To leave 7 week old alone in bedroomwith a baby monitor?

[HollyGoLoudly1]

Wise mumsnetters, please advise - SIDS advice says if baby is sleeping that they should be in the same room as you until 6 months. I want to start a bedtime routine with baby going down in the bedroom at 8pm. Is this ok if I am listening in using a monitor? Or do they literally have to be in the same room (i.e. living room) until I go to bed?

So you have them in the same room as you until you go to bed. I've never tried to put any of mine into a routine, they found their own.

He won't sleep in a bright room with the TV on or people talking at normal volumes. He hasn't since he was not much older than OP's baby - and he doesn't just wake up, he wakes up screaming with tiredness and takes a long time to resettle. He's just really light sensitive, I think - when I'm out with him in the pram he always wakes if we move from somewhere shady to somewhere brighter, even with the pram shade up. Again, maybe he's just not exactly the same as your children?

In my opinion, it goes against advice and is therefore unreasonable.
We all make choices and do what works for us based on our own risk assessments. I coslept and has tummy sleepers. My educated and assessed choices.
I would not but a 7 week old down with a monitor but you may not put your baby down on its tummy.

My babies couldn’t settle when it was noisy, if I kept them down with us they became upset, overtired and eventually hysterical.
They slept well upstairs in the quiet of my bedroom. Having my babies in a routine meant that they were well rested and so was I. They happier the next day after a good nights sleep and so was I!

Bananacakes, tummy sleeping and co sleeping are much more risky than leaving a baby to sleep for a few hours in the early evening.

I work in a setting with doctors, nurses, psychologists...
In my setting parents are no allowed to co sleep nor are they allowed to put their babies down to sleep on their tummies. We have no rules against them leaving their babies to nap or sleep in the early evenings on their own because it has been determined that the risk this carries is negligible.

@hendricksy you say you made an informed decision and then said you think co-sleeping is super dangerous. Which shows you did no research so I have no idea how you can say you made an informed decision. Co sleeping is far safer than having a tiny child in its own room, if done properly. Why do cultures where co-sleeping is the norm not have higher levels of SIDS? SIDS doesn’t exist in those cultures.

DS doesn't actually sleep particularly well overnight - he was sleeping much longer stretches but he's four months now and waking up a lot. He does sleep solidly and predictably from 7.30 to 11/12 though, which is one reason that I'd be very reluctant to take that long stretch away from him - it doesn't get me extra sleep putting him down at 7.30, but I genuinely believe it's better for him. I'm not telling anyone else to do the same with their babies, but nor I do think making that decision makes me a horrible mother (presumably DH is forgiven his complicitt because it's ok for him to be so lacking in maternal instinct and because it's much more fun to judge women anyway?)

@3WildOnes no they are not. You have no idea what background I have and how I did either. I did not go into detail, I’m not here to advocate either as they are all personal decisions to be made with research and education.
‘I work in a setting with drs, nurses and psychologists’ oh right so that means you’re right? I also do, but do not assume I’m right. And my health visitors and paediatricians were all aware of these choices (one tummy sleeper was at the suggestion of the paediatrician) and very supportive of safe cosleeping.
Done properly, cosleeping is far safer than leaving a tiny infant alone in a room sleeping and it is not safe to be suggesting otherwise.

I genuinely don't know what I would have done in that situation. My husband is away for 2 weeks of every month so it's conceivable we had it but I really can't remember.

Aaaand this is my point.

In a family with more than one child, especially if one partner is away a lot, it is literally impossible in the course of normal life to watch over a sleeping baby until 6 months old. That you now say you don’t remember is telling, because previously you insisted with certainty that gig never left the baby sleeping alone. I’m sure you did more than once.

Because neglecting your life - older child/ren, mental health, spouse - due to misunderstanding the actual risks of SIDS is a recipe for PND and a breakdown.

As a frame of reference - there are 200 SIDS deaths a year in the UK vs 75000 babies born a year. It’s extremely rare and it’s not caused by leaving baby alone for an hour. Doctors don’t know why it happens.

I’m not advocating neglect but leaving the bedroom door open and using a monitor, check baby every 15-20 min, is not a recipe for SIDS for the love of God.

A baby tragically died in this area recently, that baby was in a room on its own at 6 weeks and on its back.
The only factor against the guidelines in this instance is the being on its own.
All we can ever do through education is reduce risk, so it is unhelpful to say ‘in my setting you can’t cosleep or tummy sleep but leaving your baby alone for hours is fine’ I’d like to know where you work and report you frankly as that is dreadful advice.
The advice regarding cosleeping (and many many things) is to protect the most vulnerable babies, who’s parents may not be able to properly risk assess. Cosleeping not done properly (smoking/drinking parent, sofa, lack of space, old mattress, pillows etc etc) is a risk factor. Done properly it is very safe and beneficial to both.
People move babies out and leave them because they say they disturb them, but now dummies are being recommended, effectively to disturb babies as it appears to reduce SIDS.

By 7 weeks, dc1 was sleeping 12 hours a night, and yes we did have a really good bedtime routine which started with a bath and ended with milk. Dc was then put in her basket in our bedroom and left while I went downstairs to finish the washing up jobs/sort out for tomorrow.

By the time I had dc2 and then dc3, they were just part of the bedtime routine, because it was already happening around them. I wasn’t going to bath one child at 6pm and then bath another at a different time, how daft would that be? So from week 1 dc2 and 3 had a routine imposed on them, because that’s generally what happens in family life. They might not have gone to sleep straight away, but were ready for ‘bed’ anyway.

