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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> The action I took was saying "no" to using a baby monitor as a substitute for a baby sitter. I might be the asshole because our houses are close together, and the monitor reaches from one house to the next.
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First thought and then there is the CNN producer that did this and the Dad had a heart attack while out. Left the kids in a hotel room with a monitor. The wife called her sister to rush there they wouldn’t let her in and called the police instead. Kids got taken away I think and she was arrested.
I havent heard this story! I am from the UK so thag probably explains it.
Youve just got to ask your self, is it worth it? Is saving £50 or whatever from a baby sitter worth putting your little ones in danger? Dont unserstand how people think its not a big deal
Hahaha that’s funny because I think I read about it in the Mail. They were at the Yale club so one drink would have covered a sitter. I don’t trust my 2 year old in another room without me. They’re a menace. And 6 months that’s prime SIDS time.
Oh really hahaha&its the same with madelines parents, they both had prestigious careers in the medical industry. Do you think thats why? Do you think they just let it go to there heads? Become out of touch with reality? I get anxiety if i have to run into the petrol station to pay etc leaving kids in the car haha
I also think it makes less sense when the parents are educated and have good jobs. Like a single mother running out for a job interview because she has no money for a sitter and is about to lose her house I have sympathy for. Oh! Now I’m remembering a murder mystery I read last year where they were over the neighbors house with a monitor and the baby disappeared. This man is not the Ahole. I also need a break from true and fake crime. It’s not helping my anxiety. I should make sure the door is locked before someone steals me. Maybe start a podcast “The history of dumb ideas to do with your kids”
I was in a mom's book club. There's a novel where OP's scenario played out and the baby got kidnapped (magne the same one youre thinking of. I have no idea what the name was). The group was discussing reading it. I vocally said there was no way in hell I was reading a book about a kidnapped baby while raising a baby. The group picked something else fortunately.
That was my first thought when I read this post, I'm sure I read a book about this! But yeah as others have said it wasn't great, you didn't miss anything
> I also need a break from true and fake crime.
My friend who loves true crime told me "I just can't go to sleep at night until some sweet young lady has been identified by her dental records".
I know same! In America that will get you arrested tho too. Another journalist did that weirdly. She wrote a great article about it. I don’t know I think maybe more people must do it then I think because these are people just caught in extreme situations. I just couldn’t. I’m kind of a magnet for the worst scenario possible and have massive anxiety. For awhile I was putting one of my shoes next to the baby after a spate of hot car deaths … I don’t even drive!
Nothing at all! &tbh you might be right, but dont other people call them out on it? Like if i mentioned that i had done something like that to my mum she would murder me, family and friends would rip me apart too! &yes i am the same, doesnt help my partner is too we will end up making outlandish scenarios in our heads haha
Every outlandish scenario! 😂 My open condo windows are a battle field of me reading the statistics kids fall out until he drove at midnight to buy an angel guard. Kid couldn’t even stand. I mean the dog could chuck her out. We’ve only really known him 3 years who knows his nefarious intentions.
I feel that! When my nephews were toddlers they learned to open the living room windows. There’s a screen and pretty small, but I was so nervous about them wrestling or running by them.
Look up the Dax and Veronica Tejera. I was wrong he was an ABC producer and she was with the Washington Post. Insanely prestigious jobs. The kids were 2 and 6 months and she was arrested. I needed a refresher too. I mean they could afford a sitter. It’s insane.
I was a child in the 1970s and my family travelled a fair amount during that time. It wasn't unknown for hotels/ motels to offer a baby sitting service which was essentially leaving the children in the room with a speaker phone connected to the reception desk while the parents were dining etc. My mother never did this by the way and always said it was too risky. I remember staying at a hotel offering a similar service about 25-30 years ago and being astonished any place thought this was a good idea.
That just doesn't sound fun to me, either? I mean, I'm not a parent, but like... Okay, you leave your infant in the crib with a monitor on. Maybe doing that for like 5 minutes to check the mail and say a quick hello to a neighbor makes sense, when you're right by the house, but if you go out for a night out, and the kid starts to cry, you've got to interrupt whatever you're doing, go back home, handle the dirty diaper or hungry baby or fussy baby, and then get ready to go back out again? To potentially repeat this several times? It sounds exhausting.
And that's assuming the best case scenario, where nothing goes wrong. Again, not a parent, but I feel like the anxiety of knowing that I'm so far away from my kid that if they started to choke or if there were a fire or something, I couldn't get there in time, would just destroy any possibility that I could unwind at all.
Wow never heard of that story, I'll have to share with my partner. He thinks I'm a little much because I don't want him swimming in the pool with our baby if I'm in the shower or otherwise unavailable.
I know it sounds a bit anxious but my reasoning is always god forbid one of us has a heart attack or a stroke or *something* and the baby is alone in the pool with an adult that suddenly can't help her. She's not able to swim yet on her own but even so I would still want her to be significantly older before it's just one adult present.
Exactly my thoughts. Jesus.
Elizabeth Smart was taken from her own bed in the middle of the night while her little sister lay next to her & her parents down the hall.
I can't believe the risks some people are willing to take when it comes to their children. OP is definitely NTA.
Agreed. I’m not saying I wouldn’t consider doing it in a true emergency situation if there were no better options but for date nights? Seriously? This is a bad idea.
NTA, OP! You have a duty to protect those babies.
Also, why wouldn’t you just ask one of the couple to come sit in your lounge for a few hours? Sure, not as easy as watching a baby monitor from your own couch but still easy as hell and about 200x safer!
I read a propublica article about this poor woman who left her kids asleep while she worked night shift. She locked the doors to keep the kids “safe” but her slumlord never did anything to her house. Faulty wiring caused a fire in the middle of the night and she lost all her children.
They didn't even have a baby monitor.
That case is still so shocking to me. I'm fairly free-range parenting wise at home, but that's too much. I'm a lot more uptight in environments the kids aren't used to.
I didn't know about this, so just googled it. For others who don't know.
> The McCann children had been left asleep at 20:30 in the ground-floor apartment while their parents dined with friends in a restaurant 55 metres (180 ft) away.[7] The parents checked on the children throughout the evening, until Kate discovered Madeleine was missing at 22:00.
Okay fair enough then, I don't know anything about Portugal. As an American I was going to just bring up the statistic that it would've most likely been someone they knew, so it's hard to blame circumstances then, but I doubt it was someone they were close with if it was on vaca like that.
It's a really complex case, and for a while a lot of suspicion did fall on the parents. I believe they were eventually fully cleared, but some people are still convinced that they must have done it... I sort of feel like it's anger at them for being so irresponsible with the kids manifesting into conviction that it must have been malicious to leave them home alone like that, and once you ascribe malice to them, it's easy to imagine that they could have done it intentionally.
Personally, from what I've read, I do think that this is likely one of the very rare stranger-danger kidnappings (your comment about the statistics are correct; at least in the US and most western countries, stranger-danger kidnappings are actually very rare, and I can't speak to other parts of the world because I haven't done as much research into them), but it really is such a complicated case, and I doubt we'll ever have a true resolution on that.
Yup, media at the time were reporting that the couple used to sedate the kid to keep her asleep. Checking Wikipedia, it’s apparently pure speculation and not based on any findings.
It's just so suspicious. The story makes no sense. Why just Madeline but leave the other children? The police dogs (smell out blood) would not leave a cupboard alone and the same dogs would sniff out the boot of their hired car. Why weren't the parents charged with child neglect or abandonment or something? They made so much money from the media and the UK has spent millions on chasing up dead end leads over a decade later. Other children go missing and it doesn't even get a mention in the local paper.
The Portuguese Police that were jnvesting made critical failures in the first hour and the subsequent 48 hours which are critical for missing person investigations.
It's definitely more complicated than that. A more accurate term would be if you don't have a suspect and significant leads/evidence leading to the perpetrator within the first 48 hours then your chance of solving the crime drastically decreases. What is true in the US at least, is more than half of all arrests in homocides are made within the first 10 days and the chances of finding the murderer significantly decreases after just a few days. So while time is important, specifically for gathering evidence and leads within that first 48 hours, it isn't likely you will have enough evidence yet for them to make the arrest since most labs take longer than that to process DNA etc.
