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AIBU?

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Original poster

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

150 replies

poppymatilda · 10/12/2018 20:53

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!

OP posts:
Alwaysbekind2014 · 11/12/2018 05:06

I’m currently in bed with a 5 year old ... her foot in rib and her sniffly nose in my ear .. bought her a really cool bed for her own room which we are now both sleeping in 😂
Saying that I never got to take her until she was 2 and was surrounding by other noises other than sniffles etc so wouldn’t have a clue but I really couldn’t be away from them that young if I had the choice

Jimdandy · 11/12/2018 05:28

My children were intgeir own rooms by 3 weeks. Neither of us were sleeping.

MerryGinmas · 11/12/2018 05:52

Our eldest was and is a ridiculously noisy sleeper. She went into her own room at 10 weeks because I couldn't bear sleeping 'next to a pig' any longer. She was in a baby hammock that was attached to the slats in the roof so we couldn't even move it further away Grin

Surfskatefamily · 11/12/2018 06:07

I played white noise. Worked a treat. Baby is in my bed as it works for us. Stopped the white noise as hes more settled

Poodles1980 · 11/12/2018 06:16

Have just put a noisy newborn in with his brother because the Rummaging and snuffling all night was driving us mad. We have a good baby monitor and it’s working out much better for everyone. His brother is a really sound sleeper so he doesn’t wake up.

motortroll · 11/12/2018 06:18

My gift baby was the same. She still is at 12 years old! (Turns out she has horrific glue ear and struggles with nose breathing)

Shocking to admit but she was in the nursery by 4 weeks....nothing worse than s sleeping baby and wide awake parents!!

clairedelalune · 11/12/2018 06:20

I'm just going to add that I don't think as a parent you ever sleep properly again. Not necessarily through their noise/sleeping habits, just that you as a parent don't sleep as you are always semi alert.....

Kokeshi123 · 11/12/2018 06:20

White noise or a fan. Works for you, works for the baby.

Ear plugs should not be worn daily if possible as they can lead to ear wax buildup issues.

Kokeshi123 · 11/12/2018 06:24

Safe sleep advice is that your baby should be in with you for six months for a very good reason. Please see Lullaby Trust resources for clear explanations of why this is. You’ll also read there that breathing monitors are inaccurate. Proximity to a parent helps a newborn regulate their breathing.

Oh, get over yourself. As I said on another thread, this kind of thing needs to be weighed against the parents' need for sleep at night. There is no point in following every safe-sleeping advice rule to the letter if it results in parents becoming so exhausted that they crash cars, leave cookers on or fall asleep on the couch with the baby on their chest.

Kokeshi123 · 11/12/2018 06:30

And YY to BertieBotts' post above. Jesus, is it any wonder mothers get PND? No risk can be completely eliminated. Attempts to do so often just end up increasing other risks instead.

rwalker · 11/12/2018 06:32

OMG we must be worlds worst parents oldest one we had in with us for 2 days and youngest never made it into our room he went straight into his own room from coming home .Few times they were ill one of use slept in there room on the floor with them.

TeddyIsaHe · 11/12/2018 06:39

It’s hard to understand why people are so blasé about this! It seems posters are taking some kind of pride in how quickly they booted their newborn out of their bedrooms.

It only takes a second that you don’t hear your baby and it’s too late. Everyone is of the “it won’t happen to me” mentality, but what if it does? How would you ever live with yourself? I know I couldn’t. Knowing I did everything in my power to reduce the risk to dd meant that if god forbid the worst happened I would be able to live with myself.

Hideous attitudes on here.

Roobub · 11/12/2018 06:58

@TeddyIsaHe I have to say I agree with you. A lot of people in this thread just sound like they basically didn't want the interruptions. Well, if you value your own sleep so highly what we're you expecting to happen when you had babies?

@Kokeshi123 are you really saying "get over yourself" to someone who just quoted evidence based government advice to reduce SIDS? That's so ridiculous. It seems like you just don't want to hear it, but it's reality.

Gumbo · 11/12/2018 07:15

Mine's a lot older than yours (13) but this brings back vivid memories... nobody mentioned to us how noisy babies are when they sleep and it was a real shock! We lasted 2 weeks with almost no sleep at all as we lay listening to the snorting and grunting before moving him around the corner to the dressing room , and at 5 weeks he went into his own room which happened to be on a different floor to our room and on the opposite side of the house . All 3 of us slept loads better after that... we had a great video monitor.

Original poster
poppymatilda · 11/12/2018 07:20

Wow, my light hearted "anyone else sleeping next to the noisest creature in the world, am I ever going to get a wink of sleep again" post got nasty pretty fast!

To clarify, I never said I was going to move my 6 week old baby to her own room. I said I'm looking forward to her being 6 months old so I can move her! Sigh, I guess this is a salutary reminder of why I didn't go to NCT and avoid mum's groups. A one way ticket to feeling inadequate and miserable.

I do think modern parents often need to get some perspective. DH and I have followed the SIDS guidelines (back to sleep, no blankets, cool room, in with us, dummy, no smoking etc) but equally sometimes I think that as a new mum I spend so much of my time worrying that I don't enjoy having her and that's a shame. DH had to remind me the other day just how rare SIDS is, particularly when you've followed the guidelines.

