AIBU to not enjoy baby in the room with us?!

[poppymatilda]

Arrggghhhh, is it just us or are newborns generally so noisy? Ours will be 6 weeks old on Thursday and she is a nightmare to share a room with, squeaks, grunts, snorts etc. Even though she's settled into a decent feeding pattern every 3 hours and sleeps between (usually but not always 100% reliably) i don't really sleep because she constantly wakes me up with her noise. When I peer into her crib she's asleep through it all!
Does it settle down at any point? Currently counting down until she's 6 months and I can ship her next door to the nursery!

Thanks all, your encouragement has cheered me up no end!
Not sure about the PP who said it's unnatural for a baby not to sleep in a room with it's mother, mine is asleep now next to her dad. Im in another room. Why don't we give dad's more credit?!

Aw @wateringhole we had same day babes! 😍

It's hard op, those early days aren't easy but it is important to be in the same room as them when they are so small. You may not sleep better if your baby is in another room. I was more reassured being able to hear them.

Oh, and I was well aware that I was disregarding safe-sleeping advice by moving my daughter early but given I was suicidal at the time and started every morning a sobbing, anxious wreck having lain awake for hours I decided (or rather my healthcare team decided for me) that it was the better option. Thank God. Even then I felt horribly guilty for months. I'm glad I didn't see some of the judgey posts above during my recovery as it would have really set me back. Suggesting that someone doesn't care about their baby because they make a choice between following guidelines to the letter and sanity is pretty disgusting. And I would say the same in support of co-sleeping mums, bed-sharing mums, mums whose babies will only sleep on their fronts, mums whose babies won't sleep without a baby nest etc etc. Parenting is SO tough and we all have to make difficult choices every day. We're all aware of the risks and only we can decide what works best for our babies and our family. If I hadn't moved my daughter early I would probably be dead. On balance, this worked out better.

My mum always says it's a marvel any of us survived given how much she apparently didn't know. We were in our own rooms from day 1 back then.

I couldn't have let my babies go into their own rooms until they were 1 year old. I was terrified I would not hear them if they woke. I was terrified of cot death. I was just generally overprotective of letting them out of my sight for the first year. My dh snores so I guess I was used to snoring.

feels like that defeats the object of having her in the room with us to reduce the SIDS risk?

The SIDS risk is lowered by your baby hearing you, not the other way around. No monitor in the world can replace that.

Interestingly dd1 was noisy until about 2 weeks old when we started bedsharing (safely, using all the recommendations). It stopped that night.
Dcs 2, & 3 bedsharing from day 1 and weren't noisy.
No idea why

@peachgreen well said. Glad you're well now but sorry to hear what you went through. Sending love x

Baking do you get that infant mortality has decreased? Do you get that many, many babies did not survive? What an ignorant post.

Peach I imagine most here would have nothing but sympathy for you; there’s a world of difference between “I had very serious PND and HCP advice to put my newborn in another room” and “I put mine in another room” without any other context whatsoever.

In your situation - no judgement. Hope things are better for you now.

Minus extenuating circumstances and context - all the judgement.

Why don't we give dad's more credit?!

Yes, sure, nowadays fathers are much more helpful and involved.

However, my specific example re nature and biology is that a baby belongs next to its mother for feeding and nurturing purposes. Since a father cannot breastfeed, I didn’t mention him. HTH.

Shock horror, my baby is formula fed too 🙄

I don’t think anyone has brought that up OP.

I really haven’t ever found anti-formula judgement on MN but maybe I’m just more likely to skip past that nonsense.

The incessant nightly snuffling of our twins kept my husband and I awake for months.

Four years on he’s still the lightest sleeper imaginable because the first six months trained his brain into hyper-alertness.

We eventually got silicone ear plugs and did shifts. DTDs are still noisy sleepers; not sure how they don’t wake each other up.

No one ever told me how noisy a newborn actually is so it was a total shock to find this cute squishy bundle would spend the whole night snorting, hiccuping, grunting, burping, farting, sighing, creaking and squeaking. Earplugs are your only hope.

I shipped mine out next door but in hindsight I'd use earplugs as better from a SIDS risk point of view.

I used to end up with having milk let down due to the snuffling and being awake most of the night whilst baby only woke once in 10 hours

@Waffles80 But the problem is not all women are aware that they have PND. And even if they are, they wouldn't necessarily be in a place where they could forgive themselves when reading your (and other PPs) posts. If I'd read this three months ago I would have been an absolute wreck. I would have beaten myself up for not loving my daughter enough, for being so selfish, for not being a natural mum, for being negligent, for "risking my baby's life" for not being a responsive parent, for "not giving a shit" etc etc. All things mums like me have been called on this thread.

And sure, maybe some of those mums really did think "I know safe sleep guidelines are to keep the baby in the room for 6 months but I don't want to and I don't really give a shit about SIDS" but I suspect for most it was a lot more complex than that, and a lot of people struggled with the guilt like I did. I reckon many could even be making light of it here because they don't want another mum to feel the same way.

Ultimately we just don't know what kind of struggles people are facing, knowingly or unknowingly.

The only thing I've learnt in my parenting journey for sure is that it's fucking hard and nobody gets it completely right. I just think extending a bit of empathy and remembering that you never know what battles people are fighting is a good idea when talking to (often vulnerable) new mums. I totally understand the urge to remind people of the safe sleep guidelines but there are ways to do it without making other mothers feel awful.

Mine sounded like a warthog crossed with a velociraptor. Until 4 months when he gave up sleeping almost entirely but that's a different matter.

I can’t remember what we did with Dc1. But DC
2 was the noisiest baby on the planet (turned out she had a floppy epiglottis). We put her basket in the bath, as there was no way anyone was going to get any sleep otherwise ( and was already a bit desperate for sleep, as only a tiny age gap between mine).

One thing I'm unsure of is my dds used to sleep in our room at night when babies, but often went to bed at 7 in their little Moses basket in another room whilst we enjoyed an evening watching TV or chilling out. Surely the baby should be with you then, at all times, when asleep for naps, early evening? Is the idea to never let them sleep without your presence- and if not, why not?

The guidance wasn't around when mine were little and so we didn't think of this at all.

My 2nd was noisy but you soon get used to it and tiredness takes over! Agree with all the other posters mentioning the SIDS guidance, best to be safe. The advice is there for a reason.
Peach - sorry to read you were ill when you had your baby. From reading the thread none of the comments appear to be judgey, your situation was different.

Ours were both in the nursery quickly - I couldn't believe the amount of noise they make- grunting, snuffles, squeaks. To be fair they are both good sleepers.

My first went into her own room on the first night she was home as did all the others. My fourth wasnt even on the same floor as us. Went on to have more - all as right as rain. This was when we were told to put baby on front to sleep not back like today. Now my babies have babies and its all very different. Same room would be hideous.

It’s not judgemental to say you’re risking your newborn’s life if they are in a different room, it’s fact. It’s been proven that room sharing is the biggest factor in reducing SIDS. Along with how to put baby into a cot/safe co-sleeping.

If you feel like shit about something you’ve done in regards to parenting it’s probably because you know it wasn’t the best thing. But that’s ok, own it. Every parent has done stuff they’re not proud of, and hopefully our children are none the worse for it.

But yes, I will judge a parent of a newborn who places their own need for sleep above their baby’s safety. Sorry, but I do.

Well, whatever makes you feel good about yourself @TeddyIsaHe, but maybe just remember that for many mums it's not always as simple as "placing their own need for sleep above the safety of their baby".