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Parent24 : Baby : health safety : Leaving baby behind

Leaving baby behind

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To go or not to go? Could you leave your baby behind while you went on holiday?

Q&A

Pic: iStockphoto.com

Article originally in Parent24

Imagine that once in a lifetime opportunity to spend some quality time away with your partner. Sound like bliss? Now add a precious baby into the mix. Would you be able to leave your baby behind? For the weekend, a week or a month?

Our user had this exact question:

Hi Dr de Jager

What are your views on leaving our 15-month-old baby boy with my sister for 5 days while we catch up on some anniversary time? He's a normal, happy, inquisitive baby boy and will be in good hands at my sister's.
His normal nanny will still look after him during the day. Will not seeing his mom and dad for 5 days have a negative effect on him?

Thank you
Ariane

Learning and development expert, Dr Melodie de Jager, offers her advice:

Hi Ariane

If his nanny is with him and he knows your sister well and he takes his favourite stuff, he should be fine.
Remember a happy couple is one of the greatest gifts you can give a little one, so go and enjoy each other and do not miss HIM too much!

Regards,
Melodie

Leaving on a jet plane

What if you were leaving for 2 whole weeks? To Miami? Without your husband?

Parent24 blogger, Minki Minki, was struck with this exact dilemma. Plus she was fighting with her stubborn husband.

'I have the opportunity to go and spent 14 days in Miami, Florida, with my stepbrother and his family. They will pay for the plane tickets for me and Minki, as long as I look after their Dad on the trip there and back.

'"Yippie!" I thought and then The Blond Bear burst my bubble. Over his dead body will I take HIS daughter so far away from him for so long. He is in no position to leave his practice for 2 weeks and go gallivanting around.

'Now what? Is it only not-so-good mothers that will leave their babies at home and go on a 2 week Miami (it's Miami for goodness sake!) pleasure trip? What to do, what to do? I so want to go, but you all know me, I just don't leave my child with someone to go and do pleasurable things.'

What would you do in a situation like this? And do you think it's okay for mothers to leave their children?