To have my 8 week old baby sleeping in her own room

[Olivetti]

My little girl (8 weeks) has slept in her own room since she was 3 weeks old. She currently sleeps 7-9 hours and I wake up if she even squeaks loudly, and check on her - she usually just seems to be dreaming. She's putting on weight and thriving. I remember very heated debate about this on MN when I was pregnant, so just wondering whether people think it's ok, given she seems to be happy enough.

ds 1 (now 20) went in his own room at 1 week, simply because every snuffle or movement woke me up and had me dashing to check on him,I don't remember any advise at the time on when he should go in his own room.My twins (13) stayed in my room until they were about 5 months as breastfeeding both was tiring enough without having to wander around at night, again I don't remember any advise regarding this.Do what suits you,if you are happy with this. As I have no little ones I didn't know about the current thinking of keeping them with you for 6 months. Although I am one for following advise within reason, so probably if I was told to keep a baby with me for 6 months now I would probably do it.

People used to follow their own instinct and not have to be told what to do, there seems to be a huge lack of confidence.

BaggedandTagged - your post is too emotive. I think you should ask for it to be deleted.

octopus- where does it say that? The AAP basically says that SIDS is lower in babies that use pacifiers, as far as I can see, with no real qualifications.

Of course, the real issue is that no-one knows why- there might not even be cause and effect. It might just be correlation. That's the problem with a lot of the SIDS recommendations. The research, although thorough and useful, is retrospective and largely lacks controls (for obvious reasons). There may be a lot of factors that don't actually impact anything but correlate highly with factors that do.

So, for example, they don't know whether pacifiers prevent cot death, or whether pacifiers are more likely to be given to babies who are fussier and therefore sleep more lightly so are less likely to suffer SIDS

My point was really that everyone likes to pick and choose the SIDS evidence to suit themselves.

Couldn't agree more, baggedandtagged. I actually wasn't asking about SIDS anyway - we've had that discussion and people can agree or disagree, I don't see any point arguing. What I was really looking for was views on whether babies can be content all night in their own room - my baby seems to like it, but I am a first time mum and lacking confidence - suddenly wondered if she could be lying awake lonely, but am sure I am over analysing.

Over analysing. Don't worry about it.

I think you probably are- if she was upset she'd cry.

I put DS in his own room from 6 wks and into the cot at 8 weeks and he almost immediately went down to only 1 night time feed (although that might have been coincidental). I sometimes hear him chatting to himself at night if he's woken up but he usually just goes back to sleep. If he cries, then obviously I go in.

I was aware of the SIDS risk, but the increase in risk is minute and possibly eliminated by me getting more sleep and therefore less likely to do some crazy driving manoevere and get us both squashed under a concrete mixer

I had my babies in same room with me.
Not least because I slept more hours overall not having to trek to another room to meet their middle-of-night needs. If I had slept better with them in next room, I would have put them in another room.

yanbu, I think what you're doing is fine, OP.

The problem is that they they keep changing their minds about what causes/prevents cot death.
I think you need to relax a bit and do what you feel is right. If you can hear your baby through a monitor and to be honest modern houses have walls so bloomin thin that the baby can hear you through them anyway.

What ways have they changed their minds maddy?

Apologies if it has been mentioned but when I had my first I read a book called 'Three in a Bed' - the author claimed that cultures that co sleep have very little SIDS. Explained by the fact that as has been said, the breathing of the parents stimulates the baby to keep breathing.

Thing is though, thats just a theory. No-one can know that that is true.

If people like sticking to guidelines, then stick to all of them, but don't pick and choose the ones that suit you and then berate others for not sticking to a different one than you chose not to stick to!

We shouldn't think like cot death is a huge risk. It's not, even if you many of the "wrong" things it's still a risk of X in several thousand.

And even if you do all the "right" things there is still a tiny risk; doing all the right things isn't a guarantee.

In life we always have to trade off risk factors with other priorities. Foolish to converse as though we can control any risk or minimise risk regardless of other costs.

peanutbutterkid - I said more or less the same a while ago, and was practically accused of plotting to murder my own child! I exaggerate, but you get the gist....and all those who are saying its evil to put your child in another room, nobody has actually cited a stat....I've got drawn into the SIDS argument, which is not what I was asking about, but I agree with your post

MOONUNIT they've changed their minds non stop. Baby on front, baby on back, baby with blanket, baby without, co sleep, don't co sleep...the list goes on.