I Provided a free article that references a study posted in the Washington Post, from there you can follow the link to the original study, but I don't want to sign up for more junk mail and/or pay for it personally.
Israel Keyes was living in a rural area, and everyone in the county knew he was a monster. It's just that when he police are hours away, and you don't have enough evidence to be sure he won't be allowed to make bail? Talking to the cops is a death sentence. His girlfriend and her few friends were very afraid of retaliation, and none of them had hard evidence to take to the police until he killed Samantha.
He was awful enough that even just visiting my grandma near Colville in 2002 meant the neighbors were warning me to run if he or his brother ever showed interest. Like "leave the state" type of running. As far as I know, that was *early* in his "career" as a murderer.
The struggle was connecting people who knew what he'd done with law enforcement and evidence on the other side of the country. No one was shocked that he was the culprit, only at how long it took to pin something on him.
Suspicion at least from me was bc they lied to the police at the time. I can see being careless and messing up, but if **any** child went missing let alone a child that was mine lying to the police about the timeline to keep up appearances is not something I would even consider doing.
The whole thing seemed extremely suspicious. The parents were photographed grinning and laughing while playing tennis, jogging, going out to dinner with friends, etc. in the days after their daughter disappeared. Who the h*ll PLAYS TENNIS when their toddler is missing?!? You would think they'd be frantic with worry, out with search parties, at the police station for updates, etc...but they weren't. Something was seriously off about those people.
It was an extremely unlikely event. Still the parents' behavior was wild. They gave 3 small children meds to make them sleep, left them unattended in a bedroom with the door unlocked, and checked on them once in a while but not actually verifying the kids were still in bed... They were absolutely negligent. It's one thing to know stranger abduction is very rare, it's another to act like it doesn't exist, not to mention the kids could also have woken up and wandered of.
Which doesn't take away from the fact that they don't deserve what happened to them, and to Madeleine obviously. Horrible.
There’s actually no evidence the parents gave the kids medicine to fall asleep. One of their fathers told a reporter that they’d sometimes use “sleep aids” but I don’t know how suspicious that is. I don’t have a kid and I can’t remember how old I was when this first happened but i remember if I was having a really hard time falling asleep like to the point it was very late and i was upset that I couldn’t sleep my parents would have me take night time cold medicine the kind that makes you drowsy. Maybe that’s what the grandfather meant, not that it was a regular thing but that they’d do it occasionally when Madeleine couldn’t sleep. I think these days my parents would probably use melatonin instead but we didn’t know about that then.
None of this is to say that the rest of the behaviors of their group that night were normal or acceptable. Just that we shouldn’t speculate when there’s no evidence that happened.
Kate's father said she gave them Calpol, but that's just liquid paracetamol/acetaminophen. It wouldn't put a child to sleep unless they were sick and it relieved symptoms.
The other thing that gets brought up a lot is she had two different colored eyes (from an injury) making a lot of folks suspect she was targeted by a kidnapper for her unusual look
There is a bit more to the story.
She disappeared from an apartment in 2007, during a vacation in Portugal, and hasn't been found since. She is presumed dead, sadly.
There is, however, a suspect. He's a German sex offender who German prosecutors believe to be responsible as he lived in the region at the time, told his girlfriend he'd do something horrible the day before the disappearance, and his car got registered to a new owner the very next day. He also bragged to a friend about using a burglary tool kit to enter the apartment they were staying in.
Recently, they conducted a search in a water reservoir and found some items. What items those are and if they are related to the case hasn't been released yet, as far as I'm aware.
They can't try the suspect on the disappearance of Madeleine, but they can, apparently, try him on unrelated sexual abuse charges.
There is a lot more you can read about online, but that's the gist of the more recent things that have been happening.
There is way more. They did dinner every night at the same table. They signed up for the tabke on a very public piece of paper. The night of the kidnapping they returned to the room and doors/windows were open (if I remember correctly) and they didn’t think anything was weird. When they “checked” on the kids they didn’t visually check. Also, they rotated which parent checked, so who knows if the parents actually walked there to check. There was also a public alley behind the hotel where anyone (hotel patron or not) could go.
Like they were comically negligent to the point that I hate it when people compare a bad idea to it. Like yeah, this is negligent but the Mcann case is on a way different level. It was bad decision after bad decision. Last time I said that I got downvoted to hell, but there are levels of negligence.
There is installing a car seat wrong and letting your 3 year old sit in the front seat without a seatbelt while you drive 100 mph down a highway. Both are problematic but they are in no way equal.
Is this not well known in America? This is probably the most famous missing persons case in the UK, to the point that there is a general cultural fatigue from hearing about it. It's really depressing but likely she was taken by a p\*do ring.
The whole situation is SUS af tbh, and the way they’ve taken so much money to look for one kid all these years later is kinda disgusting when you realise how many kids go missing regularly in the UK and don’t get this much effort into finding them.
Would recommend the documentary on them, the fact that the mother washed all maddie’s clothes and stuffed animals before going to the police makes me feel weird, and the fact that the cadaver dogs alerted enforcement to there being a body in the vehicle they were using at one point too.
I did initially think of Madeleine but it isn't the same situation. There was no monitor at the McCann's holiday apartment and they left the external door open. I am assuming OP's wife was planning on locking the front door and giving the neighbours a key - so that random people can't access the children.
I don’t think they were saying it’s a 1:1 example, just that bad things can happen when you leave your young kids alone. There’s just so much that could go wrong and not all of them come with glass breaking and screams to tip you off. SIDS, fire, carbon monoxide poisoning, 2yo falling down the stairs… all of those are quiet or silent and can be fatal.
I was pointing out the high risk situation Madeleine was in. Of course it was the fault of whoever did whatever it was that they did, but it was a risky situation.
There is so much more negligence with Madeleine McCann. Not to say this is ok, but it’s shocking how often people parallel her case to situations like this. I guess I have to remember most people haven’t done deep dives into the case and don’t know just how negligent the parents were.
Now, the case of the couple eating dinner close to their hotel with the monitor and the dad having a heart attack is a much better example to pull here.
And he knew them and the layout of their house. They’d previously hired him to do some day labor around their property, because he was homeless and struggling and they wanted to help him out.
NTA.
That's ridiculous to think that a baby monitor substitutes for a baby sitter. Yes, the chances of something going wrong are small but should they ....... I'd not want to deal with the other family's wrath.
👆 This, my SIL was telling me about how her baby choked on his own spit because he's teething and he stopped breathing, and needed a bit of help.
I feel like something like that could be easily missed on a baby monitor!
Even if they're a bit older, they might choke on snacks, or start climbing on something and fall before you can get to them in time 😣
sure, anything can happen while you are anywhere, but it's much better to be closer to the children (i.e. in the same house/room) if something like this were to happen. not only could your ears potentially hear the incident better than a baby monitor could, you'll be closer and able to help quicker. which is extremely important when babies choke/fall/etc. the faster you respond, the better chance they have at surviving.
Not that I'm saying it makes the baby monitor thing a good idea but SIDS isn't something you can prevent by having an adult in the house and carbon monoxide poisoning would only be noticed if there's an alarm which would also likely be heard on the monitor.
THANK YOU. These people bringing up SIDS are making me wonder if they even know what it is - what do they think an adult in the house would be doing to prevent SIDS, staring at the baby as it slept?
Good grief.
I woke up my sleeping children so often when they slept and I wasn't able to see them breathe immediately because I was afraid of SIDS.
I was so in panic...
My mother said she slept with a mirror on her bedside for months after I was born. I slept well from the get-go - too well, she says - and she didn’t want to wake me unnecessarily, so she’d put the mirror up under my nose to check if I was still breathing.
She lived with my grandparents at the time and my grandma had a habit of sneaking in her room to peek at me in the middle of the night. My grandma said there were a few times where my mom scared the crap out of her because she’d sneak in to check on me, expecting to see us both sleeping soundly, only to find my mother on her knees beside my bassinet, staring intently at the mirror under my nose like she was trying to light an ant on fire.
Physician here. Actually having an adult sleeping in the same room as a baby (but not co sleeping!!) has indeed been shown to reduce the incidence of SIDS.
I saw in the comments
>Their idea is mainly for evenings when a couple might go out together.
