Moving DS into his own room

[TurtleAnn]

When did you move your DS into his own room?

My DS is 11-weeks old today and I am reading in the 'What to expect...' that I should be thinking about this between 2-4 months.

I am worried about SIDS, and I thought the risk period was greatest between 4-6 months. Boots catalogue write that using a dummy at night helps with SIDS - has anyone else heard this, it sounds like suspect science to me?

He swapped from his Moses basket to his cotbed in our room successfully at the weekend and is managing to sleep under sheets. He wakes twice in the night at 2.30 and 4.00 for feeds, although the 2.30 is more of an annoying snuffle rather than a wakeful cry and feeding him puts him back to deeper sleep. He sleeps well and is easy to settle.

[iamtrufflepig]

Both of mine went into cots in their own rooms within the first two weeks.

Regarding SIDS, my thinking was that as it was impossible for me to stay awake all night watching them then I really had to relax and just hope and pray it didn't happen. If it did happen it woulnd't make any difference if they were in the same room as you or not as you would not wake up if your ds stopped breathing.

[TurtleAnn]

fair point, I don't lie awake listening to him breathe

I don't want to be an anxious Mummy but it is so hard - this is my first.

[TurtleAnn]

DS does do this kind of snuffly choking thing about once a night.

I think his throat gets really dry because he breathes through his mouth instead of his nose. It scares me half to death when I hear it, that is probably why I get up and feed him even though he isn't really crying.

Do all babies do that?

[iamtrufflepig]

As far as I remember that is quite common. In my opinion that is why it is better that they are in a separate room so that you are not disturbing each other all night and he will probably settle himself back to sleep anyway.

[InTheZenGarden]

DD is now 14 months and I am glad to say it is not something I worry about any more, though I did at the time, obviously.

But my memory is a little hazy, but I think this is the reasoning behind what FSID say:

the reason babies are safer in a room with you is not so that you notice that they'd stopped breathing. It is more that some babies have a problem breathing i.e. the brain doesn't tell the diaphragm how to work.... and apparently being near you can "prompt" them to breathe. But this is only a tiny tiny minority of babies and they have to be very close to you.
DD breathed/snuffled/snored so loudly, I put her on the other side of the room as I wasn't getting any sleep, and then she went into her own room at 11 weeks as I was so sleep deprived I was going mad.

I did look into the dummy thing, as DD has never had a dummy and Boots/Mothercare were making this big thing about them preventing cot death. There was a fairly good retrospective study which I read, and what they found was that there was no difference between dummied-babies and non-dummied in the incidence of cot death. Where there was a difference, however, was when a usually-dummied-baby didn't get their dummy at night. That seemed to increase the incidence. So the answer from this, as I saw it, was not "you must use a dummy" but rather "if you use a dummy, you must use it every night". Which sounded more stressful to me. Plus DD spat the dummy straight out on the only occasion I attempted to get her to use one.

hth

[scrummymum]

My DD moved into her own room when she was exactly 2 months old. That night she slept through from 10.00pm til 7.00pm and never woke through the night again until she started nighttime toilet training (at 3.5 years).

DS was longer in our room but only because his nursery wasn't finished. He still wakes through the night when he is teething (currently 18 months) but his sleeping is definitely better since he has been in there.

I agree with iamtrufflepig. I can't see what I could do if they stopped breathing if I am asleep whether they are in their own rooms or mine.