Is 4 months too young for baby to sleep in own room

[CremeFresh]

Asking for my daughter , her baby is 4 months old and has outgrown the next to me , daughters bedroom isn't big enough for the big cot . All advice says that a baby should sleep in their own room from 6 months to reduce the risk of SIDS . Is 4 months too young?

I personally would with a monitor . My three were all in their cots by then.

The official advice is yes, it's too young.

We moved our son to his own room at 4 months and we all slept much better for it.

My son's general baby sleeping noises were driving us mad. And I think when we got up in the night to go to the loo or just moved a lot, it was waking him up too. We had a sound and video baby monitor so felt comfortable doing it. We weren't the first in our NCT group to move baby out and several had done it by the time 6 months came round.

I think it depends on her level of comfort with risk.SIDS is very rare now but having the baby always in a room with someone else up to the age of six months does reduce the risk. Those of us with adult children often had our babies sleeping in their own rooms from the start and obviously knew no better. She has to decide what she is comfortable with and make do with some sort of bed until 6 months off that is what she decides on.

Tell her to get a breathing monitor mat.

She has a video and sound monitor, he's started to move a bit in his sleep and keeps ending up squished against the side of the next to me , he also bashes his hands against the sides as he's a bit of a whopper. Having read the official reason of the SIDS risk, it says that sleeping in the same room as parents stops the baby from falling into a really deep sleep due to the sounds of the parents sleeping but my daughter sleeps very soundly and doesn't snore so we're not sure that it will stop him from sleeping deeply.

The advice is 6 months to reduce SIDS risk and it’s actually a really important factor in overall risk reduction. I'm not sure a monitor really helps as a standard monitor wouldn’t pick up if baby stopped breathing regularly (though an apnoea monitor may)
It’s worth remembering that the guidance is best practice in an ideal world. I’d probably look at the risk of SIDS overall. A breastfed, healthy weight baby in a safe cot, asleep on their back, correct temperature room in a non smoking household the risk is very low. An ex prem in a house with smokers is a much riskier situation.

All advice says that a baby should sleep in their own room from 6 months to reduce the risk of SIDS . Is 4 months too young?

You have answered your own question. The advice is six months, your child is not yet six months old.

I genuinely don't understand questions like this - you will be told by the people who ignored the advice that four months is fine, but you also know the advice is the advice for good reason.

Yes. It’s believed to be to do with the baby regulating their breathing against the other person breathing in the room, not to do with the noises keeping them awake or snoring or anything like that.

They need to sleep together, to reduce the risk. Can they sleep in the nursery?

People replying to say it's fine have survivor bias. The guidelines say 6 months because for a number of babies, 4 months was not fine. But it's for everyone to weigh the risk.
Is there room for a (single?) bed in the baby's proposed bedroom?

I'd stick to 6 months to be on the safe side.

It's medical advice for a reason.

8 weeks isn't much in the grand scheme of a lifetime.

Yes, too young, can your daughter sleep in the child's room?

Mine stayed in bedroom with me until 11 months old as any possible reduction in SIDS risk is worth doing.
I had to move into the nursery bedroom when mine got too big for the bassinet. I slept on a mattress in there as proper cot was too big for our room. It made night feeds so much easier too.
Your daughter would be surprised how much noise she will make even as a sound sleeper and not snoring (think breathing/turning over/arm twitching/covers rustling/sniffing etc) which is what help keeps baby safe. Video monitor is not a substitute.

Yes - if you want to reduce the risk of SIDS or cot death the wait till 6 months.

Yeah sorry I wouldn't.

It does come down to her judgement of the risk, not ours or yours. Some people will put them in their own room from day 1, some not until 1 year or more. It's not very helpful I know, but nonetheless it's true.

I am inherently risk averse and I would stick to the guidelines as much as practically possible. I thought one of the factors was the baby hearing the adult breathe stimulates the baby to breathe.

Is the baby definitely outgrowing the crib rather than just cramming themselves up against the bars? One of my babies always wedged herself in the corner of whatever bed she was in, so putting her in a bigger space didn't actually stop her whacking and headbanging the bars. She just had further to travel (which I assume she did by some sort of magic or physics-defying levitation) before she reached the bars.

Well I’m a terrible mother. Dd1 went into her own room around 10 days old as we all kept each other awake.

Shes now 21 and we’re sharing a bed tonight (packing up at uni for the hols). Expecting very little sleep again!!

Official advice is 6 months but in practice it's not always possible. My youngest was a big baby and outgrew her crib by 5 months and there was no space in our bedroom for a full sized cot ( built in wardrobe and cabinets so nothing could be moved out), so we moved her to her own room literally the other side of the wall to us with both doors open and a monitor- you just have to do the best thing sometimes

6 months is old advice. The official advice now is 12 months!

I would wait until 6 months.

Officials advise is to wait until 12 months.

My children went into their own room at 12 weeks, with a monitor that would sound if there was no movement for a period, so I would be alerted if they stopped breathing. If ever they were unwell or unsettled they came in with me or I slept on their floor.

Could the furniture be moved around or changed to allow the cot to fit? We kept our DDs in with us for a year and had to get rid of our wardrobe and dressing table, and change our king size bed for a small double (a gas lift ottoman bed to out put our clothes in). We got a space saver cot which was smaller than the standard size too. It was a squeeze but worth it to keep our dc safe.

I just looked and NHS still says 6 months. Where did you get this information?

Mine too at about 4 months, once they were sleeping all night, with monitors.

Space saver cot smaller than a full size cot.

There's definitely not enough room in DD's bedroom, but she says she will get a blowup single mattress and sleep in with baby.