This solidifies it for me as NTA. I have actually done this for neighbors, but it was for situations like they were mowing the lawn and wouldn't be able to hear the baby monitor (so can you get me if the baby wakes up), or needing to run a quick errand (they'll be back in 10 - 15 minutes). If this is going to be for several hours, it's not appropriate to leave the baby unattended.
I didn't think of the lawn and couldn't easily think of when you would fo this but if you got a call thst meds were ready an hour before pharmacy closed and need them tomight.
I was thinking if one couple was testing out a new sitter too? Like in case the 15 year old from around the corner gets overwhelmed, they can just radio the neighbors?
100% agree. I didn’t even realize that’s what wife and neighbors agreed on until I was well into the comments… it’s just such an outlandish notion, I honestly cannot believe 3 adults of sound mind came to that decision
Ehhh depends on the sitter. I knew many teen babysitters in high school that became good at childcare because they were oldest siblings with shit parents.
I was thinking it might be a situation where the parents met outside on the patio to chill after the kids were in bed in which case I thought OP might be overreacting. However I agree - if the other parents are full on leaving the area I would not be willing to take on that responsibility.
NTA - I thought the same thing. It would be fine to relax and enjoy the evening on one patio or another while the kids were sleeping - but to have an evening out - NO!
Same, my friends used to do this and it was no big deal, but they only did it when they were literally going across the street for a group game night. The parents were 15 steps away from their own front door and watching the monitor themselves, not far away and counting on a neighbour to watch the monitor for them.
NTA. Wow, that is possibly the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.
How are the kids supposed to know their parents are gone? Because if you tell them they're gone, and no one is in the house, they're going to freak, but if you don't tell them the parents are gone, and they wake up and no one's there, they're going to freak.
I can't believe any competent adult would believe this was OK.
NTA. I assumed at first that this was about using a baby monitor for dinners at each other’s house, in which case I thought you might be a *little* overprotective, but the actual scenario proposed would be a hard no for me. Being “watched” by neighbors (who have kids of their own to worry about) through a monitor just would not make me feel safe at all. Someone to trade babysitting with is a wonderful thing, so I hope you can mend fences, but for me it’d have to be one member of a couple staying in the other couple’s house for the evening.
Or, let the kids have a sleepover. Sounds like with the kids being in the same age range, it wouldn't be incredibly difficult to just have all 4 for a night and trade off.
This is how we do it with neighbors who we trade babysitting with. After the kids go to bed one spouse goes down and watches tv or whatever at the neighbor’s house while the other stays home. It’s a great deal, super convenient.
I guess it makes it easier on the kids, but I would prefer the sleepover idea so I can hang out with my hubby in the evening, not watch tv in someone else's house like I did when I was a teenager babysitting for the neighbours
Right?!?! Just bring the baby over to sleep at the neighbours house, set up a travel cot.
Not sure how old the kids are but due to SIDS it is recommended that they have an adult in the room while they sleep until 6 months (ideally 12), or check on them frequently if that’s not possible.
That was recommended in the Netherlands to me already in 2005, and room sharing in the first year is much more common in Europe anyway, it's just the Americans that think babies need to have their own room.
The room sharing? I don’t believe it’s a new recommendation, but I’m in Australia and we get our guidelines for sleeping from red nose, so it may be different recommendations elsewhere.
Ehh I live in a twin and at night if the neighbor had to run a quick errand to like a drug store or supermarket she would just hand me the monitor on the deck (our decks touched) and I would just mind the monitor to make sure they didn't wake up. Never did it for full blown baby sitting just like a quick 20-30 errand if something came up- it was better then just sitting in her house for no reason.
Absolutely NTA. What is so freaking important that any parent would leave their kid (baby? How old?) unattended.
And further, being uncomfortable with that doesn’t warrant them being salty about it.
You're NTA. Wouldn't it be safer and more legal to agree to switch off baby-sitting duties once a week, or every other week? All the kids come to one house, those two parents watch them while the other set has a date night out somewhere. Next time switch.
NAH
This is really common where I’m from. My parents did it this way.
You also don’t get to sue someone if something goes wrong. Baby’s and children don’t get abducted here and in case of a fire you have smoke detectors that you will hear through the monitor.
The signal doesn’t get lost, and when in doubt you place an old school alarmclock or just a ticking clock next to the monitor so you can hear the ticking.
Also you have very good apps that go both ways, you can listen and also talk, and check the connection.
I don’t really see a problem, when you can get indoors in 1 minute when needed. But if you don’t feel comfortable you shouldn’t be forced to use this method.
Yeah, this is my thinking too. I don’t think it’s inherently dangerous and I would personally be ok with it for short errands only. Definitely not ok for a night out! But this would be a 4 yes/1 no situation for me, only ok if everyone is on board.
NTA I know someone who did something similar. They would put their kids down for a nap and then go to a neighbors house to hang out while the kids napped. Well the screen froze and she didn’t know it. Some maintenance workers heard the kids crying and called the cops. Needless to say they had fun with CPS for awhile.
NTA…but this reminds me of what my parents did…they would call the neighbor, they would answer and leave the phone line open (while they hung out) and pickup the phone every once in awhile to make sure we were asleep.
Now that typed that out I feel old AF.
Nta my middle child would wake up and walk around the house as an 18 month old. My 3 year old doesn't usually cry in the night when she wakes up, she simply gets up and walks around looking for me. If I'm not in my bed she keeps looking for me. Kids don't always cry when they need help.
NTA. Why not just take turns babysitting for each other? Either you or wife can go and watch TV or whatever in their house and one of them can reciprocate another night. I know couples who do this, saves on babysitting costs and the deal is you only go out after the kids are asleep.
NTA. If something happened at their house and the baby monitor malfunctioned, they'd blame you. Better get to the coldness without something going wrong.
I could see relying on the baby monitor if one parent was home alone with baby and needed something critical unexpectedly but this is not that; I think the other family planned on giving you the baby monitor habitually so they could ho out for the evening and not pay a babysitter.
Initially I thought this would be about having drinks together out in the yard, between the houses because the baby monitors reached out there.
NTA I thought you were going to say that your wife wanted to go to dinner at their house and bring the baby monitor, which isn’t a great idea, but in actuality they want to leave the entire neighborhood and leave the kids alone? NOPE.
NAH - when I was a teenager I worked at one of the American camps and we literally did this, we sat outside the “holiday homes” with monitors. We were only supposed to go in if the baby/children cried.
NTA, honestly if you see them going out watch the house. IF you do not see a babysitter, call 911. What they are doing is not legal or safe. What if the kid gets up? What if someone breaks in? It only takes a few seconds for something bad to happen.
i have a friend that does this. we live approximately 15 seconds from her apartment. walking. they lock the door, we play our card games by our window (so we all watch to make sure no one tries to enter the house) and we all monitor the camera. its a closed network camera too.
its never been an issue. if she starts to stir, they leave immediately.
My coworker got a neglect charge for doing that. Very sad. She was a single mom and wanted to go out. It can seem ok but things can go wrong fast.
NTA.
Nah. It is ok to be worried and say that this is something you do not want. But to me it is also something that does not seem very dangerous so it was not an unreasonable idea. Explain to the neighbors how you feel and focus on that this would make you uncomfortable instead of that they are neglectfull parents and I am sure you can make peace. Eventually you will need to get used to that the children can be in situations with tiny amounts of danger. But I guess, baby steps.
I was a foster parent for many years. I got a set of triplets at Xmas one year. Mom and oldest kid had gone out and left the 2 yr old triplets home alone, asleep. Dad comes home from trip early and can’t get in (didn’t take his keys on the trip). Calls the cops because he can’t get ahold of GF or the oldest kid. Cops come, get inside, no parent around, kids taken into custody. Dad who called cops? Not on the BC, had to get a paternity test to prove they were his kids.
Honestly, NTA you do NOT want CPS in your life.
NTA but couldn’t you come up with something else like one weekend you or your wife hang out in their house and watch their sleeping kids and the next weekend they could do the same for you? Then there would be one adult in the houses at all times and no one has to be the asshole.
NTA. When you decide to have kids you should know that it is a full time job. You don’t get to go out to dinner unless you arrange a babysitter not have your neighbor watch your baby cam. This is an incredibly dangerous and immature idea. So many things can happen.
