Babies should never be left alone?

[redandyellowandpinkandgreen]

So I was reading the fsid website, DH is a smoker and I was trying to get some info for him to shame him in to giving up. He doesn't smoke in the house or near me and won't anywhere near the baby and will hopefully give up before it arrives.

I read this on the site

'We don?t yet know if there is a danger from smoke particles on clothes. Babies, however, should never be left alone. If you need to smoke and you are looking after your child alone, you should take your child outside in a pram or pushchair and stand a few steps away from your child while you smoke. Otherwise, leave your child inside the house with a trusted relative or child-minder while you go outside to smoke.'

Really? I thought I had read up quite well but I didn't know you should never leave the baby alone. I had thought it would be fine, if baby is sleeping, to go and hang the washing out for example. Or pop and have a shower or something.

I mean it is one way to help him to quit if every time he wants a cigarette he has to wrap baby up and take it outside definitely. But I really can't ever leave the baby? Until when?

Has made me re-think everything reading that and really worried me.

That is mad. Of course you can leave the baby sleeping and go out of the room. You can use a monitor if you want but I didn't always use one for my DS.

Good grief, how do these people think you will function if you can't leave a baby alone while you have a shower!

Well having a shower would be fine if baby was in the same or next room. Going out the house wouldn't be okay in my book though.

I think they're talking about leaving the baby alone in the house. You might not take your keys, the door might slam, baby is inside and you're locked out.

You can be in one room with them in another though.

It's impractical to never leave a baby alone - only managable if neither of you work or you have staff on hand 24/7.

And I would rather a smoker left the baby inside, than smoked a few steps away from them outside.

Get your dh to the GP to get on the NHS quit smoking thing - a pal of mine tried to give up for years and it worked for her.

If my back door slams while I am having a fag (said in a Little Britain voice) then I open it again. You need a key to lock it. My baby is nearly 4 though.

FSID are good but they are a mite alarmist. Of course you can have a shower or go and hang out the washing while your baby is asleep. Popping to Tesco or down the pub though is ill-advised.

SOunds mega silly but what did you do in the first weeks, when you needed a wee and no one else was around to watch baby??? awake or asleep?

Of course you can leave a baby alone. I leave mine asleep in her cot while I do the gardening or hang out the washing (no danger re getting locked out with our back doors). You can always have a monitor with you in case the baby wakes.

FSIDS don't make the REASONS for their guidelines clear. You're not meant to leave a baby alone ASLEEP - lying gurgling in their cot is fine but leaving them asleep alone isn't. The reason for this is that tiny babies can go into very deep sleep and sort of forget to breathe. By having them in the room with you, lying on their back, they're less likely to drop into a deep sleep.
Hope that helps explain...

If you never left a baby alone asleep, how would you ever get anything at all done?!

BagofHolly Will you always be in the same room as your baby when it naps? IMO naptime is the time when you grab a few mins me time of get some chores done!

I mean or, of course!!

Yes they can bagofholly but that's not that likely if you are hanging out the washing for 10 minutes. It's alarmist. Just like their horrible horrible campaign against co-sleeping which frankly made me lose any respect I ever had for the organisation

Tarlia, I intend to be, and I was with my son, usually with me at one end of the kitchen and him in his hammock at the other. He got used to noise and stuff going on around him.
I'm having twins this time and intend to stick to the guidelines as closely as possible.

Expectations are too hard or new mums, then we wonder why there are so many cases of PND. Poor new mums are scared to even leave the room for 2 mins while their baby sleeps, while they go for a wee. I know I'd much rather leave a baby sleeping then take it into the bathroom, or garden to hang the washing. How do you propose carrying baby and washing safely in one trip?

Scaremongering!

Jeeze my typing tonight! Arg!!

BagofHolly totally agree about them not making the reasons clear. I bought a second hand crib, the mattress looked brand new, it was washable, it was clean, I knew the person I had bought it off. It has been used for about 6 months.

Yet when I researched and saw the guidelines about getting a new mattress I couldn't ignore them and am having to get a new one. My instict tells me the mattress would be fine but because I can't research it further I just have to go with their advice and ditch it because you just can't take any risk with your baby.

You need to get a monitor. They're fab when kids are older too and you want to listen to what the hell they are doing and talking about upstairs!

I used to leave the door ajar so I could pop in and check on dss when they were teeny. The littlest is still in my bed from 5am ish.

Have to use your own judgement when it comes to advice from politicians and Government websites.

I had him in a sling a lot, and I'd put the washing out etc when he was awake. And when he slept, I tried to sleep. I agree there's huge pressure on new mums.

By the way I love your name redandyellow !

OMG!!

If we are made to feel bad about popping the washing on the line while baby sleeps then the world must have gone mad!

Give me strength!

How many babies in Scandinavia die from SIDS whilst napping outside, alone, in prams, while mums can be as many as four floors up?

I think mums need to be allowed to trust themselves. Many follow all of these rules and yet baby still dies of SIDS, fact. It's very very sad, but you cannot be chained to baby 24/7, these things will happen regardless.

Ladybiscuit- was that the campaign last year, when they didn't tell everyone that the "test subjects" in the studies were co-sleeping drug addicts, and didn't reflect a normal cross section of society at all?

Yes I think so. It was the one where it implied that co-sleeping babies die. Made me really cross

A lot of people end up co-sleeping when they didn't intend to because they are so sleep deprived and then worry that they're going to kill their baby. It would be a help of a lot more helpful if they ran a campaign about how to co-sleep safely. I didn't dare tell my HV I was co-sleeping in case she decided I was an incompetent mother.