Do you leave your baby "unattended"? - Page 2

[Artichokie]

i would never go any farther than baby monitor range and would never ever get in the car and leave a baby home alone.

[texmati]

no... but DS isn't the type to let us. It took us quite some time to go on a different floor in the house than him, but now at 8 months, we'll use the baby monitor to go downstairs if he's sleeping.

[KaliShanti]

Originally Posted by reignbelle

I let the baby sleep while I play outside with my 2 and 3 year old. I have a moniter that works about 3 house away from my house so we sometimes pace in front of the house back and forth across the 6 houses. I wouldn't go around the. block or out of listening range.

This, except no monitor, so I just check on her every once in a while. And only of she is napping.

[treeoflife3]

I considered doing it when we were in an apartment to do laundry. The laundry room was in another building and our apartment grounds were basically in the middle of nowhere and there weren't very many units so very few people were around usually and very few people had the opportunity to be around.

I was too scared though of risking locking myself out (second floor, I couldn't just break through a window) or of someone much larger and stronger breaking down the front door even if I did lock it or something happening to her (she was 2-4 months at the time) like somehow choking or something... I just got WAY too nervous.

However, now in a house and her older, I'll go to the backyard to water the vegetables (and I HAVE locked myself out, I looked like I was beat because of the bruises I got climbing into my bedroom standing on the compost bin haha) or I'll get the mail or even move the car from one parking spot in our drive way to another. I also leave her alone in different rooms while I go to other rooms to do things as our whole house is either baby proofed completely or gated off.

In the apartment though, I just was too worried about all the what-ifs to even leave the landing outside our door... it made laundry and getting the mail hard but it eased my mind.

[cristeen]

I'm with some of the pps - it's the driving around the block that gives me pause. In that case, I would have taken her with.

I do leave my sleeping babe on the couch or the bed while I go outside and downstairs to the basement to do laundry - if I didn't, laundry would never get done. I also leave my sleeping babe in the car in the garage with a baby monitor while I go upstairs and get stuff done (he doesn't transfer). I'll leave him awake upstairs if I just have to pull the car out of the garage to load him up to go somewhere.

But yesterday I learned my lesson about leaving him. He was awake crawling around on the LR floor. I snuck away and listened for a minute to see if he objected, and he didn't. The LR doors were all closed, so I thought he would be well contained while I ran downstairs to swap the laundry (we're in a house, so it's maybe 2 minutes and 1 flight of stairs which are not safe for me to carry him on). When I got back inside, I could hear him screaming for me - he had managed to open the LR doors and crawl from the LR through the DR and into the kitchen, where I found him freaking out because he couldn't find me. So we won't be repeating that anytime soon.

[octobermoon]

OP i feel for you as we live in a city who likes to give out tickets! we have things like street cleaning and lots of one way streets. being a mama in our world is so hard sometimes, being alone with a baby on a regular basis is really. really. hard. (((hugs)))

our laundry is in the basement and *sometimes* if he has just fallen asleep i will run down super fast and turn on the dryer. i don't like to leave him though and feel so torn sometimes trying to get stuff done. i couldn't mow the lawn. he is rolling everywhere and sleeps in our bed, the mattress is on the floor but i still think he could hurt himself if he fell off.

editing to add, i also will leave DS in the exersaucer for a few minutes for bathroom quick trip to the front door, etc....

[shishkeberry]

Yes, I did when my DS was a baby. I'd go check the mail or take out the trash while he was in his crib or pack n' play. Sometimes I'd also turn his monitor on and visit the downstairs neighbor while he was napping. I didn't see any difference in that than if I had a two story house and I was doing something downstairs while he was sleeping in his room upstairs.

I never left our property though.

[Llyra]

I often left the house to do simple things like take out the garbage or get the mail. I also, with the twins, often left them sleeping and sat on the front porch watching DD1 play. I used to leave the door open so I could hear them if they cried. I also frequently left mine on another level of my three-story house, to do laundry etc., always in a safe, confined place. Frequently, too, I would be taking all three of the kids someplace, and I couldn't safely convey all three of them to the car at once, so I'd buckle the twins in to their car seats in the house, and then bring one child at a time out to the car, get them installed in the car, and then go back for the next kid.

What I won't do: I won't go where I can't see either the front or back door, and if I'm outside one side of the house, the other door has to be locked. I don't go out of scream-distance for more than a few seconds-- I want to hear if one of them is crying. I have occasionally moved the car to a different parking spot in our parking lot, but never would I drive out of sight of the house.

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

My DD gets off the school bus at the end of our laneway at lunch time. It has happened a couple of times that DS is near the beginning of his lunch-time nap, and I know he sleeps about 30 minutes before he'll wake up, so I'll walk up the laneway a couple of minutes before the bus is due to collect DD, and then high-tail it back to the house.

However, in the last couple of days DS has learned to roll on his side and scoot a little on his back, and he sleeps on our queen bed, so I'm thinking I can't leave him now, even with the safety rails up.

[november]

I don't. Our dumpsters and mailbox are about two blocks down the road so I'd have to drive there to do that really quickly. But I don't mow the lawn or leave the house while she's sleeping. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I'd be freaking out the entire time and for me, that's not worth it, lol.

[Adaline'sMama]

I leave my DD to go outside and garden, take out garbage, ect. But I wouldnt drive a car or (something we are often tempted to do) mow the lawn. But we live in the country and my child is not mobile.

[batsister]

We live in a multi-floor apartment in the city. I will leave the room without him, but I don't leave the apartment without my son (10 months old) to do laundry, get the mail, etc. I would not feel at all comfortable doing so, since I would be out of earshot, in some cases need to go to a different floor (e.g., to check mail), and there would either be a locked door between me and my baby (what if I lock myself out?) OR I'd be leaving an unattended baby behind an UNlocked door with random people around.

[cheryllynn]

We live in a house and DD is 1. We did leave her unattended when she was sleeping either in her crib or in the car seat carried in from the car. On occasion we leave her in the car in her car seat sleeping. We can watch from our windows and also leave the car door open and the house window and door open so we can hear. Or we work in the garden or garage.

I did click on the link but couldn't watch. I found it interesting though that the oldest was 10 and she left for 15-20 minutes. When I was 10 I was the babysitter for my younger sister and brother after school when my mom was still working. We were left alone for 1 - 1 1/2 hours M-Th and for about 4 hours on Friday as she had to work late.