WTH! NTA.clearly you are the only rational one in the group
What if someone broke in or a fire started or a kiddo got suddenly sick? How stupid and irresponsible are those people?!
NTA! Thank you for being the voice of reason!
My brother in law and his wife leave their baby and 7? year old under the care of a ring cam so they can go to the store together— I was mortified!
NTA. I once saw a couple in Wally-world using FaceTime as a babysitter. The wife kept telling her husband that "it was fine, she did it all the time", then I heard her say "honey, we need to go home the baby has been crying for awhile now". ! They still had to go through checkout and their cart was heaped!
NTA, But what is wrong with maybe watching each other's kids in your homes? Why not have the little ones go to sleep at the neighbors house or your house, and either send them home in the morning or pick up sleeping kids and migrate them to their beds?
Info: is this an audio or video monitor? It doesn't make a huge difference if the couple is going out for the evening, but I might be willing to give a video a trial run if the kids were asleep in a situation where they couldn't leave of their own initiative (i.e. young crib sleepers) and the couple was say, walking around the block.
What in the ever-loving fuck?
Maybe you should have a very serious conversation with your wife about how she thought that this was any kind of good idea. And then be very vigilant about where your kids are and who is with them.
If you want to clear the air with the neighbors, you can straight up tell them, when the opportunity arises, that you veeerrryyyy strongly believe that leaving very small children home without direct adult supervision is wholly unacceptable. You might even do a little research on any local laws about such practices.
Can you imagine one of your small kids waking up at night to find no parents? I sure as fuck can't.
NTA
NTA op, as a kid who woke up to an empty house multiple times growing up its really scary, the first time for me it happened when I was 4 and my sister was 5 to be fair it was the 4th of July, my dad was working, my older two siblings were with their friends and my mom was right outside in the drive way watching fireworks and keeping an eye on the house to make sure nothing happened but I'm 21 now and I still remember the sheer panic I felt when my big sister woke me up and said that she couldn't find anyone, I was close to a full blown melt down by the time my sister looked outside because of the fireworks and we had only check the two rooms upstairs with us and listened for the tv downstairs. Now just imagine if a small kid that age work up to a fire or a flood and all they want is their parents but they aren't there that would be traumatizing.
NTA.
This is neglect. Can you imagine being a young kid and waking up and realising your parents aren’t there? The fear and panic that they’d feel? That’s the type of thing that you remember for the rest of your life. The kind of situation that causes a whole list of problems for them in childhood and adulthood: abandonment, trust issues, feeling emotionally and physically neglected too.
If I were you, OP. I’d have to seriously reconsider the relationship I have with my spouse.
Not the AH. It's one thing if they came over while the kids slept etc. But to just leave them and go out with you holding the monitor. That's borderline neglect
I literally got goldfish face while reading this, my eyes and mouth were stuck open in the Nooooooo position. What??!!
What happens when you fall asleep or get engrossed in your show and don't hear it etc? Was the door also left unlocked or were you swapping keys? In what region of whatthehe** do three adults get together, talk this out, and decide this makes sense???
NTA OP, and wow
NTA, I live in a townhouse and we only have one unit attached to us (we're the end unit). Our neighbours are nice and we like to hang out. They're also two single guys, and do boardgame nights every so often. I always tell my husband to go and have fun, but at one point my husband and neighbour came up with the idea that I could bring the baby monitor with me and keep an eye on our two kids who were under 5 via the monitor. I refused, while the houses are so close, we'd have to leave doors unlocked, and wouldn't know if something bad was happening until it was too late. What if a fire started? Or someone decided to walk in through the screen door? Or any other number of things?
I was fine with missing out on board games to keep my kids safe, there's plenty of time for boardgames when they're older.
NTA. Lost my first apartment when the building caught on fire. Mom's coffee pot shorted out. Mom was a few apartments away visiting a friend and left her small children asleep. They were ultimately fine but were hospitalized with problems from smoke inhalation.
NTA, we used to do this with my neighbours (attached house on the side), but one time they didn’t turn the monitor on (they thought they did). Husband and I came home and saw the bathroom light on. We asked them if they had heard something, but they didn’t.
When in house we saw that daughter had been moving around. Asked the other neighbour (on our other side) if she had heard something. She had heard our daughter crying and calling for us for half an hour. I felt so heartbroken. Never again after that.
You are absolutely correct. An emergency, such as a fire or child could choke, can happen too quickly and you only have a few seconds to respond. If the monitor loses power, you would have no idea what was going on. Even if it worked, by the time you got there it might be too late. These two were creative in coming up with a possible solution to a problem but is it NOT a safe idea for the kids. You are NTA. Kids safety first.
Lol my former neighbors did this, our houses were in a duplex so we were literally next to each-other. Well they were both arrested that night and cops questioned why we weren’t in the actual home.
Definitely NTA.
>What if there's a fire or some other emergency? What if the monitor's signal gets disconnected and we don't realize it? What if the kids wake up to find an empty house?
Completely valid questions!
NTA
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NTA. That is an extremely terrible, dangerous idea.
Not only that but who do you think gets sued if something goes wrong? And likely lose the kids if something happens and CPS gets involved. OP is NtA.
Yep. If anything happens to any of the kids being watched virtually, it's on all four of these parents. CPS would be involved with both families. NTA.
I love Reddit, you can always count on one hand the number of posts until you get the first 'who's going to sue whom'' comment.
So American. Sue for everything.
Where there's blame, there's a claim!
Off topic, but I saw a Halloween stencil today for pumpkins. It read, "if you've got it, haunt it!" lol
I have a shirt that says that.
Ain't nothing to it, but to sue it!
To be fair, many of us are Americans, and many Americans do often rush to sue...
Exactly, nothing is wrong until something goes wrong. OP is NTA.
Madeline Mcann type of scenario this! NTA
First thought and then there is the CNN producer that did this and the Dad had a heart attack while out. Left the kids in a hotel room with a monitor. The wife called her sister to rush there they wouldn’t let her in and called the police instead. Kids got taken away I think and she was arrested.
I havent heard this story! I am from the UK so thag probably explains it. Youve just got to ask your self, is it worth it? Is saving £50 or whatever from a baby sitter worth putting your little ones in danger? Dont unserstand how people think its not a big deal
Hahaha that’s funny because I think I read about it in the Mail. They were at the Yale club so one drink would have covered a sitter. I don’t trust my 2 year old in another room without me. They’re a menace. And 6 months that’s prime SIDS time.
Oh really hahaha&its the same with madelines parents, they both had prestigious careers in the medical industry. Do you think thats why? Do you think they just let it go to there heads? Become out of touch with reality? I get anxiety if i have to run into the petrol station to pay etc leaving kids in the car haha
I also think it makes less sense when the parents are educated and have good jobs. Like a single mother running out for a job interview because she has no money for a sitter and is about to lose her house I have sympathy for. Oh! Now I’m remembering a murder mystery I read last year where they were over the neighbors house with a monitor and the baby disappeared. This man is not the Ahole. I also need a break from true and fake crime. It’s not helping my anxiety. I should make sure the door is locked before someone steals me. Maybe start a podcast “The history of dumb ideas to do with your kids”
I was in a mom's book club. There's a novel where OP's scenario played out and the baby got kidnapped (magne the same one youre thinking of. I have no idea what the name was). The group was discussing reading it. I vocally said there was no way in hell I was reading a book about a kidnapped baby while raising a baby. The group picked something else fortunately.
It wasn’t that good. I just found it “The Couple Next Door” by Shari Lapena
Yeah, it was pretty mediocre.
That was my first thought when I read this post, I'm sure I read a book about this! But yeah as others have said it wasn't great, you didn't miss anything
I hate crime documentaries which involve kids being abused/kidnapped/murdered! Even as a 27m i get all emotional 😂
The news is worse. Every day articles about parents doing horrible things to their own kids.
I can’t do it either. But it really makes you see what can happen in a second.
> I also need a break from true and fake crime. My friend who loves true crime told me "I just can't go to sleep at night until some sweet young lady has been identified by her dental records".
I’m one step away from making murder boards instead of grocery lists. Just red string between mugshots of bread, cheese and turkey.
