To ask how long your baby should sleep with you?

[penelopepig]

Posting here for traffic really, bit confused.

I'm getting so much conflicting advice on how long a newborn should sleep in your room for and wondered what everyone's thoughts are and why?

I seem to be getting 6 months as a guideline from a lot of people but if you have a partner getting ready in the mornings etc in the same room- how in the hell are you supposed to establish any semblance of a routine?

*take, not make

About a year or until done with night feeds. CBA schlepping around at night.

Depends entirely on what suits you and your baby. There is no right or wrong.

I was adamant pre-baby that we'd co-sleep. However she was a fidget. Constant arm in face type thing all night. And she snorted and grumped and sounded like a little pig snuffling, kept us awake. So we relegated her to a pram in the hallway which we pushed to the far end when even a closed door kept us awake, while we decorated a room to be a nursery/bedroom. Always slept 8 hours a night from 6 weeks, and even now never wakes in the night even when the dog kicks off or the police visit (reported intruder next door).

DD was in with us until about 13 months when I moved her onto her own single bed and room. I was in there with her most of the night breastfeeding until we stopped at 21 months. Much easier to have DC in with you if BF.

Get your partner to take his stuff out of the bedroom the night before so he gets ready outside of the room? These things are easily circumnavigated, it’s a small inconvenience to help prevent SIDS.

My 21mo is still in with me. DH sleeps in the spare room. We all get more sleep that way.

All these comments are really helpful thank you everyone :)

Info on the Lullaby trust is really helpful, I'd kind of always been told it was just a parenting style choice, not a safety thing. Good to have the facts :)

I wasn't clear from your OP - do you have a newborn, or are you pregnant? If you've had the baby then you should have been given information on safe sleeping - including baby sleeping in your room - and it's bad on the part of your midwives and health visitor that you haven't.

@LisaSimpsonsbff I'm currently pregnant 27wks.
It hasn't been mentioned yet but I guess that doesn't come til later. I'm probably just over preparing and overthinking as we've just started decorating the nursery.

NHS and lullaby trust say six months in the same room, obviously if you want to do longer that's your choice. DH was hoovering Saturday while DS (7 weeks) was napping and did to me he'd wait to do issues and the bedroom until he was awake, I was in the bedroom putting laundry away and said just to crack on, DS didn't even murmur, I think it's unlikely your DH getting up for work would wake your DC.

I wouldn't establish a need for silence and darkness to sleep, you're making a rod for your own back!

*and said to me he'd wait to do upstairs
Ugh stupid phone

We did 2 years, give or take a couple of months, for each of them. Dh gets up at 4:30. They just slept through it like I did.

Seven and a half years and still going strong..oh, how long SHOULD they stay in the same room for? Er, well we co-slept with DD1 until she was two then popped her in her own bed as her sister was on the way. We co-slept with DD2 until she was two when DH and I split. Five and a half years later she’s still sleeping in my room (bed).

I think whatever works for you!

I co slept and it was a good 2 years or so before they were happy to start the night in their own bed. All of them were around 4 when they took to staying in their own bed the whole night. And we've always had one or the other of us getting up early for work, but as it was always the norm it was never an issue, if that makes sense.

The 6 months minimum advice is not plucked from the air and is for genuine safety reasons, so I'm glad you know about that now :) I got quite comprehensive information on safe sleeping late on in my pregnancies- well, definitely with ds2 and ds3, can't remember with ds1 as that was some time ago now!

The 6 months is for the safety of the baby to protect against SIDS. Ds1 was 6 months, ds2 was 17 months when they went in their own rooms. Dh would get his clothes out the night before and would get changed in the bathroom.

I kept DS with me until he was about 7 months, partially because of the guidelines, and partially because I was getting up so often it made sense to have him closer by so I had less ground to cross when surfacing from my bed half asleep

In retrospect, I think having him in with us around month 5/6 was probably preventing him from sleeping better!

@JasperKarat

We didn't establish anything, she just needs dark and silence to sleep. Took us about nine weeks of hell when she was a newborn to figure that out!

Stick to 6 month guidelines and then whatever works for you. You won't know how you feel about it until.you get there. I assumed she'd be in her own cot/room etc asap and was a bit judgemental of extended bedshared but didn't account for the fact that infant sleep can be volatile and did not improve steadily over time over the first year and also breastfeeding was the easiest way to get her back to sleep. I also coslept so I didn't have to 'put her down' which always woke her up. Basically path of least resistance. She got her own bed at 2 and starts night off there but usually comes in to us at some point in the night. You will have your own individual parenting experience and no way of knowing at 27 weeks pg what that will be.

@penelopepig it does seem weird to decorate a room they won't sleep in until six months, but I was so glad we did! We'd never have gotten it done at all if we'd waited for the baby to be born. Besides, I still used the room for changing, bathing, feeding and dressing her in the interim, so don't feel like it's a waste of time doing it this early.

6 months minimum. Your partner gets stuff ready the night before and gets dressed in hallway or wherever. I did that pre-baby because I had to get up 2 hours before my husband, so put all my stuff in the living room.

@ememem84

"Hv suggested I slept on the floor in ds’ room for the next 3 months."

Bless her heart. 😂😂😂

Thing is babies don't need by any set of rules to be asleep for their first chunk of the night at 7/8 which a lot of people seem to do. I'd far rather mine slept 11-9 when I do until he's a bit older and has more of a routine.

@ReaganSomerset oh no, I feel for you!
Friend of mine insisted on dark and silence for her DC for sleep, right from the beginning, child is now five and can only sleep in perfect conditions. Her poor neighbours sneeze at the wrong time and get a complaint

My first ds was 14 weeks when we moved him in to his own room. I found my dh was waking him through the night with frequent toilet trips and snoring. Once we put him in his own room he was sleeping 12-13 hours straight. Currently have dd in our room as she’s only 10 weeks, she already is sleeping 10-12 hours but only with me there plugging the dummy in every few hours so I think she will be staying for a bit longer than her brother did.
Just to add we had a angelcare motion pad and video monitor for ds.

@JasperKarat

Yeah, it was rough. We had been told by well-meaning hcps to let her have daytime naps in a light, moderately noisy room. Result was just screaming. I would meet people in tearooms or the park and she would just be screaming for hours on end while the other babies slept in their prams! She'd drop off for ten or twenty minutes, absolutely exhausted, then wake up and the whole cycle would begin again. We took her to the doctors, suspected allergy, reflux, you name it. DH eventually was the one that cottoned on that if you covered her head with a blanket she'd fall asleep straight away. At first we thought it was a magic blanket! Started putting her down in darkness and she was a different child. Slept really well, much happier in the day. When she was younger any noise at all would wake her right up though. She's getting better at sleeping through noise now, but is still easily disturbed.

Six months. There's no ambiguity in the guidance, it's made very clear why this should happen. People choose to ignore it of course and that's their choice but let's not pretend that's not exactly what people are doing when they move babies early.

'We all sleep better' is usually the reason trotted out. Well yes probably, but you are supposed to disturb each other through the night. That's what keeps babies safe.

It's such a short period of time, why take the risk though? You sign up for crap sleep in the early months when you become a parent IMO. Just deal with it. I say that as a mother of one child who was a terrible sleeper to begin with so I know how tough it is. Luckily, the second one sleeps better!

Dd1 was in with us until 9 months as she was still having night feeds until then. Dd2 is still in with us as she's under 6m and will be until at least 6m. After 6m I'll move her when she's sleeping through with no night feeds (because I really can't be bothered to leave my bedroom to do night feeds!).