Leaving child in room

[paisleys]

Mine are 12 and we have never left them alone in a hotel room, but yes at home (we have dogs and an alarm system, plus close neighbors). I would trust them themselves alone in a WDW room, but I wouldn't leave them with the new policy of workers coming to check the room at different times. We had some guy knock on the last trip a couple of months ago and demand to be let in to empty the trash. I couldn't tell what language he was speaking but he kept demanding to come in by motioning with a garbage bag. We thought it was bizarre but it would have been freaky for kids.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Just to make sure you know this already, but a child has to be at least 14 years old to enter a disney theme park without an adult. Just want to make sure you are planning to meet her outside the gates to avoid any difficulties on the day.

Thanks for the heads up! I do remember hearing that but forgot. She may decide to come with me those two mornings. It just depends on her mood that day. Actually one of those morning/afternoon is check out day so she has to come with me since check out is 11 am. So technically just one morning. We shall see what she decides!

 

[MomOTwins]

**Oops, posted a reply to the wrong thread - please ignore**

 

[happymommy]

Florida law does not have a hard and fast rule about when children can be left home alone, but instead expects parents to take all of the circumstances into account when deciding what level of supervision is needed.

In Maryland it's 8. I left my kids in the hotel while we had dinner at about that age, maybe 7 and 9 or 8 and 10, I forget. They were accustomed to travelling, and just hung out (they were ready for bed). They obviously knew not to open the door. It was the last time we shared a room, all of us! After that, two rooms (no one could sleep well).

It's up to you really. I wouldn't ask for advice here; you will get a lot of criticism honestly no matter what you do.

 

[luvmy2babies]

I just did a mother/daughters trip with my 9 and 6 year old. There was a point one night where I got everyone settled in bed in their jammies and realized I left my phone in the car! So I went and got it and left them in bed (telling them I'd be right back). I also got coffee in the morning while they watched TV. I do occasionally leave the 9 year old home alone for up to an hour at a time.

I'm tempted to leave them with a room service pizza while DH and I eat at Artist Point (same hotel), but DH isn't comfortable with it so they'll have to suck it up and eat with us. We'll see how he feels after a week with them! I would leave one of our cell phones with them.

Maybe the kid's club is an option so you can have a date night and your dh can be comfortable. They do have dinner there.

 

[luvmy2babies]

I left my daughter at 11 to go grab food at the food court. Also to transfer laundry from the washer to the dryer. This was of course before the room check issue. The limit for me then was 10 minutes. We ended up missing Wishes that trip because she didn't want to return to the park on our last day. She offered to stay behind; but I wasn't comfortable with that then.

Last year she was 14, we did a shorter trip and tried the midday break touring method even though it has never really worked for us in the past. She was done though so ds (then 7) and I went out twice in the evenings without her once to MK and another day to Blizzard Beach. She also met us at Epcot when she wanted to sleep longer and didn't want to ride Soarin' (we had a 9:30 fast pass). A little warning about Epcot though. I had no cell signal in the Living Seas area. She was texting me updates en route and I didn't get the messages. By the time we were reunited, she was pretty ticked. The texts came through once we were outside again. All 20 of them. So we may not be doing that again.

This year, she (now 15) and my 8 year-old have waited in the room while I went to the food court. We are staying in the Buzz Lightyear building at All-Star Movies so it is a really short walk. She also stayed behind last night while ds and I went to Disney Springs to see Christopher Robin and visit the Lego store. have had to drop her at a coffee shop across the street from her art camp because it didn't open early enough for my work schedule; so I knew she would be okay. I told her to go to the food court before dark to get dinner; but she preferred to wait until we got back. And we found out the bands don't work with the latch on the door.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Interesting article in this week's NY Times about how parents of other 1st world countries view some of the current American child rearing practices. This article is part of the Readers Center section and thus cannot be read unless you are a subscriber but I'll link it here anyway:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/...lights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

and include some parts of it:

A mother in Sweden says she often didn’t know where her elementary-school-aged son went for the afternoon after school.

A father in Paris says he sends his daughters outside to the playground nearby — alone.

And a mother in the Netherlands says parents don’t feel compelled to stick around for children’s birthday parties — they drop off their little ones, and then leave to run their errands.

In much of the world, parents tend to regard such free-range parenting practices as developing a child’s self-reliance. But as a popular Sunday Review article by Kim Brooks, a writer in Chicago, pointed out, many in America see these practices as neglectful.

 

[goodeats]

Maybe the kid's club is an option so you can have a date night and your dh can be comfortable. They do have dinner there.

There are no kids clubs anymore. The only options are the Pixar Play Zone (for $65/kid and they stay until 10:30, which makes our kids too tired) or the In Room Babysitting, which we'd still need to buy dinner and I'm almost more uncomfortable with a "stranger" in the room with the kids versus them being alone.

 

[luvmy2babies]

There are no kids clubs anymore. The only options are the Pixar Play Zone (for $65/kid and they stay until 10:30, which makes our kids too tired) or the In Room Babysitting, which we'd still need to buy dinner and I'm almost more uncomfortable with a "stranger" in the room with the kids versus them being alone.

Wow, that must have been a fast development. A YouTube family I follow just used Simba's Club House last month for their two girls

 

[NYCgrrl]

There are no kids clubs anymore. The only options are the Pixar Play Zone (for $65/kid and they stay until 10:30, which makes our kids too tired) or the In Room Babysitting, which we'd still need to buy dinner and I'm almost more uncomfortable with a "stranger" in the room with the kids versus them being alone.

There are other options that are open later as well:

http://www.wdwinfo.com/just_for_kids/childcare.htm