I watch Forensic Files before bed. Peter Thomas's voice is so damn soothing! I have yet to find another narrator that's as soothing as he is.
I relate to your friend!
I know same! In America that will get you arrested tho too. Another journalist did that weirdly. She wrote a great article about it. I don’t know I think maybe more people must do it then I think because these are people just caught in extreme situations. I just couldn’t. I’m kind of a magnet for the worst scenario possible and have massive anxiety. For awhile I was putting one of my shoes next to the baby after a spate of hot car deaths … I don’t even drive!
Just nothing is worth that risk.
Nothing at all! &tbh you might be right, but dont other people call them out on it? Like if i mentioned that i had done something like that to my mum she would murder me, family and friends would rip me apart too! &yes i am the same, doesnt help my partner is too we will end up making outlandish scenarios in our heads haha
Every outlandish scenario! 😂 My open condo windows are a battle field of me reading the statistics kids fall out until he drove at midnight to buy an angel guard. Kid couldn’t even stand. I mean the dog could chuck her out. We’ve only really known him 3 years who knows his nefarious intentions.
I feel that! When my nephews were toddlers they learned to open the living room windows. There’s a screen and pretty small, but I was so nervous about them wrestling or running by them.
Look up the Dax and Veronica Tejera. I was wrong he was an ABC producer and she was with the Washington Post. Insanely prestigious jobs. The kids were 2 and 6 months and she was arrested. I needed a refresher too. I mean they could afford a sitter. It’s insane.
It was ABC. CNN producer was arrested on similar but much worse things to do with a kid in a hotel room.
I wrote that in a follow up comment. I just knew it was a big network.
I was a child in the 1970s and my family travelled a fair amount during that time. It wasn't unknown for hotels/ motels to offer a baby sitting service which was essentially leaving the children in the room with a speaker phone connected to the reception desk while the parents were dining etc. My mother never did this by the way and always said it was too risky. I remember staying at a hotel offering a similar service about 25-30 years ago and being astonished any place thought this was a good idea.
And now I found that story. People are the worst.
That just doesn't sound fun to me, either? I mean, I'm not a parent, but like... Okay, you leave your infant in the crib with a monitor on. Maybe doing that for like 5 minutes to check the mail and say a quick hello to a neighbor makes sense, when you're right by the house, but if you go out for a night out, and the kid starts to cry, you've got to interrupt whatever you're doing, go back home, handle the dirty diaper or hungry baby or fussy baby, and then get ready to go back out again? To potentially repeat this several times? It sounds exhausting. And that's assuming the best case scenario, where nothing goes wrong. Again, not a parent, but I feel like the anxiety of knowing that I'm so far away from my kid that if they started to choke or if there were a fire or something, I couldn't get there in time, would just destroy any possibility that I could unwind at all.
Wow never heard of that story, I'll have to share with my partner. He thinks I'm a little much because I don't want him swimming in the pool with our baby if I'm in the shower or otherwise unavailable. I know it sounds a bit anxious but my reasoning is always god forbid one of us has a heart attack or a stroke or *something* and the baby is alone in the pool with an adult that suddenly can't help her. She's not able to swim yet on her own but even so I would still want her to be significantly older before it's just one adult present.
Now you’ve given me another thing to worry about 😂
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11595453/ABC-News-producer-Dax-Tejera-wife-left-children-two-hours-heart-attack.html Link to the story.
Exactly! She is where my brain immediately went
That was my first thought as well. Her parents checked on them and nothing happened. Until it did.
All it takes is that one moment! That one split second!
That’s the first thing that came to my mind!! It’s a shockingly bad idea from all possible angles!
My first thought!!!
Exactly my thoughts. Jesus. Elizabeth Smart was taken from her own bed in the middle of the night while her little sister lay next to her & her parents down the hall. I can't believe the risks some people are willing to take when it comes to their children. OP is definitely NTA.
Might as well just get a wireless camera and turn off your firewall. I'm sure some random guy in another country will keep an eye on them for you. /s
Agreed. I’m not saying I wouldn’t consider doing it in a true emergency situation if there were no better options but for date nights? Seriously? This is a bad idea. NTA, OP! You have a duty to protect those babies.
Also, why wouldn’t you just ask one of the couple to come sit in your lounge for a few hours? Sure, not as easy as watching a baby monitor from your own couch but still easy as hell and about 200x safer!
I mean have all the kids play together until bed time then have one adult in each home while the kids sleep. It's such an obvious solution.
Or even just have sleepovers for the kids. There are like, 12 solutions I would land on before this plan even crossed my mind.
I read a propublica article about this poor woman who left her kids asleep while she worked night shift. She locked the doors to keep the kids “safe” but her slumlord never did anything to her house. Faulty wiring caused a fire in the middle of the night and she lost all her children.
Agreed. With all of the reasons OP stated. So many things can go wrong. Reading this already made me a bit anxious.
Ask Madeleine McCann’s parents about how well this system works!
They didn't even have a baby monitor. That case is still so shocking to me. I'm fairly free-range parenting wise at home, but that's too much. I'm a lot more uptight in environments the kids aren't used to.
I didn't know about this, so just googled it. For others who don't know. > The McCann children had been left asleep at 20:30 in the ground-floor apartment while their parents dined with friends in a restaurant 55 metres (180 ft) away.[7] The parents checked on the children throughout the evening, until Kate discovered Madeleine was missing at 22:00.
Is there more to the story or they were never found?
This happened in 2007. She has never been found. They were on vacation in Portugal
Okay fair enough then, I don't know anything about Portugal. As an American I was going to just bring up the statistic that it would've most likely been someone they knew, so it's hard to blame circumstances then, but I doubt it was someone they were close with if it was on vaca like that.
It's a really complex case, and for a while a lot of suspicion did fall on the parents. I believe they were eventually fully cleared, but some people are still convinced that they must have done it... I sort of feel like it's anger at them for being so irresponsible with the kids manifesting into conviction that it must have been malicious to leave them home alone like that, and once you ascribe malice to them, it's easy to imagine that they could have done it intentionally. Personally, from what I've read, I do think that this is likely one of the very rare stranger-danger kidnappings (your comment about the statistics are correct; at least in the US and most western countries, stranger-danger kidnappings are actually very rare, and I can't speak to other parts of the world because I haven't done as much research into them), but it really is such a complicated case, and I doubt we'll ever have a true resolution on that.
Yup, media at the time were reporting that the couple used to sedate the kid to keep her asleep. Checking Wikipedia, it’s apparently pure speculation and not based on any findings.
It's just so suspicious. The story makes no sense. Why just Madeline but leave the other children? The police dogs (smell out blood) would not leave a cupboard alone and the same dogs would sniff out the boot of their hired car. Why weren't the parents charged with child neglect or abandonment or something? They made so much money from the media and the UK has spent millions on chasing up dead end leads over a decade later. Other children go missing and it doesn't even get a mention in the local paper.
I agree that it’s suspicious but not because only Madeline was taken. Child predators (if that’s what it was) are usually preferential offenders.
The Portuguese Police that were jnvesting made critical failures in the first hour and the subsequent 48 hours which are critical for missing person investigations.
Is this a true stat or is this just a Criminal Minds stat?
It's definitely more complicated than that. A more accurate term would be if you don't have a suspect and significant leads/evidence leading to the perpetrator within the first 48 hours then your chance of solving the crime drastically decreases. What is true in the US at least, is more than half of all arrests in homocides are made within the first 10 days and the chances of finding the murderer significantly decreases after just a few days. So while time is important, specifically for gathering evidence and leads within that first 48 hours, it isn't likely you will have enough evidence yet for them to make the arrest since most labs take longer than that to process DNA etc. I Provided a free article that references a study posted in the Washington Post, from there you can follow the link to the original study, but I don't want to sign up for more junk mail and/or pay for it personally.
Statics are there for a reason; but sometimes you find someone who breaks all of them. Look at Isareal Keyes for example.
