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?

We had DD in with us until 7 months. We took her to bed between 7-8 from about 8 weeks, but one or both of us sat in the room with a book or watching something on phones until bedtime. Or sometimes I just went to bed early to get some extra sleep.

Then from 7 months in her own room as she was waking some many times a night I had to try something. She slept through from the first night then. I think we were keeping her awake by moving about/snoring but I'm glad we kept her in with us. My cousins baby died from SIDS and I didn't want to take any chances.

There are reasons for safe sleeping guidelines. 6 months is fuck all to sacrifice.
DD is 9 months and im looking to move her into her own room in a few weeks as she is sleeping fine, barring a couple of night wakings, and is able to roll around fully in her sleep till she is comfortable.
DH wakes at 4:30am and gets dressed in the spare room. From about 4 weeks old we have stuck to a routine more so to keep us sane, so bed by 7:30pm, even if it took till midnight for her to sleep. Shw sleeps within 10-20 minutes now. Have a routine for your own sanity and baby will slowly follow and recognise the pattern.

I have friends who moved their babies into their own room at less than a month old so they could 'sleep better' but that just translates as 'my tiny baby is an inconvenience to me during the night'.

Id follow the guidelines.

Whatever works for you. We moved dd in at 3 months as we disturbed her and she was sleeping through. DS I moved at 4 months when I had to unswaddle, take him out of his nest and the 4 month sleep regression hit so figured i’d change it all at the same time. I do have a bed in his room so slept in with him for a week or 2 (out of pure laziness) to settle him.

The SIDS guidelines are pretty strongly evidence based and so that's what we follow. Have a 3 month old and she is in with us at night in a crib and though she might outgrow it would plan to use a travel cot with a good mattress in it until she's 6 months. She naps in her big cot during the day and I'll stay in the room e.g. folding her clothes or just reading my book but it doesn't fit in our bedroom.

Definitely try to encourage napping in various places. Ours will also nap down stairs in the pram bassinet or when we're out and about. Noise doesn't bother her. It's nice as it means although she's asleep from about 9pm, we can still be down watching telly / eating together and just take her upstairs when she wakes for her first feed of the night at around midnight.

I do leave her for very short periods when she's asleep, e.g. to use the loo or answer the door, but on the whole she's never left by herself

Dd is 4 months and will probably be in with us until 7 or 8 months for both practical reasons, such as us moving house in the next few months so don’t want to decorate her nursery here, and I think I’d be too anxious to have her in another room for a long while yet.

You shouldn’t be getting conflicting advice on this, the guidelines are pretty consistent across Lullaby trust, NHS, NCT etc. Anyone giving different advice I would just assume they don’t know what they’re talking about.

The adults exhale is what triggers the baby to keep breathing btw

Do you have any articles or study for this? I’ve done a lot of googling on SIDS (very anxious about it) and have been led to believe the breathing thing is just a theory not a fact.

I have friends who moved their babies into their own room at less than a month old so they could 'sleep better' but that just translates as 'my tiny baby is an inconvenience to me during the night'.

Come on, there's no need for this, is there? You've given OP the correct information about the guidelines and made it clear that you yourself would always abide by them - totally fair. There's no need to attack anyone doing it differently.

Do you have any articles or study for this? I’ve done a lot of googling on SIDS (very anxious about it) and have been led to believe the breathing thing is just a theory not a fact.

Yes, it is just a theory, though for some reason every MN thread on this is full of people claiming it as absolute fact. No one actually knows that there's a causal link between room sharing and SIDS at all - it may be simply correlation BUT since no one knows, and the link is strong, it is certainly worth erring on the side of caution with it. But it isn't the absolute fact people claim.

People are also incredibly judgemental about people following this recommendation, but not others, e.g. 6 months exclusive breastfeeding, which also lowers the risk of SIDS.

@Findingthingstough18 It's ok to feel and say that you don't agree with how other people do things though. They can do what they like of course but no one has to pretend that they think it's ok. I don't.

I wasn't the poster quoted btw.

