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?

Bananacakes I’m not sure if you are saying that in my professional role I should only offer parents suggestions and not tell them how to do things?
Obviously in everyday life I don’t tell people how to parent and I’m actually pretty non judgmental. I have friends who co sleep and friends who sleep trained their children, friends who breast fed and friends who bottle feed and I am supportive of all of them. I do not believe there is only one way to parent. For me personally having my babies in a routine is what worked for my family. My babies slept in our room overnight (the risk of sids is much more likely between 10pm and 7am).
As I said in my setting parents are not allowed to co sleep or place their babies to sleep on their backs. I’m not actually the one to enforce this but it is enforced in our setting due to our risk assessments.

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.

Of course you’re not judging or assuming. Happy? Yes I danced around with glee so delighted I could put my baby at risk!! Utterly ridiculous and judgemental. If your baby chokes and the oxygen monitor shows much higher oxygen levels when on their front so a paediatrician says sleep your baby on it’s front then you do it. I’m pretty sure even your setting would be ‘happy’ To do this under advice. I actually barely slept till she was about 9 months because I was not very happy about any of it.
Many people do make choices because what they are trying is not working.
Anyway it was a discussion about babies and how we all do our best and that no one would intentionally put a child at risk. This is going off topic. I wouldn’t leave a tiny baby alone and would consider proper cosleeping safer, others would leave a baby and consider cosleeping like hanging a baby over a cliff. Arguing over the internet with strangers is fairly pointless.

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

No it isn’t. Not if you are talking about safe cosleeping.

I linked this upthread and will link it again here...

www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/07/Co-sleeping-and-SIDS-A-Guide-for-Health-Professionals.pdf

“IN 2016, 219 BABIES DIED OF SIDS IN THE UK: 0.03% OF ALL BIRTHS
Previous UK data suggests:
■ around half of SIDS babies die while sleeping in a cot or Moses basket.
■ around half of SIDS babies die while co-sleeping. However, 90% of these babies
died in hazardous situations which are largely preventable.”

As you will see this is evidence based and endorsed by Lullaby trust, unicef and ISIS

@3wildones cross posted of course I understand settings have to follow strict guidelines and for very good reason. And you have to be professional. I worked briefly in a unit that had vulnerable young mums and babies and I would not have dreamt of bringing my personal experiences and research as that would not be appropriate.
It is confusing though for some as our hospital turns a blind eye to bedsharing but then the unit recording finding a baby in bed with a mother as potential cause for concern.

@nerrsher..I really don’t care what you do with your baby . I felt mine was safer in their own bed not with me and dh and cats 🤷‍♀️.. they are teens now and still alive so it’s all good ! 🙄

Bananacakes, I wasn’t judging you, you made an informed choice. I did feel you were judging those who choose to place their babies to sleep in a different room in the evening. But if you say you weren’t then I accept that.
Very few babies die safely co sleeping when their are no other risk. I do understand that. Just as very few babies die sleeping in their cots between 7am and 10pm in a separate room when there are no other risk factors.

I live in a large house and it would be near on impossible to have moved my newborn baby from room to room as I went about my day (she slept ALL the time as a newborn) so she would generally sleep in her nursery or with us in the evenings when watching TV.

At 8 weeks we started a bed time routine and she was up in our bedroom sleeping with a video monitor on at 7pm and she has been fine. I do check on her every hour if i havent seen her hand move for a bit!

A friend of mine lost her baby to SIDs at 10 months it was horrific but there was nothing she could have done to prevent it she followed all the "rules".

We are all obviously very alert to SIDS but rates are low, my daughter is sleeping through the night at 14 weeks (with me next to her) and I think that is more frightening as I'm not "checking her" through the night, when Im asleep I'm asleep and I don't wake until she does.

If you are checking on your baby and have a monitor for a couple of hours in the evening I think you are fine, but do what makes you comfortable. Some people are extremely risk adverse and will act accordingly.

Kept both of mine with me at all times until 6m (or with her Dad if I was doing something solo like having a bath or popping to Tesco for a mental health break!)

I either had them down with me in the sleepyhead or just went up myself at around 8pm and read/watched TV.

Bananacakes

Yes, exactly... the idea just popped into my head while reading this. Would be good to get a medical opinion on it. If it is literally the gentle noise of breathing and occasional rustling that occurs overnight while asleep then i can’t see why not. It would prevent haggard mums feeling they could never let their babies out of their sight even for a moment.

bananacakes and I are good examples on this thread of why giving advice based on your own baby is totally pointless. Mine was asleep on her own until we came to bed from about 8 weeks because she simply could not sleep anywhere other than a quiet and dark room. Bananacakes would never do that. On the other hand, her babies were put to sleep on their tummies for various reasons. I could never imagine doing that. But I bet you if she'd had a baby that wouldn't sleep anywhere other than a quiet dark room, and I'd had a baby who wouldn't sleep on her back, we'd both be saying the complete opposite.