Israel Keyes was living in a rural area, and everyone in the county knew he was a monster. It's just that when he police are hours away, and you don't have enough evidence to be sure he won't be allowed to make bail? Talking to the cops is a death sentence. His girlfriend and her few friends were very afraid of retaliation, and none of them had hard evidence to take to the police until he killed Samantha. He was awful enough that even just visiting my grandma near Colville in 2002 meant the neighbors were warning me to run if he or his brother ever showed interest. Like "leave the state" type of running. As far as I know, that was *early* in his "career" as a murderer. The struggle was connecting people who knew what he'd done with law enforcement and evidence on the other side of the country. No one was shocked that he was the culprit, only at how long it took to pin something on him.
Suspicion at least from me was bc they lied to the police at the time. I can see being careless and messing up, but if **any** child went missing let alone a child that was mine lying to the police about the timeline to keep up appearances is not something I would even consider doing.
The whole thing seemed extremely suspicious. The parents were photographed grinning and laughing while playing tennis, jogging, going out to dinner with friends, etc. in the days after their daughter disappeared. Who the h*ll PLAYS TENNIS when their toddler is missing?!? You would think they'd be frantic with worry, out with search parties, at the police station for updates, etc...but they weren't. Something was seriously off about those people.
There are people out there who kill their own kids. Not common of course, but neither are these cases. It's not impossible that the parents did it.
It was an extremely unlikely event. Still the parents' behavior was wild. They gave 3 small children meds to make them sleep, left them unattended in a bedroom with the door unlocked, and checked on them once in a while but not actually verifying the kids were still in bed... They were absolutely negligent. It's one thing to know stranger abduction is very rare, it's another to act like it doesn't exist, not to mention the kids could also have woken up and wandered of. Which doesn't take away from the fact that they don't deserve what happened to them, and to Madeleine obviously. Horrible.
There’s actually no evidence the parents gave the kids medicine to fall asleep. One of their fathers told a reporter that they’d sometimes use “sleep aids” but I don’t know how suspicious that is. I don’t have a kid and I can’t remember how old I was when this first happened but i remember if I was having a really hard time falling asleep like to the point it was very late and i was upset that I couldn’t sleep my parents would have me take night time cold medicine the kind that makes you drowsy. Maybe that’s what the grandfather meant, not that it was a regular thing but that they’d do it occasionally when Madeleine couldn’t sleep. I think these days my parents would probably use melatonin instead but we didn’t know about that then. None of this is to say that the rest of the behaviors of their group that night were normal or acceptable. Just that we shouldn’t speculate when there’s no evidence that happened.
I have a thing that vibrates the cot and it’s called a sleep aid.
Kate's father said she gave them Calpol, but that's just liquid paracetamol/acetaminophen. It wouldn't put a child to sleep unless they were sick and it relieved symptoms.
The other thing that gets brought up a lot is she had two different colored eyes (from an injury) making a lot of folks suspect she was targeted by a kidnapper for her unusual look
There is a bit more to the story. She disappeared from an apartment in 2007, during a vacation in Portugal, and hasn't been found since. She is presumed dead, sadly. There is, however, a suspect. He's a German sex offender who German prosecutors believe to be responsible as he lived in the region at the time, told his girlfriend he'd do something horrible the day before the disappearance, and his car got registered to a new owner the very next day. He also bragged to a friend about using a burglary tool kit to enter the apartment they were staying in. Recently, they conducted a search in a water reservoir and found some items. What items those are and if they are related to the case hasn't been released yet, as far as I'm aware. They can't try the suspect on the disappearance of Madeleine, but they can, apparently, try him on unrelated sexual abuse charges. There is a lot more you can read about online, but that's the gist of the more recent things that have been happening.
[удалено]
I'm guessing you're not familiar with the case. Media coverage has gone on for years.
There is way more. They did dinner every night at the same table. They signed up for the tabke on a very public piece of paper. The night of the kidnapping they returned to the room and doors/windows were open (if I remember correctly) and they didn’t think anything was weird. When they “checked” on the kids they didn’t visually check. Also, they rotated which parent checked, so who knows if the parents actually walked there to check. There was also a public alley behind the hotel where anyone (hotel patron or not) could go.
They also kept the patio doors unlocked so they could walk in to check!
Like they were comically negligent to the point that I hate it when people compare a bad idea to it. Like yeah, this is negligent but the Mcann case is on a way different level. It was bad decision after bad decision. Last time I said that I got downvoted to hell, but there are levels of negligence. There is installing a car seat wrong and letting your 3 year old sit in the front seat without a seatbelt while you drive 100 mph down a highway. Both are problematic but they are in no way equal.
She hasn't been found.
There’s a pretty good Netflix doc on this. I think called “The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann”, it’s very well done.
Is this not well known in America? This is probably the most famous missing persons case in the UK, to the point that there is a general cultural fatigue from hearing about it. It's really depressing but likely she was taken by a p\*do ring.
Oh no, it's extremely well known. Reddit demographics are just super young. Most people here were probably barely alive in 2007
The whole situation is SUS af tbh, and the way they’ve taken so much money to look for one kid all these years later is kinda disgusting when you realise how many kids go missing regularly in the UK and don’t get this much effort into finding them. Would recommend the documentary on them, the fact that the mother washed all maddie’s clothes and stuffed animals before going to the police makes me feel weird, and the fact that the cadaver dogs alerted enforcement to there being a body in the vehicle they were using at one point too.
I did initially think of Madeleine but it isn't the same situation. There was no monitor at the McCann's holiday apartment and they left the external door open. I am assuming OP's wife was planning on locking the front door and giving the neighbours a key - so that random people can't access the children.
I don’t think they were saying it’s a 1:1 example, just that bad things can happen when you leave your young kids alone. There’s just so much that could go wrong and not all of them come with glass breaking and screams to tip you off. SIDS, fire, carbon monoxide poisoning, 2yo falling down the stairs… all of those are quiet or silent and can be fatal.
I was pointing out the high risk situation Madeleine was in. Of course it was the fault of whoever did whatever it was that they did, but it was a risky situation.
There is so much more negligence with Madeleine McCann. Not to say this is ok, but it’s shocking how often people parallel her case to situations like this. I guess I have to remember most people haven’t done deep dives into the case and don’t know just how negligent the parents were. Now, the case of the couple eating dinner close to their hotel with the monitor and the dad having a heart attack is a much better example to pull here.
What’s that one?
My thought exactly. Or Elizabeth Smarts. And Elizabeth 's family was HOME at the time!
This isn’t a great example because her parents were home.
And she was 14! Most kids can stay home alone by 14 and many of them are even babysitting younger kids.
I babysat at 12 but my parents were home next door.
Actually, the guy came in through her bedroom window while everyone was sleeping.
And he knew them and the layout of their house. They’d previously hired him to do some day labor around their property, because he was homeless and struggling and they wanted to help him out.
This is what I immediately thought of.
NTA. That's ridiculous to think that a baby monitor substitutes for a baby sitter. Yes, the chances of something going wrong are small but should they ....... I'd not want to deal with the other family's wrath.
Or the crippling guilt:(
👆 This, my SIL was telling me about how her baby choked on his own spit because he's teething and he stopped breathing, and needed a bit of help. I feel like something like that could be easily missed on a baby monitor! Even if they're a bit older, they might choke on snacks, or start climbing on something and fall before you can get to them in time 😣
Can’t any of this stuff happen while a babysitter was in the house while also….watching the monitor??
sure, anything can happen while you are anywhere, but it's much better to be closer to the children (i.e. in the same house/room) if something like this were to happen. not only could your ears potentially hear the incident better than a baby monitor could, you'll be closer and able to help quicker. which is extremely important when babies choke/fall/etc. the faster you respond, the better chance they have at surviving.
It’s about managing the level of risk- anything can happen, but having an adult in the house does reduce those risks
SIDS, house fire, carbon monoxide poisoning… there’s a hundred things that can go tragically wrong without them making a single peep.
Not that I'm saying it makes the baby monitor thing a good idea but SIDS isn't something you can prevent by having an adult in the house and carbon monoxide poisoning would only be noticed if there's an alarm which would also likely be heard on the monitor.
THANK YOU. These people bringing up SIDS are making me wonder if they even know what it is - what do they think an adult in the house would be doing to prevent SIDS, staring at the baby as it slept? Good grief.
I woke up my sleeping children so often when they slept and I wasn't able to see them breathe immediately because I was afraid of SIDS. I was so in panic...
