When did you move your baby out of your bedroom?

[MrsPurr]

My 11-wk-old DS is very looooong (99.6th centile for height). He's the length of the average 4-month-old. He's about to grow out of his Moses basket. I am not sure his cot is going to fit in our bedroom. I am wondering whether I can transfer him to his room (next door to ours) with a baby monitor. Unsurprisingly, given that's the current NHS advice, the HV has advised me not to move him out of our room before 6 months.

Can anyone point me to any research about why babies have to stay in the parents' bedroom for 6 months? Surely it's not just so we can hear him -- we could do that just as well with a baby monitor.

Has anyone moved their baby out before 6 months?

[woodyandbuzz]

I think it's so they can hear you breathing and this will help them regulate their own breathing.

Personally, I would move something out of your room (could you move a bedside table or something?) so that the cot will go in.

I am a cautious person anyway! (and my children are both still in our bedroom aged 2 and 4 as they won't move out )

I doubt the HV would be allowed to advise you to move the baby out.

[brimfull]

6 weeks
they were fine
right across the hall

[brimfull]

blimey never realised they advised 6 ms in your room

ridiculous

[Bonsoir]

Why ridiculous if it saves lives?

DD left our room (of her own volition) when she was between 4 and 5!

[brimfull]

why difference does a few feet make?

[Bonsoir]

The ability for your baby to actually hear you breathing, apparently.

[brimfull]

my dh's snoring can be heard down the road

should be safe in the next room

[MrsPurr]

Yes I had heard about the hearing your breathing thing. I don't know whether we breathe loudly enough to make any difference! Would love to actually see some research on it because it sounds a bit rum.

Bonsoir am hoping he'll be out before he's 4 or we'll never conceive number 2!

[frogetyfrog]

Over 6 months for all three of mine. Personally I couldnt take the risk of moving them sooner when the recommended time is 6 months. It is apparently to do with regulating their breathing. Six months flies by. Why not just move a bedside table, squash your bed up to a wall and squeeze a cot in.

[frogetyfrog]

Theres not many cultures where babies are shoved out into their own room so young. We are a weird set arent we?

[RunningOutOfIdeas]

I moved DD into her cot at 8 weeks. She was also long and I decided she had to move when I woke one morning and found her lying in her moses basket with her legs dangling over the side. One more kick and she would have landed on the floor.

DD has a cot bed and there was no way to fit it in our room. Fortunately her new bedroom had room for a single bed, so I moved in there for the next 2 months. When DD was 4 months DH and I decided we wanted to be together at night, so DD has been on her own since then. I think she started sleeping better when left on her own.

[TheBossofMe]

DD went out at 8 weeks - she started not sleeping at night and wanting to play with us, so we moved her to her own room next door and set up a two baby monitors - one so we could hear her, and one so that she could hear us breathing. Clearly I was mad and very PFB. But she started to sleep through 7-7 almost straightaway, rather than not sleeping at all and ending up crying from tiredeness at 5am. Not that I would recommend trying it as a way to get DCs to sleep through - just in this particular case, it was move her or none of get any (and I mean any) sleep at all.

To this day, she won't sleep if she can hear us nearby. Very annoying - holidays are vastly more expensive due to her needing a separate sleeping area.

[RonaldMcDonald]

both my dds stayed in our room until they were a year as that is what my granny told us to do and we blindly did it

[RonaldMcDonald]

I was easily influenced and it was pre mumsnet

[nancy75]

moved dd at about 9 ot 10 months.

[inthesticks]

Both DS's were too big for moses basket after a couple of weeks so I moved a wardrobe out and a cot into my room. It's easier for feeds anyway if the baby is right next to you.
I was so sad when, after six months I moved the cot into the next room. . You'd have thought he was leaving home.

[rubyslippers]

the advice is 6 months because young babies can sometimes "forget" to breathe and hearing another adult breateh can help them to regulate their own

they are also meant to nap in the same room as the care giver now

i moved DS out at 9 weeks but DD is still in with me at 16 weeks mainly because she feeds at least twice if not more per night and i am too lazy to get out of bed to feed her

i can't see her moving anytime soon TBH

[flowerybeanbag]

Both of mine went in their own rooms at 8 weeks. We all slept better as a result, and it's probably a coincidence but DS1 slept through the night from 12 weeks and DS2 from 10 weeks.

[flowerybeanbag]

Have to say we were aware of the advice, but were not sleeping well, and took into account that there were no other SIDS risk factors present for either baby.

[MunchMummy]

DD1 10 days
DD2 6 days

No baby monitors, but left their doors open so we (I) could hear them.

Both have been really good sleepers and weren't disturbed by us.

For the early days they slept in the carry cot placed in their cot, then around 3 months got put in the cot itself.

[AnnieBeansMum]

My dd was in her cot in her room from the day she came home from the hospital. We didn't even have a moses basket in the house.

[bigjudgypants]

For the sake of a little inconvenience why risk it? I'd move DH out into the room next door then you could fit the cot in .

[Booyhoo]

ds1 was 9 months and ds2 was 8 months yesterday and i moved him today because i want a shower without an audience. i didnt move him because he is 8 months. i moved him because he is a very light sleeper and i have a sneaking suspicion that he only wakes at 11pm because he hears me going (quietly) to bed and not because he is hungary.

[MrsPurr]

Hmm. Spoke to GP about it today (was in for something else I hasten to add!) and he made the point that if something God forbid were to happen to DS, it would be hard if you had moved him to another room -- you might blame yourself. Humph. He is not a bad sleeper so I wouldn't be doing it to make him sleep better. And I do think the night feeds would be a lot more hassle to do in a chair in his room rather than sitting in my bed.

GP suggested buying a travel cot as it would be smaller than the cotbed we have in his room and just using that till he's 6 months. We are also about to have a few weekends away so we would get some use out of it. How comfy are travel cots though I wonder.

BossOfMe, I think two baby monitors is not a bad solution!

[Booyhoo]

ds2 sleeps in a travel cot at my mums every other weekend (roughly) but we have a single duvet on top of the base (folded in half) to make it a bit more comfy for him. he sleeps soundly in it.