in the house especially at night.

There have been times I have run out of toilet paper etc in the night, even calpol. One one occasion, I called up a babysitter so that I could get calpol from a garage and another when I had to pay a babysitter so that the AA could get my car 2 streets away. But the idea of leaving him alone in the house is awful.

What if I had been mugged or fell on the way to the shops or crashed the car? what if there had been a fire?

You might think it unlikely but a few of years ago I was in a flat when there was a flood in the middle of the night. We managed to get out before the floor collapsed. If my son had been alone, he would have been in a cot and would not have survived.

Getting home is always something to consider on a night out. Get a taxi, if that is not possible and you are scared to walk home then you can't go.

These what if questions are always interesting to me. My children are nine and eight, and during this time they have not set a fire, or indeed been anywhere near one. We have not been burgled, or flooded, or crashed our car, or had anyone else crash their car into us in any significant way. The children have not choked or drowned or indeed had any major injury. No one has attempted to steal them (at least not that we or they have noticed). They have got lost a couple of time, and ds was once rescued by a lifeguard (but at a swimming pool, where I knew there were several on duty). I am not saying that these things could never happen to us, because of course they could, and it would be terrible.

However I don't understand the rationale that says if you take your eyes off your children for one second they are in terrible terrible danger. I follow the benign neglect type of parenting because I am somewhat lazy and fairly relaxed, and because I think independence is a very good life skill, so I have not ensured that they have been permanently "kept safe", but neither have I let them run any terrible risks.

I wouldn't personally leave a baby for a ride in the car (I quite like walking, especially at night). But I do give my children as much freedom as I think they can take (still less than I had at their age though). I think it is very sad how few of their contemporaries are allowed to develop independence. I have friends who check up on their university age children and still ferry them around because they haven't yet the confidence for a long train journey. Surely that way madness lies?

Haven't read the whole post, just the first few pages. I left DS almost 2 at the time home alone when my dad was taken in to hospital having suffered his 8th heart attack. Potentially on deaths door literally. I went to pick up DP so that he could be home with DS while I went to be with my dad.

In my case I wanted to be there ASAP in case the unthinkable happenend and to get DS up and out the door and back in again after would have taken a good 20minutes-half hour longer then the 5 mins to go and get DP.

DP doesn't wake in the night and if he does we ignore him. He wouldn't have know if we were there or not.

Also two dogs downstairs to protect the house. And DS can't get out of cot.

I think max of 10mins ok. But then I also leave DS in car while get milk from shop etc.

Sorry that should have said DS doesn't wake in night not DP! Woops.

Looking at the original post, I would advise phoning your DH on mobile when you start the walk and talking to him/ keeping the line open until you get home

Looking at the original post, I would advise phoning your DH on mobile when you start the walk and talking to him/ keeping the line open until you get home

Sorry, but this is very bad advice. Do not walk along at night talking on the phone. It means that you don't pay attention to your surroundings, so cannot react if there is something amiss, and advertises that you have a mobile to any potential mobile snatcher. Make a discreet call to your dh on pulling into the station, and then put it away.

I agree nooka, I thought all talks on personal safety told you not to have a mobile phone out.

I had mine snatched when I was walking down the road (I was singing a bedtime song to ds at the time) and it was a really scary (and annoying!) experience. I do think if I had been paying attention at the time it wouldn't have happened, because I usually cross the road if I feel too observed or uncomfortable.

nooka - I also find threads like this fascinating for the whole risk aversion and rationality of risk assessments.

All of the extremely risk averse people I know think nothing of bringing their DC with them in the back of the car every day. In the OP's question I think her DS is probably safest left tucked up in bed. And there is her personal safety to be considered as well - we don't know the area, her DH does, and does not think it safe at night.

I rather suspect that if this thread had been posted a year and a half ago, before the outbreak of hysteria over Madeleine McCann, the OP would have got a very different response.

I'm sure you are right. I used to run a Risk Management department, and in m experience people are very poor at identifying and evaluating risk. We have started workshop session with people worrying about the most ridiculous things (the what if scenario) and not even noticing the regular small risks that occur all the time. This means that you get over emphasis on things like bomb threats alongside no-one dong anything about simple trip hazards (boxes in corridors, wires lying across floors etc) even when they are causing regular mishaps. Just because the "what if" is scary doesn't mean it matters more or indeed is at all likely to happen. Still I don't expect people to undertake risk analysis of everyday choices at home

Nooka, I can't remember the scientific term for it, but I recall that people are risk averse to events that have a small probability, but a large downside should that unlikely event occur, and experiments with game theory seem to bear this out. So, tripping over a wire (or in my case, my fit-flops) may be higher probability than being struck by lightning, but the potential downsides of the two scenarios skews perceptions and therefore behaviours. I presume this has somthing to do with us having a very short evolution from a time when we had a measurable risk of being eaten by sabre-toothed tigers. So people will always have an exaggerated fear of unlikley events with a potentially devastating impact (abduction) than the mundane but significantly more likely event (tripping over a toy left on the stairs).