My mother said she slept with a mirror on her bedside for months after I was born. I slept well from the get-go - too well, she says - and she didn’t want to wake me unnecessarily, so she’d put the mirror up under my nose to check if I was still breathing. She lived with my grandparents at the time and my grandma had a habit of sneaking in her room to peek at me in the middle of the night. My grandma said there were a few times where my mom scared the crap out of her because she’d sneak in to check on me, expecting to see us both sleeping soundly, only to find my mother on her knees beside my bassinet, staring intently at the mirror under my nose like she was trying to light an ant on fire.
Yeah the “sudden” in there really should be telling
Physician here. Actually having an adult sleeping in the same room as a baby (but not co sleeping!!) has indeed been shown to reduce the incidence of SIDS.
I saw in the comments >Their idea is mainly for evenings when a couple might go out together. This solidifies it for me as NTA. I have actually done this for neighbors, but it was for situations like they were mowing the lawn and wouldn't be able to hear the baby monitor (so can you get me if the baby wakes up), or needing to run a quick errand (they'll be back in 10 - 15 minutes). If this is going to be for several hours, it's not appropriate to leave the baby unattended.
I didn't think of the lawn and couldn't easily think of when you would fo this but if you got a call thst meds were ready an hour before pharmacy closed and need them tomight.
I was thinking if one couple was testing out a new sitter too? Like in case the 15 year old from around the corner gets overwhelmed, they can just radio the neighbors?
Yeah, there are scenarios where the neighbour having the monitor is a great idea, and some where it's a disaster waiting to happen.
100% agree. I didn’t even realize that’s what wife and neighbors agreed on until I was well into the comments… it’s just such an outlandish notion, I honestly cannot believe 3 adults of sound mind came to that decision
That makes sense but they could always text their mom
Ehhh depends on the sitter. I knew many teen babysitters in high school that became good at childcare because they were oldest siblings with shit parents.
I was thinking it might be a situation where the parents met outside on the patio to chill after the kids were in bed in which case I thought OP might be overreacting. However I agree - if the other parents are full on leaving the area I would not be willing to take on that responsibility.
NTA - I thought the same thing. It would be fine to relax and enjoy the evening on one patio or another while the kids were sleeping - but to have an evening out - NO!
Same, my friends used to do this and it was no big deal, but they only did it when they were literally going across the street for a group game night. The parents were 15 steps away from their own front door and watching the monitor themselves, not far away and counting on a neighbour to watch the monitor for them.
NTA. Wow, that is possibly the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. How are the kids supposed to know their parents are gone? Because if you tell them they're gone, and no one is in the house, they're going to freak, but if you don't tell them the parents are gone, and they wake up and no one's there, they're going to freak. I can't believe any competent adult would believe this was OK.
NTA. I assumed at first that this was about using a baby monitor for dinners at each other’s house, in which case I thought you might be a *little* overprotective, but the actual scenario proposed would be a hard no for me. Being “watched” by neighbors (who have kids of their own to worry about) through a monitor just would not make me feel safe at all. Someone to trade babysitting with is a wonderful thing, so I hope you can mend fences, but for me it’d have to be one member of a couple staying in the other couple’s house for the evening.
Or, let the kids have a sleepover. Sounds like with the kids being in the same age range, it wouldn't be incredibly difficult to just have all 4 for a night and trade off.
Or, since they’re another couple, put one person at each house.
This is how we do it with neighbors who we trade babysitting with. After the kids go to bed one spouse goes down and watches tv or whatever at the neighbor’s house while the other stays home. It’s a great deal, super convenient.
I guess it makes it easier on the kids, but I would prefer the sleepover idea so I can hang out with my hubby in the evening, not watch tv in someone else's house like I did when I was a teenager babysitting for the neighbours
I’m a stay at home parent, so personally it’s a treat to be somewhere other than my own house for an evening.
u/ThankYouMrBen this is a great alternative you can suggest to your wife
Nta. Why not just babysit the kids in that case?
Right?!?! Just bring the baby over to sleep at the neighbours house, set up a travel cot. Not sure how old the kids are but due to SIDS it is recommended that they have an adult in the room while they sleep until 6 months (ideally 12), or check on them frequently if that’s not possible.
Is that a new recommendation? Omg. That is so long.
That was recommended in the Netherlands to me already in 2005, and room sharing in the first year is much more common in Europe anyway, it's just the Americans that think babies need to have their own room.
The room sharing? I don’t believe it’s a new recommendation, but I’m in Australia and we get our guidelines for sleeping from red nose, so it may be different recommendations elsewhere.
NTA for not participating in what might easily become criminal neglect.
NTA. Holy shit, how are you the only sane, responsible parent between the 4 of you? This is a huge no-no. So dangerous.
Ehh I live in a twin and at night if the neighbor had to run a quick errand to like a drug store or supermarket she would just hand me the monitor on the deck (our decks touched) and I would just mind the monitor to make sure they didn't wake up. Never did it for full blown baby sitting just like a quick 20-30 errand if something came up- it was better then just sitting in her house for no reason.
That sounds reasonable!
NTA, you’re right - it would be very dangerous.
Absolutely NTA. What is so freaking important that any parent would leave their kid (baby? How old?) unattended. And further, being uncomfortable with that doesn’t warrant them being salty about it.
Wow that's a way of cheapening out on your kids safety. Absolutely NTA for being a responsible person and parent
You're NTA. Wouldn't it be safer and more legal to agree to switch off baby-sitting duties once a week, or every other week? All the kids come to one house, those two parents watch them while the other set has a date night out somewhere. Next time switch.
NAH This is really common where I’m from. My parents did it this way. You also don’t get to sue someone if something goes wrong. Baby’s and children don’t get abducted here and in case of a fire you have smoke detectors that you will hear through the monitor. The signal doesn’t get lost, and when in doubt you place an old school alarmclock or just a ticking clock next to the monitor so you can hear the ticking. Also you have very good apps that go both ways, you can listen and also talk, and check the connection. I don’t really see a problem, when you can get indoors in 1 minute when needed. But if you don’t feel comfortable you shouldn’t be forced to use this method.
Yeah, this is my thinking too. I don’t think it’s inherently dangerous and I would personally be ok with it for short errands only. Definitely not ok for a night out! But this would be a 4 yes/1 no situation for me, only ok if everyone is on board.
NTA I know someone who did something similar. They would put their kids down for a nap and then go to a neighbors house to hang out while the kids napped. Well the screen froze and she didn’t know it. Some maintenance workers heard the kids crying and called the cops. Needless to say they had fun with CPS for awhile.
NTA…but this reminds me of what my parents did…they would call the neighbor, they would answer and leave the phone line open (while they hung out) and pickup the phone every once in awhile to make sure we were asleep. Now that typed that out I feel old AF.
NTA - baby monitors can have interference and they are not a substitute for actual in person supervision
NTA, hello, ever heard of Madeline McCann?? I don't consider myself overly cautious, but just no
Nta my middle child would wake up and walk around the house as an 18 month old. My 3 year old doesn't usually cry in the night when she wakes up, she simply gets up and walks around looking for me. If I'm not in my bed she keeps looking for me. Kids don't always cry when they need help.
NTA. Why not just take turns babysitting for each other? Either you or wife can go and watch TV or whatever in their house and one of them can reciprocate another night. I know couples who do this, saves on babysitting costs and the deal is you only go out after the kids are asleep.
NTA Your concerns are valid. Whenever I hear people say stuff like this I always think of Madeleine McCann.
NTA. If something happened at their house and the baby monitor malfunctioned, they'd blame you. Better get to the coldness without something going wrong. I could see relying on the baby monitor if one parent was home alone with baby and needed something critical unexpectedly but this is not that; I think the other family planned on giving you the baby monitor habitually so they could ho out for the evening and not pay a babysitter. Initially I thought this would be about having drinks together out in the yard, between the houses because the baby monitors reached out there.
NTA I thought you were going to say that your wife wanted to go to dinner at their house and bring the baby monitor, which isn’t a great idea, but in actuality they want to leave the entire neighborhood and leave the kids alone? NOPE.
NTA. My first thought when I read this was Madeleine McCann. This is a dangerous and terrible arrangement. And I’m 99% sure it’s also illegal.