Dc2 never settled at 7 weeks, so I couldn’t have left him upstairs in the evening anyway, dc3 did, but I can’t rememebr what we did with her, by the time you get to child 3 it’s all a bit more of a blur and we muddled through best we could.
What works for one family, might not work for another and as all babies and situations are different, the baby might not tolerate being downstairs asleep with the noise of other children/maybe teenage siblings making a noise so you have to put them upstairs so they actually sleep.

Although the guidelines are best practice, in reality in many situations, you have to do the best you can at any point and if that means leaving a sleeping baby in a different room for a little while, it does not make you a bad parent at all.

Bananacakes was baby formula fed? Parents smoke? Sleeping alone is not the only risk factor.

@HollyGoLoudly1 I remember being really confused as a first time mum. The sids guidelines say they should be in the same room as you for 6 months when asleep (and background noise won’t matter) but all the books and other advice online talks about getting into a bed time routine and putting them to bed in their cot in a dark, quiet room etc. I even found that some articles would say to do both things in different paragraphs without telling you how you can do two conflicting things.

In the end we got her ready for bed but kept her downstairs with us but at the far end of the living room in the dark. Or we sat in the kitchen with doors open to the room she was in. Then one person would usually transport her to her cot upstairs in our room and read/ watch iPad with headphones in bed before going to sleep.

@brookshelley
Interesting reading your post and made me think. My baby is 3.5 months. She’s high need and FTT for unknown reason. I have also have a toddler and an infant plus other children.
My husband is away a lot.
In the day if the baby decides to not sleep on my shoulder she is in a pram in the hallway, central to where I am with the other children and housework. In the evenings she is asleep on me or in the pram and she goes up with me when I go to bed. I haven’t ever left my babies on another floor of separate room before the age of 6 months to sleep, and I do 98% of the childcare.
I thought that’s what everyone did! And I can’t wait to have a bath in 2.5 months 😂

@brookshelley sadly the mum was someone I know. Baby was breastfed and mum was not a smoker, single so no dad at the home.

bananacakes glad it worked for you. My older child began night waking and screaming a few months after DC2 was born, I spent a lot of time overnight comforting her and when DH was away (often) that meant baby was asleep in my room on her own. If that makes me a bad mother then oh well. I love both of my children and they need me in different ways.

You’d like to report me?!?

I’m not actually senior enough to make up the rules. The rules in our trust and in our setting are that mothers are not allowed to cosleep or place their babies on their fronts to sleep. I didn’t make these rules. They were made by someone who looked through all the data available.

SIDS deaths halved when the advice came in to place babies on their backs and feet at the bottom of cot but you were still happy to put your baby to sleep in their front. I’m not judging but I do think it’s outrageous that you would judge a mother for placing her baby to sleep for a few hours in a different room.

Everyone does know that babies can still die of SIDS (which is just saying they don't know why they died anyway! It's not a diagnosis, it's an absence of one. So you can never say a baby died of SIDS 'because' of anything at all because then it's not unexplained) with no risk factors present, right? That's why they're risk factors and not predictors of the future. So it's pretty horrible to say that a baby died 'because' it was left alone - neither you nor anyone else knows that. Do you all also ask people with cancer what they did to get it?

@brookshelley I certainly didn’t mean you were a bad mother! I mean more than anything we do what works for us, and it is so easy to judge based on our own experiences BUT no one else has your baby and they are all so different. That’s my point. If I had had a baby that settled on its back in its Moses basket I would never have had to research and look into tummy sleeping or Co sleeping. They are voices you come to when you are hallucinating with tiredness and nothing in the guidelines is working.
If I had a baby that woke everytime we walked past it and I was exhausted then yes I’m sure I’d make an educated decision to put a baby in another room with a movement monitor.
There are guidelines but they are not specifically for our baby, and our baby hadn’t read them.

@3WildOnes
Yes I would and no I haven’t judged anyone for putting a baby to sleep in another room. 🙄
I’ve said we all make choices based on our babies and our own experiences. That’s why you can offer suggestions but you can’t tell other people how to do it.
@lisasimpsonbff absolutely agree. No one has said that.
It was an example of a tradegy locally. I’m certainly not of the opinion that leaving a baby alone causes SIDS.
The op asked a question and the answer is technically yes and there are reasons why.

*choices!!! Not voices!!

Perhaps an answer would be to have background sounds of someone sleeping playing next to the baby’s cot.... Wouldn’t that have the same effect on the baby as being in the room sleeping? I can’t see why not but I may be missing something?

@3WildOnes
Not judging for putting in another room as discussed above.
Not here to be judged on putting my baby to sleep on her tummy after the hospital did it and paediatrician told me to continue and we had a movement monitor. She was premature and choked on her back (in hospital)
My son was also put on his tummy in hospital and I was advised I could continue. I actually didn’t with him for a number of reasons.
Don’t assume that educated decisions are made lightly and not without full assessment of risk factors.
And I feel very sorry for the mums in your setting, how sad for them.

@oakenbeach never tried it myself as only heard about it recently but is that like the use of apps and white noise?

Some proponents of white noise do say it might reduce SIDS as having a fan in the room seems to slightly reduce rates and that might be the noise - BUT since the 'hearing you breathe thing' is just one theory no one actually knows whether a recording of someone breathing is better or worse than the baby being watched through a monitor, as no one knows if it's the supervision, the noise or some third correlating factor that makes sleep in the same room as another person safer