Question for Fate

[molly84]

You kindly answered my previous post about my difficulty getting my 4mo to sleep in the cot at night (despite happily sleeping in his bouncer chair).

Took your advice, took the side off the cot and attached it safely to our bed. He now has a sleephead too. I am comforting/nursing him regularly through the night still, but staying in bed and I'm a lot less exhausted so thanks.

Just wondering though what to do at 6 months? My husband and I would like to start putting him to bed upstairs so we get a bit of time together in the evening. Is it safe to leave him in that set up? Do you use a video monitor?

Thanks

[FATEdestiny]

Should be fine after 6 months, especially with a video monitor.

The only concern is baby rolling or crawling out of the cot. The sleepyhead discourages rolling but once crawling, baby could climb out.

6 months is an arbitary age remember. When I started doing an early evening child's bedtime (seperate to my bedtime) was determined by the baby as much as SIDS guidelines.

Another example of making life as a parent easier - I was not inclined to be trapsing up and down stairs several times in the evening to resettle baby. So naps stayed in the bouncer through the evening until such a time came That baby would go to sleep at 7-8pm and stay asleep through until I wanted to go to bed. In my opinion, if you're still having to resettle baby through the later evening, you don't gain anything by habibg baby upstairs.

In the case of my children this started happening around 5-7 months old. So it is somewhere around 6 months, but by no means exactly.

Once at that point I would settle baby upstairs in the cot at "bedtime" and start doing in-cot settling until asleep. Then mostly baby would stay asleep so no danger of climbing off the bed. If baby did wake, I'd go up straight away, so again no risk of baby climbing out of the cot.

Bear in mind tough that tger e will come a time when you have to put the side all on the cot and/or lower he mattress height, for safety. Do this set up can't last forever.

[molly84]

Thanks very much for all that. Appreciate it.