If Your Child Is Sick with a Cold, Where Do They Sleep?

Elizabeth Smart's sister was in the same room when she was taken...If someone want to take someone they will.

Leaving a sick baby or child in their room...not suspicious. If my kids are sick they sleep in their rooms. We'd have the baby monitor on to listen for any difficulties. I agree that a 6 year old would have a difficult time being sound a sleep with all the coughing and then the lights going on. The cell phone left in the kitchen is an issue but my biggest issue is the unlocked front door.

My child sleeps in his own room, with the door closed--the way he normally prefers it.

But I agree, in this case, 1+1 is not adding up to 2.
Then again, it takes all kinds...

This has nothing to do with the case, but in regard to your question we all do things differently... I'm going to play devil's advocate here since I can't say if she is guilty or innocent.

My son doesn't sleep with me if he has a cold. I prefer him to stay in his bed. I do close doors, but I do also have a monitor. (I know he's 6, but I still like to hear him if he needs me and our rooms are not next to each other)

In regard to her not waking up plenty of good parents are hard sleepers. When I was a teenager I could have screamed, "I'm sneaking out!!" while my parents slept. When we snuck out we just went out the front door and they were none the wiser. (Except for the 1 time I got caught) haha

Again, in regard to her allegedly not waking... a tired mom with a baby with a cold and 2 other children. It can be argued that typical mom would be exhausted and if given the chance to sleep through the night (thinking the baby was sleeping as well) who wouldn't just SLEEP?!

Cell phone by the bed... the only reason I take my cell phone to bed at night is b/c I use the alarm on the phone. If I don't have to get up the next morning I don't always take my phone to bed. Sometimes it's in my purse, charging in the living room, etc.

The lights on... I have gone in my son's room (he is 6) and flipped on the lights and he hasn't woken. A few times he's been in my bed and I've gone in there to go to bed and turned the light on and read for a while before going to sleep. He slept through it.

So... again, I'm not saying whether I believe innocence or guilt here. I can't say. But the evidence isn't as cut and dry as it seems. I just hope that this baby is found alive and safe. Prayers for Baby Lisa

My DD is 17 months old. When she's sick, I will let her fall asleep with me in my bed... BUT she spends the night in her crib. I do check on her, but not constantly. Maybe once or twice a night.

As for cell phones... I keep mine by my bed at night, but I know SEVERAL people who leave them out of hearing range while they sleep (and who also don't have land lines.) They don't want to be tied to the phone 24/7, and don't want it waking them up if it rings.

Our dryer used to be in my brothers' room. I used to be able to go in there in the dead of night, flip the lights on, and run a load of laundry through it and not one of them would wake up. (I had 3 brothers sleeping in that room.) Maybe he is just a heavy sleeper.. I know that I have 'selective' hearing at night. I will wake up if I hear my baby crying, but I have been known to sleep right through the fire alarm.

Who knows what motivation there is? Until whoever took the baby is found, we will never know. Maybe it was someone who thought the family did something wrong to them... Maybe it was someone who doesn't agree with their parenting style, and was 'saving' the baby from them... Maybe it WAS just someone wanting a baby There is a myriad of unknown reasons someone might take the baby.

I hate to judge any situation unless I know 100% of the details. I don't trust the media, not just because they are only going to put out information that will sensationalize a situation (boosting their ratings in the process...) but who knows what information pertinent to the case the police are withholding? That happens all the time in publicized cases like this.

Until I know 100% what is going on, I will withhold my judgement. That doesn't mean that I believe she's completely innocent... just that I can't come to a conclusion on what little I know. I can't imagine what it would be like to have my child missing, and I would hate to have people thinking that I did something to my sweet baby when they don't know the whole story.

I don't watch the news or read the paper, it's never anything good, so I'm lost as to what you are talking about.

However my 10 month old has a cold, he sleeps in his bed. I do not check on him at night without reason because if I do he wakes up, and there is no need to wake him up. he sleeps with the door closed because it is safer in case of a fire and the only thing I have to hear him is the monitor. Does that make me a bad mom? Cause last time I checked what mattered was that a sick baby slept and slept comfortably, which in most cases means in the same place they normally sleep.

Well, I don't know about the family's guilt or innocence at this point.

What I do know is this:

My sick kids sleep in their rooms, I sleep in mine. I, for sure, will hear them if they wake up coughing,

My two oldest share a room and sleep on bunk beds. I can turn the TV up full blast, turn their bedroom light on to put clothes away, and have their baby brother wake up the dead screaming in the room right next door (they share a flimsy wall) and my oldest two WILL NOT WAKE UP!

The cell phone on the counter thing? I just don't think that, in and of itself, is that unusual. No one says a cell phone SHOULD have been by her bed. I leave mine in my purse sometimes. I don't think that makes me a bad mom.