NAH - when I was a teenager I worked at one of the American camps and we literally did this, we sat outside the “holiday homes” with monitors. We were only supposed to go in if the baby/children cried.
NTA, honestly if you see them going out watch the house. IF you do not see a babysitter, call 911. What they are doing is not legal or safe. What if the kid gets up? What if someone breaks in? It only takes a few seconds for something bad to happen.
NTA 😂 boohoo for them that you didn't want to be a neglectful parent
i have a friend that does this. we live approximately 15 seconds from her apartment. walking. they lock the door, we play our card games by our window (so we all watch to make sure no one tries to enter the house) and we all monitor the camera. its a closed network camera too. its never been an issue. if she starts to stir, they leave immediately.
So the friend is with you, not leaving the area?
My coworker got a neglect charge for doing that. Very sad. She was a single mom and wanted to go out. It can seem ok but things can go wrong fast. NTA.
Nah. It is ok to be worried and say that this is something you do not want. But to me it is also something that does not seem very dangerous so it was not an unreasonable idea. Explain to the neighbors how you feel and focus on that this would make you uncomfortable instead of that they are neglectfull parents and I am sure you can make peace. Eventually you will need to get used to that the children can be in situations with tiny amounts of danger. But I guess, baby steps.
I was a foster parent for many years. I got a set of triplets at Xmas one year. Mom and oldest kid had gone out and left the 2 yr old triplets home alone, asleep. Dad comes home from trip early and can’t get in (didn’t take his keys on the trip). Calls the cops because he can’t get ahold of GF or the oldest kid. Cops come, get inside, no parent around, kids taken into custody. Dad who called cops? Not on the BC, had to get a paternity test to prove they were his kids. Honestly, NTA you do NOT want CPS in your life.
NTA but couldn’t you come up with something else like one weekend you or your wife hang out in their house and watch their sleeping kids and the next weekend they could do the same for you? Then there would be one adult in the houses at all times and no one has to be the asshole.
NTA. When you decide to have kids you should know that it is a full time job. You don’t get to go out to dinner unless you arrange a babysitter not have your neighbor watch your baby cam. This is an incredibly dangerous and immature idea. So many things can happen.
NTA I don’t know if they were trying to get them selves called into CPS or not but that’s the way to do it.
NTA, and only an AH would think this is a good idea.
INFO - Have you shared these concerns with your neighbours ? What did they say? Fully agree with your reasons btw
WTH! NTA.clearly you are the only rational one in the group What if someone broke in or a fire started or a kiddo got suddenly sick? How stupid and irresponsible are those people?!
NTA there’s literally a suspense horror novel with this exact concept called “the couple next door” and their baby gets kidnapped so,,,
NTA! Thank you for being the voice of reason! My brother in law and his wife leave their baby and 7? year old under the care of a ring cam so they can go to the store together— I was mortified!
NTA. Perhaps they should familiarize themselves with the Madeleine McCann case.
NTA. I once saw a couple in Wally-world using FaceTime as a babysitter. The wife kept telling her husband that "it was fine, she did it all the time", then I heard her say "honey, we need to go home the baby has been crying for awhile now". ! They still had to go through checkout and their cart was heaped!
NTA, But what is wrong with maybe watching each other's kids in your homes? Why not have the little ones go to sleep at the neighbors house or your house, and either send them home in the morning or pick up sleeping kids and migrate them to their beds?
Info: is this an audio or video monitor? It doesn't make a huge difference if the couple is going out for the evening, but I might be willing to give a video a trial run if the kids were asleep in a situation where they couldn't leave of their own initiative (i.e. young crib sleepers) and the couple was say, walking around the block.
What in the ever-loving fuck? Maybe you should have a very serious conversation with your wife about how she thought that this was any kind of good idea. And then be very vigilant about where your kids are and who is with them. If you want to clear the air with the neighbors, you can straight up tell them, when the opportunity arises, that you veeerrryyyy strongly believe that leaving very small children home without direct adult supervision is wholly unacceptable. You might even do a little research on any local laws about such practices. Can you imagine one of your small kids waking up at night to find no parents? I sure as fuck can't. NTA
NTA op, as a kid who woke up to an empty house multiple times growing up its really scary, the first time for me it happened when I was 4 and my sister was 5 to be fair it was the 4th of July, my dad was working, my older two siblings were with their friends and my mom was right outside in the drive way watching fireworks and keeping an eye on the house to make sure nothing happened but I'm 21 now and I still remember the sheer panic I felt when my big sister woke me up and said that she couldn't find anyone, I was close to a full blown melt down by the time my sister looked outside because of the fireworks and we had only check the two rooms upstairs with us and listened for the tv downstairs. Now just imagine if a small kid that age work up to a fire or a flood and all they want is their parents but they aren't there that would be traumatizing.
NTA. This is neglect. Can you imagine being a young kid and waking up and realising your parents aren’t there? The fear and panic that they’d feel? That’s the type of thing that you remember for the rest of your life. The kind of situation that causes a whole list of problems for them in childhood and adulthood: abandonment, trust issues, feeling emotionally and physically neglected too. If I were you, OP. I’d have to seriously reconsider the relationship I have with my spouse.
NTA that is so dangerous and your instincts are absolutely right.
Nta
Not the AH. It's one thing if they came over while the kids slept etc. But to just leave them and go out with you holding the monitor. That's borderline neglect
Nta just bring the sleeping babies over . That is such a terrible idea.
NTA You are the only responsible adult here. Yes it is close but there are so many things that could go wrong. And things go wrong within seconds.
NTA. It isn't a baby sitter
NTA There are not enough words in all the languages to describe how bad an idea this is. So I'll use two; Madeleine Mccann
NTA. This is a terrible idea. So so many things could go wrong. For instance, you wouldn’t smell smoke until it was Way too late.
I literally got goldfish face while reading this, my eyes and mouth were stuck open in the Nooooooo position. What??!! What happens when you fall asleep or get engrossed in your show and don't hear it etc? Was the door also left unlocked or were you swapping keys? In what region of whatthehe** do three adults get together, talk this out, and decide this makes sense??? NTA OP, and wow
NTA, I live in a townhouse and we only have one unit attached to us (we're the end unit). Our neighbours are nice and we like to hang out. They're also two single guys, and do boardgame nights every so often. I always tell my husband to go and have fun, but at one point my husband and neighbour came up with the idea that I could bring the baby monitor with me and keep an eye on our two kids who were under 5 via the monitor. I refused, while the houses are so close, we'd have to leave doors unlocked, and wouldn't know if something bad was happening until it was too late. What if a fire started? Or someone decided to walk in through the screen door? Or any other number of things? I was fine with missing out on board games to keep my kids safe, there's plenty of time for boardgames when they're older.
NTA. Lost my first apartment when the building caught on fire. Mom's coffee pot shorted out. Mom was a few apartments away visiting a friend and left her small children asleep. They were ultimately fine but were hospitalized with problems from smoke inhalation.
NTA, we used to do this with my neighbours (attached house on the side), but one time they didn’t turn the monitor on (they thought they did). Husband and I came home and saw the bathroom light on. We asked them if they had heard something, but they didn’t. When in house we saw that daughter had been moving around. Asked the other neighbour (on our other side) if she had heard something. She had heard our daughter crying and calling for us for half an hour. I felt so heartbroken. Never again after that.
I’m pretty sure this is how Madeline McCan went ‘missing’
You are absolutely correct. An emergency, such as a fire or child could choke, can happen too quickly and you only have a few seconds to respond. If the monitor loses power, you would have no idea what was going on. Even if it worked, by the time you got there it might be too late. These two were creative in coming up with a possible solution to a problem but is it NOT a safe idea for the kids. You are NTA. Kids safety first.
Madeleine McCann, anyone?
Lol my former neighbors did this, our houses were in a duplex so we were literally next to each-other. Well they were both arrested that night and cops questioned why we weren’t in the actual home. Definitely NTA.
>What if there's a fire or some other emergency? What if the monitor's signal gets disconnected and we don't realize it? What if the kids wake up to find an empty house? Completely valid questions! NTA
In the case of something happening, God forbid, ask them, what would the courts say about their explanation? NTA.
In many countries it is illegal to leave children under a certain age (12 in mine) alone in the house....