baby home alone? | Imamother

jelibean

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 3:28 pm

be good wrote:

thank you all for bringing up important points! now I see why I was concerned. a mothers intuition is significant, even if she cant put her finger on it. better safe than sorry. you may be able to see from the tone of my original post that I honestly wasnt seriously considering the idea, but I wanted to hear what others had to say on the matter.

louche and otherthehill- your posts were totally inappropriate.
you have so much concern for my baby, (who I take vary good and meticulous care of,) and yet you have no problem abusing me and my husband. opinions can be expressed in a positive and caring tone, or as an angry attack. please think carefully before you speak. that was very hurtful.

Raspberry

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 3:41 pm

I leave my kid "alone" with a monitor being listened to by our apartment-neighbours. They are 2 rooms over from his room, and (because they've done the reverse with their son) I know that I can actually hear things better through the monitor than by standing outside his room. Also they obviously have our apartment key in case they want/need to check things out at any point in time. Our apartments are so close that we can hear eachothers babies without a monitor, and even if I was at home I wouldn't be going into my kid's room to check on things after bedtime if I didn't hear a noise.

c'monnnnn haters!

be good

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 4:08 pm

jelibean wrote:

be good wrote:

thanks for your vote of confidence, jelibean!

marina

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 7:36 pm

Look ladies. I really want to understand how your risk assessment works. I asked this in the induction thread last night and no one answered.

Clearly there are risks to leaving an infant home alone with just a monitor connected to the the neighbors. I got that.

But there are risks associated with everything else too, like, say insisting on not being inducted past 42 weeks. Infant mortality goes up significantly. And yet, no one writes things like : OMG, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING TO YOUR BABY, YOU ABUSIVE MOTHER? like they did in this thread. Instead people write things like OMG, WHY CAN'T THE STUPID DOCTORS LEAVE US ALONE SO WE CAN BIRTH IN PEACE?

So how does your risk assessment work? Do you really think the risk of a preventable fire or stranger-kidnapping during any random hour you happen to be outside is that much higher than the risk of death for fetuses when you choose not to induce past 42 weeks? Or is it that you know more about one type or risk than about the other? Or is it that the concept of a stranger-kidnapping or house fire is so much more traumatic than a still birth?

How does your thought process work on this?

saw50st8

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 8:07 pm

marina wrote:

I didn't see your post in the induction thread, but when I went for a semi-voluntary induction, my doctor and I discussed my bishop score.

I am by no means a helicopter parent. I will let my children play on a different level of my home for a few minutes while I do something. But leaving them in an apartment alone? You think that's acceptable?

gold21

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 8:16 pm

I agree with marina. Do I think its normal to leave a baby alone in an apt for 2 hours with a monitor by a neighbor? No way, not at all. However, I find it interesting how some moms are so obsessed with certain risks and so un-worried about other risks.... Like the Car-seat-a-phobes who would never take a friend's 7 year old child home from school when the kid's mom is in labor, because you don't have a booster seat, and children must be in boosters til age 8..... We all have to be careful and cautious, and certainly don't leave babies home alone to go to a party, but we should evaluate all risks, no picking and choosing, and make appropriate decisions based on the info we have.....

sky

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 8:20 pm

the world's best mom wrote:

Besides, I check on my babies every so often to make sure they're still breathing.

Do you wake up every hour at night to do this as well? How often do you do this? If my maybe skips a feeding I will go over and make sure everything is okay, but not really more then that at night.
If someone checks their baby every hour, what happens if the baby ch'v stop breathing 10 minutes later, how does it help. Would it help not to take a shower during that time? Some of these precautions sound SO over the top
(Disclaimer: I would never leave my child alone in the house, but I don't understand all the need to install guilt in mothers, we have enough as it is)

shmoozer

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 8:22 pm

sky wrote:

the world's best mom wrote:

Besides, I check on my babies every so often to make sure they're still breathing.

I agree. We have to be normal.

Barbara

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 8:26 pm

marina wrote:

Unless we're looking at different threads, the induction thread is about a woman who is only halfway through her pregnancy, but her husband is enraged that when the time comes, she will not agree to be induced at a time convenient to him so that he won't have to leave class when she goes into labor. Everyone on the thread has mentioned that it is not good to induce UNLESS MEDICALLY NECESSARY. The OP of the thread mentioned that she had been induced for medical reasons in an earlier pregnancy, and left open the possibility of that happening again. The thread has nothing to do with women who refuse to be induced for medical reasons.

Look, we all take risks in our lives. Most of the time, all is OK. A former colleague of mine, who was a single mom of 3, used to leave her kids alone on a regular basis. She couldn't afford sitters, so she'd wait until they were asleep, then go out to a club; the oldest must have been all of 7 years old. All 3 are adults today. No fires, kidnappers, etc. That doesn't make what she did right, or safe. And let's face it, it didn't work out so well for Madeleine McCann's parents, or a host of others.

I suppose its also a risk to leave the baby upstairs, asleep, while you make dinner in the kitchen. We recognize, though, that its not the same level of risk We need to intelligently weigh these risks, not have a knee-jerk reaction.

Leaving a baby alone in an apartment, trusting someone in a completely different home with a baby monitor to care for that child, simply tilts way too far to be a reasonable course of action. IF something happens, its unlikely that the person would be able to reach the baby. If the person has her own kids, I'd place the chances of her going for that baby in case of fire at a flat ZERO.