I guess what I'm saying is, if everyone assumes mom is guilty based on these three facts, I guess I'm a horrible mom too!

I do feel for this family. This happened less than 15 miles from where I now live, and right down the road from my BIL. It's scary to think that this could happen to me, and even scarier to think that a parent would do this to themselves. To think that people would assume I'm guilty because my kids sleep in their own rooms when sick, my kids don't wake up when a light is turned on (I do, just for the record), or because my phone was in the kitchen makes me sad.

The mom admitted the failed the lie detector test.. Not am admission.. but strange. Our daughter when ill even as an infant, slept in her crib in her room, but I had that monitor on me the whole time.. My husband and I keep our cell phones by our beds every night.. heck, even pour daughter keeps hers next to her in her dorm room or her room here at home.

It is not adding up. Those parents need to go back to the police station and answer every question over and over, so the police can figure out what could have happened.. The more they fight the Police, the less the police will look too much further.

The moms on here that are Officers or married to Police Officers will tell you.. MANY times, most times, the Police know a lot more than they will admit to the public or any of the suspects.

When my kids are sick, unfortunately everyone sleeps better in their own room. In fact, I very rarely check on them unless they have obvious breathing problems-- a normal cold probably not! However, at that age I always have a monitor on and with my paranoid mind, I always used the Angel care motion sensor alarm with my kids until they were at least 1.5 yrs old. In my mind, at the very least, I would know they were out of their bed, by their own will or someone else's. It gave me a peace of mind and much needed zzzz's at that age. Scary when it did go off, but well worth.

Just praying for this baby girl, but am right with you, there is definitely a piece of this story we are not privy too, rightly so tho'. My hometown and fellow classmate had her son abducted right out of her mom's arms, and even with that investigation information about the case was not discussed. We could not understand why they were focusing so much energy and time dragging the canals---they had to know something we didn't. Unfortunately, in this case they were right, they found the boyfriend and baby boy in the canal along with the missing vehicle. There is just so much don't know at the moment....

We can turn the lights on and probably even shine a flashlight into our 6yr olds eyes at night and she would not wake up...she shares a room with our baby...now I don't know much about the story I don't typically read into these storie all that much...but that is just my opinions on the sleeping through a light.

My kids never slept in my room, even when sick. a cold with a cough ... big damn deal. It's just a cold and those many times come with a cough. A little delsym/pediacare/etc and it's night night sleep tight. I didn't check on them at night, once they were out I left them be. I closed bedroom doors even when they were sick. And I've never owned a baby monitor.

My oldest son could sleep through anything ... hell he still does. I can go down into his room and turn on a light and be moving boxes and stuff and he won't hear a thing.

Until recently our cell phones were on our desks to charge at night, and we don't have a land line. I moved mine because I kept forgetting it in the mornings, and hubby moved his because his job changed and now he has to be available 24/7/365. Otherwise it wouldn't be in our rooms.

Open windows .. hell yeah ... if it's a nice night out our windows are open, saves on a/c costs (and we did this even when we lived in a single story house). Unlocked front door ... it happens. Mom was probably exhausted from baby being sick and the other kids to care for (seriously how many of us haven't been there?) and forgot to double check the front door ... god knows I've done it a time or billion.

ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THIS points to her having harmed her child. And considering a WITNESS saw a man walking down the street with an infant in the middle of the night ... I'd say it points more to someone else having done it.

And I hope that the baby is found and returned to her family safe and sound.

i think the answer to your question is a little of both. but i am a sucker and my heart is bleeding for that family...and i am maybe a little more naive and less suspicious of people in general than a lot of people seem to be....if my son has just a cold, even with a cough, he would be in his own bed. i didn't hear the kidnapper turned on all the lights. how do we know this? feel free to send me a message, anyone, because that's the first i've heard of that. i have no problem thinking that someone could come into a house, pick up a sleeping 10 month old, and get back out without the baby making any noise...my son is a zombie when he first wakes up, he doesn't even open his eyes for a few minutes. probably (maybe) by the time the baby realized it wasn't mom who had her, they were long gone. and i don't find the cell phones thing suspicious at all. if i didn't use my cell as an alarm clock i wouldn't have it with me. i guess maybe that's crazy, but that's just me. i don't think we know what happened....i hope we will soon. but i really wish everyone wouldn't just jump to the conclusion that the parents (or the mom) had something to do with it....i really don't want that to be the case. someone on my question said they'd rather it be the parents because then there's not a scary boogy man out there for us all to worry about...but to me i'd rather it be a stranger...dont' know why....but it would just break my heart to think that not ONLY did they do something to their child, THEN they had the twisted-ness to stand before the whole country and put on this whole act...that seems much sicker to me than a stranger taking a baby and doing anything with it....i don't know :(

I am not following this story but I can tell you that I can go into their rooms at just about any time if the night and turn on the lights, go in and sort laundry, open and close the closet and drawers, rattle hangers, etc...and neither of these kids would wake up unless I shook them and dragged them off the bed.