Babies don't read the guidelines. You can only do the best you can within the limitations you have.

Be careful listening to advice about babies ‘sleeping through’. A breastfed baby shouldn’t sleep through the night - they consume 20% of their calories through the night. Human touch and comfort is important for their growth and development.
Can only assume those doing 7-7 by 12 weeks are on formula...

The bedtime routine is a bit of a red herring - some babies will naturally adopt a routine others won't. Forcing a routine on a young baby has been established to be bad for them - they're better feeding and sleeping as and when needed (and this will change depending on spurts of development etc.). However some babies will naturally fall in to a routine if provided with consistency and this is fine.

I think some people seem to equate a routine and putting down to sleep with leaving a baby to cry and not responding to their needs. For me a routine meant doing certain things at the same time every day. So I always woke my babies up at 7, I went for a walk at the same time every day, at 6.45 we went upstairs to a quiet dark room and fed before I placed them down to sleep. I never left my babies to cry, I fed on demand. If my babies woke I cuddled them and resettled them.

@peachgreen
Absolutely nailed it there. Opinions are just opinions, often based on what we’ve experienced. I can’t imagine putting my baby in another, dark room. That’s not our norm and it would feel completely wrong. But if everytime I put her down in our room or everytime my partner coughed, she woke and screamed, I know as an experienced mum that you adapt and change as you need to.
One of mine after the one I was advised to sleep on her front, simply would not settle on her back, ever. I ended up with her sleeping on my chest (which as far as LULLABY could advise, is no different to tummy sleeping) and so in the day whilst supervised and on a movement monitor, I would transfer her from my chest to her cot/pram on her tummy. With no toys/bumpers/blankets etc. This was in the day. I was nervous and so relieved when she started rolling! But if you have other kids needs to attend (I have an autistic child) you have to find ways to cope and manage.
It’s hard to imagine even thinking about doing this if you’ve had a baby that settles on its back.
Being a parent is hard.
@3wildones I’m well aware that we all do different things with different babies. Having successfully breastfed my last 2 long term, I absolutely intended to fully breastfed this baby, but for some reason she’s not growing. Prior to this, I couldn’t really understand how breastfeeding could not be the best thing for a baby if you persevered. There are so many variables with each child.

@3WildOnes

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

This isn’t correct. Statistically, in breastfed babies over 3 months old if co-sleeping is practiced safely there is NO increased risk of SIDS. Where as leaving a baby to sleep alone does carry an increased risk of SIDS.

Can only assume those doing 7-7 by 12 weeks are on formula...

So what if they are? Is feeding a baby formula wrong now?

Signed, the mother of a breastfed baby who has never come close to sleeping through but who thinks other people should crack on with looking after and feeding their baby however they think is best

@LisaSimpsonsbff Thanks for being a voice of sanity on this thread. 

Can only assume those doing 7-7 by 12 weeks are on formula...

Well you assume wrong don’t you!
Dc1 was sleeping through for 6 hours, quick feed and sleeping for 6 more hours by 2 weeks old.
By 6 weeks she had dropped the feed and slept through for 12 hours a night, every night. She was breastfed until 22 months when my milk changed due to pregnancy and always followed her centile line and met all her targets and is in no way compromised because her mother was well rested and able to get a good nights sleep.

Why do people always wrongly assume that breastfed babies don’t sleep? 2 out of my 3 babies were good sleepers (1 of them obviously was an excellent sleeper). The third not so good (and even at 10 he doesn’t need a lot of sleep), but because of the other two, I have no reason to think his sleep was anything to do with feeding method. (For the record they were all breast fed till 22/23/24 months).

And I completely agree with lisasimpson above. I couldn’t give a monkeys about what you do with your baby as long as you love them, keep them warm, fed and safe and bring them up to be lovely people.

I think it is Important for new mothers to know sleeping through is far from the norm, as "is he/she sleeping through yet?" often seems to be held up as some sort of holy grail of parenting. It is fine for a baby not to sleep through.

I just laugh when anyone asks if DD is sleeping through.

A baby can manage a stretch of five hours or sometimes more when it weighs 12-13 lbs. That is, on a good day...

Age isn't really the relevant benchmark.

I'm not sure there is any real benchmark, age or otherwise. At 13lb DS was indeed doing 5-7 hour stretches, at 16lb he's back to every three hours... And I don't wish he'd sleep longer due to social pressure (like snuggy when people ask I say 'oh Christ no!' and laugh), but I sometimes wish he'd sleep a bit longer because I'm quite tired...

But anyway, all this gets us a long way from OP's question - she never said she expected her baby to sleep through or that that was her goal!

It is fine for a baby not to sleep through
YYY to this. Though of course you get so tired.

(This may actually have been the motto of all of mine).