[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Know what I do find sort of telling? No one has any problem whatsoever with speculation surrounding the Stephen Avery "Making a Murderer" stuff, documentaries about it, countless theories, it's all sort of accepted as being fine to have opinions and theories...

...but try to suggest an alternate theory in the Maddie case, or suggest that any of the surrounding events aren't whiter-than-white and above board and could have happened to anyone and oh it's fine to all leave your kids alone, at night, in unlocked apartments, in a foreign country... and you get shot down from all angles. Because Middle Class British Folks! How dare you suggest they are anything other than exemplary parents. You must simply believe the also entirely assumed / guesswork narrative that Maddie was abducted. There is ZERO EVIDENCE that she was abducted by a paedophile. The evidence is that she was left alone in a room, and that she silently disappeared from that room while her siblings were left asleep and unharmed. That's it. That's the whole story, as far as 100% verified evidence goes.

But it's fine to theorise that she was abducted by MI5 trained stealth Gypsy paedophiles... just don't dare theorise that anyone else had anything to do with it

I find it incredible that leaving babies on their own in strange surroundings is accepted as something alot of parents do when this simply isn't the case parents I have encountered have baby monitors IN THEIR HOMES fgs

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Cherie

I find it incredible that leaving babies on their own in strange surroundings is accepted as something alot of parents do when this simply isn't the case parents I have encountered have baby monitors IN THEIR HOMES fgs

I know :/ My youngest used to regularly wake up in the night up until he was 8/9ish, he would have totally freaked out if he woke up in the dark with no adult there, just that reason alone would have made me not leave him alone at home or anywhere else

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

I know :/ My youngest used to regularly wake up in the night up until he was 8/9ish, he would have totally freaked out if he woke up in the dark with no adult there, just that reason alone would have made me not leave him alone at home or anywhere else

We didn't even leave my first daughter with other people when she was young as she used to wake and look for us. Luckily, when she hit about 5, she started sleeping like a log. Too well if anything. No amount of noise wakes her (she used to be SUCH a light sleeper) and getting her OUT of bed for school is a military operation.

My younger daughter doesn't GAF who happens to be there if she wakes up (which she does, semi regularly). She just barrels back down the stairs and starts playing. Or just plays right there in the bedroom in the pitch dark .

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

We didn't even leave my first daughter with other people when she was young as she used to wake and look for us. Luckily, when she hit about 5, she started sleeping like a log. Too well if anything. No amount of noise wakes her (she used to be SUCH a light sleeper) and getting her OUT of bed for school is a military operation.

My younger daughter doesn't GAF who happens to be there if she wakes up (which she does, semi regularly). She just barrels back down the stairs and starts playing. Or just plays right there in the bedroom in the pitch dark .

and also, not only did they leave those babies alone like that, they did it after Maddie had told them that she and her younger brother had woken up the previous night and cried because they couldn't find their parents...... that is heartless to me

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Cherie

I find it incredible that leaving babies on their own in strange surroundings is accepted as something alot of parents do when this simply isn't the case parents I have encountered have baby monitors IN THEIR HOMES fgs

I ran a parenting forum for 3 and a half years, nothing surprises me any more. Like you, I assumed that parents leaving their kids in such risky circumstances must be rare - until a thread came up about something called "monitor minding"... which is, basically, giving a baby monitor to a neighbour within monitor range (sometimes next door, but some mentioned several doors down / opposite sides of the street), putting the kids to bed and then going out leaving them alone in the house . People are doing this with babies just a few months old! And seem to think nothing of it.

Another one that came up, was a news story about parents doping up their kids with various meds for flights... the thread started out with people being incredulous / couln't believe anyone would do it / how risky it is to give kids adult meds at any time let alone at 60,000 feet with no access to medical help... and then... all hell broke loose because - yep, you guessed it - a few of our members had done it and thought it was fine and were "horribly offended" that it was being suggested that they were being risky. One of them was giving her 4 year old "drowsy" antihistamines EVERY DAY for regular journies in the car... the mind boggles.

But yeah this stuff is much more common than I'd ever imagined.

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I ran a parenting forum for 3 and a half years, nothing surprises me any more. Like you, I assumed that parents leaving their kids in such risky circumstances must be rare - until a thread came up about something called "monitor minding"... which is, basically, giving a baby monitor to a neighbour within monitor range (sometimes next door, but some mentioned several doors down / opposite sides of the street), putting the kids to bed and then going out leaving them alone in the house . People are doing this with babies just a few months old! And seem to think nothing of it.

Another one that came up, was a news story about parents doping up their kids with various meds for flights... the thread started out with people being incredulous / couln't believe anyone would do it / how risky it is to give kids adult meds at any time let alone at 60,000 feet with no access to medical help... and then... all hell broke loose because - yep, you guessed it - a few of our members had done it and thought it was fine and were "horribly offended" that it was being suggested that they were being risky. One of them was giving her 4 year old "drowsy" antihistamines EVERY DAY for regular journies in the car... the mind boggles.

But yeah this stuff is much more common than I'd ever imagined.

We did the baby monitor once when my eldest was about 14 months we were in a hotel with no baby sitting facilities, we did a test run from from the restaurant to see if the range was okay, sat down to dinner after 10 minutes of silence we got freaked out that the monitor wasn't working properly so went back to the room and got take out, we couldn't relax so it wasn't worth it. Even now when I leave my teens at home I worry the house will catch fire or one of them will trip and fall down the stairs