Interestingly one of my ongoing worries is about smoking. My FIL is the only person we know who smokes. But he's a heavy smoker and smokes those horrible little cigar things rather than cigarettes. He doesn't smoke in my house (I've never allowed anyone to, I think it's disgusting) but he'll take DD out in the pram and smoke or smoke in my garden and then come in absolutely stinking - it's like a cloud comes in with him. After his first visit when she was a week old I didn't sleep a wink for 2 nights because I kept watching DD to make sure she was ok. After that, we asked him not to smoke at all on days he visits her. He wasn't v pleased and it caused a bit of trouble in the family. The vast majority of my friends and family, including DH to be honest, thought I was taking it too far and as long as he wasn't smoking in my house it would be ok. When I googled that view was echoed online. I have wondered a lot whether I'm being neurotic and have caused trouble in the family for no reason.

Presumably the people on here saying moving a baby to their own room early is negligent agree with me on the smoking issue too?

OP posts:
widgetbeana · 11/12/2018 07:20

Mine were terribly noisy, so they went into their own rooms at 3 months each. The SIDS risk reduces after 3 months and it was affecting the rest of our family really badly having such little sleep. We put dd1 in her own room after I nearly fell down the stairs with her and my DH nearly had a car crash. We were just too tired. We got a breathing monitor and they were in the room right next door.

Very best thing we did for all of us.

Bobfossil4 · 11/12/2018 07:40

What do people do in the evenings up to six months? Do you have babies sleeping in the living room with you and then take them up when you do?

Original poster
poppymatilda · 11/12/2018 07:51

At the moment we have her downstairs with us in her basket in the evenings. Not sure what we're going to do when she outgrows her moses basket!

OP posts:
Lazypuppy · 11/12/2018 08:02

Bobfossil4

What do people do in the evenings up to six months? Do you have babies sleeping in the living room with you and then take them up when you do?

We did for the first 5/6 weeks or so, then she was struggling to sleep with the noise so we atarted outting her upstairs in her cot in our room at about 7 and we'd go up at 9. Then she started to get disturbed by us coming to bed which is why we then moved her to her own room a couple of weeks later.

SauvingnonBlanketyBlanc · 11/12/2018 08:06

We moved our noisy ds into his own room at 3 months for this reason although I think the guidelines are much older than that,we didn't know at the time.

Bringbackbertha · 11/12/2018 08:33

Yes for the first few months baby would be downstairs with us then about 3 months we would put her in cot with the monitor on and follow up about an hour later.....

Baby was ebf so made it easier to be downstairs together in the earlier days with cluster feeding.

There is no right or wrong with how you do this just the safe way and as long as baby is safe.

I found it safer to have baby by me until I went to bed for the first few months until they were better developed and slept in the treasure cot next to me until 6 months. That is what i found comfortable and made me feel less anxious.. I still got sleep (probably more than now at 16 months) and baby was safe....

Honestly people need to stop judging and comparing what they do with each other. I didn't go to nct for that reason can't be dealing with competing to be the very best mummy in the universe..... there are no prizes or medals for it !

Kokeshi123 · 11/12/2018 08:58

@Kokeshi123 are you really saying "get over yourself" to someone who just quoted evidence based government advice to reduce SIDS? That's so ridiculous. It seems like you just don't want to hear it, but it's reality.

As I pointed out in my post, following all safe sleeping guidelines to the letter can result in some parents becoming so sleep deprived that they are unable to look after their babies in a safe or functional manner, day or night. I don't think bed sharing is optimal either, but I'd rather see someone doing the safest possible bed sharing, than see them falling asleep on a couch with the baby or losing concentration behind the wheel of a car.

dinosaurglitterrepublic · 11/12/2018 09:17

Presumably the people on here saying moving a baby to their own room early is negligent agree with me on the smoking issue too?

I was thinking about this myself as this discussion reminded me of a thread not that long ago about concerns re: third hand smoke. Many posters felt very strongly that even following the smoking guidelines (changing clothes and washing hands etc) couldn’t possibly sufficiently minimize the risk of third hand smoke to the baby. Seems a direct contrast to the attitudes here where many think moving the baby to its own room is fine and within acceptable risk parameters.

I also obsessed about SIDS risks, I think most new parents do. It’s all so dramatic, so X or your baby will die. I generally followed most guidelines to the letter as my ability to read them and make my own sensible risk assessment was zero as my brain turned to mush. Although I think providing you take the time to read the research and understand the issues, we are all capable of making our own decisions based on our circumstances.

Iknowthatguy · 11/12/2018 09:19

It was like trying to sleep next to a train when my ds was newborn. So noisy!

crispysausagerolls · 11/12/2018 09:29

What do people do in the evenings up to six months? Do you have babies sleeping in the living room with you and then take them up when you do?

DS still bloody sleeps ON me in the living room until I go to bed because he likes to pop on and off the breast and won’t sleep without me 🤦🏻‍♀️

I’ll miss it when he eventually sleeps alone though

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