I don't know about the story you describe. I WILL answer a couple points you bring up. A NORMAL cold, I let the child sleep in their room, and I do check on them once or twice at night. Something more severe? I'll move the child into my room... But NEVER for a common cold, and not even the flu...

As far as the light being on. I have cleaned up/put clothes away/ gone in their rooms from time to time at night (it is the time of the day I get MOST stuff done) couple of times a month or so... and they are asleep, and I have the light on in their rooms. My kids are knocked out at that point.

Any parent can easily sleep through something if they have a fan on or have their doors closed or are deep sleepers. Which is why I don't sleep with a fan (even though I like to), I keep our door cracked open, and I happen to generally not be a deep sleeper- though on some nights I am. When they were babies, I used a monitor.

I know this case strikes at the heart of most of us who are moms but the facts of this case will come out . . . I encourage you to not get so worked up about it vicariously. We all have so much to worry about and enjoy about our own families.

Is your question about sick kids or the missing child case?? When my kids are sick, they've always slept best in their cribs or their beds.

Why would a baby with a cold choke?

To answer your question, my kids sleep wherever they sleep. If they are sleeping in their bed or our bed or on the couch as long as they are able to sleep I'm happy.

We also leave our cell phones in the kitchen and out of earshot. We do not want to be woken up in the middle of the night.

I don't know much about the case at all. I'm just saying, I don't find any of these particular details to be very odd at all.

DD is 6 and just last night came into our room she wasn't feeling well was stuffed up. No way, i wouldn't wake up. I haven't followed this story other than on mamapedia, but i'm wondering who was taking what medications, did they knock the baby out with cold stuff, Was the mom also tipping a little nyquil. that would be the only way my kids or I would sleep through somethign like this.

This is In referance to the " I " family Whatever happen to the house security and alarm system? I have this strange feeling about cold medicine dosage. I hope I'm wrong!

You make some very valid points. Thing I have also thought of and wondered hmmmm. It breaks my heart that IF she did do something how horrible she is. Thats just so sad..

What I want to know, is why, why were the doors and windows either unlocked or left open at night. I never do this. Never ever leave things unlocked. Not in this sick, and cruel world. Never.

And yes about the cell phones. We dont have a landline, but we make sure our cells are on us or around at all times. You just never know.

And yeah, how does a person not wake up it boggles my mind this whole thing, and sadly I feel like it happens too often....

I hope that baby is found safe and sound and whoever did it pay the consequences.

I don't know enough about the case to answer about their guilt/innocence. But when my kid has a cold, she sleeps in her own room like she does every night. Even when she was a baby. We do keep the doors between our rooms cracked every night, and my husband has ears like a bat, but we never bring her in bed with us. The closest we came was when she was throwing up one night and she slept on the floor in the living room and I slept on the couch (her choice, she wanted to be on the floor). So I can't say that it would make me suspicious just because the kid was sleeping in her own room with a cold.

Now, all the lights being on and not waking the 6 year old, I find that hard to believe, just knowing friends who's kids share rooms and are always waking each other up from silly stuff.

But just on the cold thing, it doesn't sound suspicious to me. I sleep like the dead. Last night our 4 year old screamed from the bathroom at 3 am that she was out of toilet paper and I didn't wake up until my husband opened the door to go get some for her and she yelled again.