If the neighbor is really willing to be responsible for the baby, the easy solution is to have the baby stay at the neighbor's apartment. If the neighbor is just going to keep keep half on ear open for ear-piercing shreiks, then its no different from leaving the baby alone.

eschaya

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 8:34 pm

I'm with imaima, grateful, and the other few in the minority who think that there is responsible parenting, and then there is paranoid, helicopter parenting. At the same time, I also agree with OPs intuition that what her husband is suggesting is not responsible.
No, I have never left my children alone with a monitor while I have gone "shpitzering" (to quote a previous poster) for two hours, but I have left a sleeping baby while I've run outside to greet another child coming home from school. And I would never wake my baby to do so. I have taken a shower while my baby sleeps. I have even taken a shower while my toddler plays alone in my room (with the door locked so he stays in my room, where I have prepared a few books and toys). I have stood outside in my court (we don't live on a through street) and talked with a neighbor for a few minutes while a baby is inside asleep, and my front door is in view and a 10 second dash away. I have even gone jogging around my court at night while my children sleep; the house is in view at all times and I stop in to listen at each circuit. And if you want to yell at me and call me irresponsible, then I can reciprocate and call you irresponsible for actually going to sleep while your children sleep... do you know that your child can die of Sids, strangle himself in his blanket, sneak downstairs for a midnight snack of ice cream, inhale smoke, climb out of his crib and into his sisters bed, turn on the light and read, fall out of his bunkbed and break an arm, ALL WHILE YOU ARE DEEPLY ASLEEP!! And you call yourself a good parent! To those of you who can't bring in groceries while your children sleep, can I hypothesize that you are also the parent who will never let your child ride a bike for fear of his falling off? Do you not let your child run around the park by herself, because maybe if you don't see her for a second (she's in a tunnel slide, you see), she'll be kidnapped?
To be serious, I agree with OP and the many zealous posters who followed, that leaving a child "babysat" by a monitor and a neighbor for two hours is unsafe. That post was legitimate, and it appears that there is almost unanimous support for the OPs intuition. But in response to some of the posts that followed, it really made me think about the phenomenon of "helicopter" parents, which has been becoming more and more the norm, and it seems to be a way of making the parents feel better, not about the kids being safer. I dunno. Just my thoughts. Bash me if you wish, I'm strong enough not to hide behind amother. But I don't think I'm an irresponsible parent. (I serve my kids whole wheat products whenever possible, I don't bring candy or soda into the house... gosh, isn't that proof enough!!)

marina

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 8:35 pm

sorry, to clarify, I am talking about this induction thread http://www.imamother.com/forum.....rt=20

not the angry husband thread, but the regular old "how can I induce myself" one.

I just find it interesting that there is really zilch discussion of risk on that thread in contrast to this thread.

Maybe it's because people perceive risk on both sides of the equation when it comes to induction, but only on one side when it comes to leaving the baby alone. I don't know if people are that logical or if it is some primal emotional reaction.

Do people understand that there somewhat of a risk when mom stays home too? Like Andrea Yates' kids would have been better off had she left them with a monitor and took off for two hours or even two days or years.

If there's one risk that people underestimate, it's the one about a small child being home with a stressed out, overwhelmed parent. this thread illustrates it nicely http://imamother.com/forum/vie.....ight=

Last edited by marina on Tue, Nov 30 2010, 9:00 pm; edited 4 times in total

GingerSpice

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 8:42 pm

sky wrote:

the world's best mom wrote:

Besides, I check on my babies every so often to make sure they're still breathing.

I know I'm not the only one who checks on my kids and a mother has a certain sense of danger that Hashem gives us. I've been downstairs and sensed my daughter was waking up in her crib, a neighbor wouldn't have felt that.

MrsDash

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 9:00 pm

gold21 wrote:

Would you change your opinions if you were aware that MVAs are the leading cause of accidental death in the entire U.S. More children die from car accidents than any other accident in the country. I wouldn't hold by the "minimum" requirements for child restraint safety.

causemommysaid

Tue, Nov 30 2010, 9:03 pm

im going to be alone in my opinion here but here goes

I really really dont see the big deal about giving a neighbor who lives 5 feet away from my apartment a key and a monitor and telling her to go check on the sleeping baby every 5 minutes so I can run out for 15 min. hes a baby not a toddler. he cant get into dangerous things if he is in a safe crib. take out all blankets and other hazards from the crib and make sure the bar is up. and if he wakes up and cries- so he cries for a bit. the world wont come crashing to a halt. I really dont see how this is called neglect. I have a responsible adult ten feet away who has access to my baby at all times and is going in every so often to check up.

I also dont see why I cant go down and take up the groceries. there is only one way to get into my apt and thats through the front door. I see the door at all times and my baby is in a crib away from harm. what is dangerous about that?

oh and I am a very careful mother. I check multiple times a night for breathing, I dont use blankets until my kids are old enough to sleep safely with them, im very wary of cosleeping, I keep my handbag next to the car seat so I should never forget the baby, I nail the bookcases into the wall, I dont close the top button on the sleepers so less hazard of choking, I gate off the kitchen...... I could go on and on but I dont call this leaving a baby home alone