Yeah, I have NO idea what you're talking about (I mean, I can figure it out, but I haven't heard any news about a baby disappearing recently). That's sad, and I know nothing about the case or story so I can't speculate anything at all regarding innocence/guilt for anyone. That said, my children ALWAYS sleep in their own rooms, and always have, after they were about 1 month old. I'm a very good, concerned, responsible mom, but they need to sleep in their own rooms, especially by age 10 months. Even when sick. When my little boys (ages 1 and 4) are sick, which is very rare, I give them a warm bath and some soothing lotion, my husband will lay them on his chest and hum a weird sing-song thing he always does with them when they're sick or overtired while I get everything in their room ready. I turn the humidifier on with a little baby vicks in it, have a prayers and worship CD that I turn on low, they get a little night light (which they never get otherwise), and then I put them in bed and sit in a beanbag chair beside them and stroke their hair or hold their hand until they fall asleep. That is all. When they are asleep, I close their door and walk out. If they were to cry, I'd wake up but would wait a moment to see if it was that the 1 year old dropped his paci and found it again, or if I needed to go in there. I don't check on them except as the last thing I'm doing before bed and the first thing I do when waking up (except a bathroom trip). That's for coughing or fever; if it was a concern for throwing up, that's different. That has only happened once, and I pulled a portable crib out into the living room and slept on the couch to "guard" him, but that was a one time in almost 5 years thing.
As for children sleeping in the same room, my goodness, early elementary children can SLEEP! My bff's son, I've noticed I can make all the noise in the world and the child will not stop snoring....but if I sneak, he does wake up which is funny. My oldest son (almost 5) can quite literally sleep through anything--ANYTHING and that is NOT an exaggeration. It's a little strange as an adult, but the boy sleeps hard.
My husband and I both have a problem with forgetting our cellphones. I usually plug it into the car charger and it just stays there forever. I don't think about my phone unless I need it. My feeling is that if someone needs me, they can leave a voicemail and I will check it at some point. But my husband is like this too (we had a little fuss about this last week when I couldn't get hold of him to save my life, but that's still the way it is). We would N E V E R have our phones by our bed. I used to do that, just in case of an emergency, but I've had friends do drunk calls on me, just enough that I don't want to be bothered. If we're out of town, that's different. But just boring day to day? Do not waste your time calling me at night, unless you plan on leaving a voice mail.
Now does any of this mean anything? No, not really. My children aren't going anywhere! We have home security, we have the little beeper thing that wakes me up if someone opens a window or door, we have locks (although 2 days ago the front door was unlocked all night, don't ask me how we dropped the ball that night, but we had a little meeting about it), the German Shepherd sleeps in our son's room, and I am a surprisingly light sleeper as I actually suffer from insomnia. But whether or not a parent did or did not do something to this missing baby? I have no idea. I hope she is found quickly and safe.

Why is it relevant that the kid had a cold? That is what is so strange about this case, extra facts that are like, huh? I swear it feels like a good profiler could just take the extra strange facts and figure out where she is.

So my kids always slept in their rooms when they were sick. Thing is if there is one out of place noise in my house I am awake. My house is bigger than theirs and I can say even after taking sleeping pills no one could come in my home and do all they did without waking me up.

So far as the kid in the room I have gone in my kid's rooms at night to find stuff and put on the lights without waking them up. It seems like they don't develop that vampire like response until they are teens.

There are so many things about the phones that bug me. Why, why would someone kidnapping a child take the time to look for the phones hoping for the off chance she happened to be programming them so they would be in the same place? If it was a random person wanting a baby they wouldn't know they didn't have a land line. They house is old enough that at one point it had a land line, no one can tell if the wires are active. Why wouldn't he have his, I know a lot of electricians they don't leave without them. Why wasn't hers by her bed as most people do when they don't have a land line. Why was she programming a phone she said was not functional? It was almost as if they were afraid that the cell company would say well they had a third phone so they had to cover that as well.

I believe one of the boys did something. I see no other reason why the parents would stand together if they know something.

I need to get up to date...too much work this week to know about this story. My daughter at 6 (and still at 18) will sleep through earthquakes, lights, ringing phones...everything. I would wake up if my cat sneezed downstairs but I'm a crazy, insomniac, workaholic tied to my blackberry and laptop.

My son has always slept in his own room - cold or not. He is currently 5-1/2. I could turn the lights on, pick him up, change his clothes and carry him to the car without waking him up (just did it in the reverse two days ago). I have left both my cell phone and land line in another room and gone to bed.

Well, my youngest daughter sleeps with us every night so I'm no help there. But I get what you're saying, you think she would be checking on her and making sure she was okay since she had the cold.

What I found odd was that according to an online news article not only was her six yr old sleeping with her so was a stray kitten they had found earlier that day. I don't know about you guys but I'm not letting some stray kitten sleep with me & my child in our bed!! Plus I'm thinking wouldnt' that keep her awake? I can't see a kitten sleeping soundly throughout the night and esp. with a prowler/kidnapper. Kittens usually startle easily and esp. a new one that isn't familiar with it's surrondings. Plus, wouldn't it be meowing & needing to use the restroom or wouldn't she be concerned it needed to use the restroom.

MomCEO: I think you might be right! Ugh, how sad but that does make perfect sense. She probably gave her the cold/cough medicine hoping she would sleep and then she could get some rest herself or maybe the dad gave it to her since he had to work that night, he may have been trying to sleep during the day. I think there were some panic cell calls made back and forth to each other & that's why they wanted to get rid of the cell phones.

My son sleeps in his own room. This way theres a slimmer chance the rest of us catch it. If I get up in the night, I check on him. Any sound in his room, he wakes up.
I haven't been following the story but have heard about it