Guidelines where I live is 1 year - totally unrealistic for my babies who would wake at the drop of a pin. I moved them into their own rooms at 3 months, either me or DH slept in their rooms with them for the first few weeks but they were on their own from 4 months. I’d do the same again if I had another. Was glad to have my space back!

I know many people who followed the SIDS guidelines as much as physically possible (same room sleeping, breastfeeding, dummy, back to sleep, clear cot etc etc). I was hugely anxious about SIDS so did it all apart from dummy as neither children wanted them. I also know many people who pretty much ignored the whole thing, posting pictures on FB of tiny babies in their cot under huge blankets, cots full of toys, bumpers etc etc.

My kids all slept in their own rooms from birth,straight after coming home
I didn’t want to have to do a transition to own room. Own room immediately
Baby alarms and camera sensor in room to monitor and keep door open
Baby doesn’t need to sleep in same room as parents,it’s not mandatory

12 months here but I breastfed and did a lot of co-sleeping. Worked really well for me. I didn’t worry about routine when they were babies, only really started once they turned one and transitioned into their own rooms.

It’s not mandatory but most people would agree it’s ill advised to completely disregard advice which has been well researched.

I see buns has piled in to tut about parents who’re apparently inconvenienced by their babies
Next it’ll be why have em if you can’t be bothered sleeping in same room yada yada
Going back to work FT I wanted to establish a routine,and yes get some space.im not velcroed to my babies I needed a bit of space,a little me time.im not a mummy martyr I don’t need them stick to me.and that worked out best as they have their own own rooms

Someone’s got a bee in their bonnet!

Yes buns was quite worked up

What I find absolutely EXTRAORDINARY in these discussions is that everyone trots out the theory about adult breathing influencing baby breathing as fact. It is a hypothesis. It is not a fact.
However there is very strong evidence for a fan in the baby’s room preventing SIDS. But no one mentions it. I don’t know why. It’s bizarre

After six months.

Then me and her dad split up not long after that as in like a couple of weeks later, he was the spare room so she was back in with me but in the bed not the cot.

He'd never got up with her once anyway since she was born so it made sense for her and me to cosleep.

She's five now and in with me now about 50/75%of the time.

Wouldn't change it. Love co sleeping with her.
It suits us.

Second child got moved to her own room at 9 weeks, with a breathing monitor, we'd be in there in seconds if she stopped breathing. She never did, though. Now 6 months old, so everyone who thinks a statistical correlation is a religious truth can now breathe easy.

Why would putting your tiny babies in the same room as you, for their safety, for 6 months make you a 'mummy martyr'?LipstickHandbagCoffee

My babies were all tiny,preeclampsia every time.all had a LBW
But their safety and well being has never been compromised.ever
And no they weren’t in our room.because we wanted to establish a routine and settle them to their own rooms
Mummy martyrs abound on mn.they don’t want visitors,wear their babies,and give things up for precious moments

@lipstickhandbagcoffee it’s completely your choice when to put a baby in their own room. But the advice is 6 months for a reason. It isn’t to make life harder for parents. Researchers don’t know why babies being in with parents have reduced SIDS but they do and this HAS been proven by research studies. Following well researched advice doesn’t make people a ‘mummy matyr’ and comments like yours don’t help.

I’m definitely no martyr. But if research shows having the baby in your room reduces the chance of SIDS then that’s what I’ll do. It wasn’t a hardship, easier to do night feeds with them next to me and there was no ‘transition’, I just moved them to their own room at around 6 months and it was fine. Oh and we had visitors from the minute we got home and used a pram 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I do understand the research and I made an informed choice,putting in checks and balances
There is a prevailing culture enacted upon women how to be good mum and it usually involves giving things up eg work,and becoming subsumed by motherhood.to deviate from that is to be subject to why have kids if you don’t want to be with them
I don’t apologise for my views,you certainly don’t have to agree but no it’s not your call to deem my opinion unhelpful
None of us have to be supermum or a martyr mum we only have to be good enough

But how is calling those who choose to follow the guidelines ‘martyrs’ helpful? I am nothing like the person you describe. I just read the research and made an informed choice, like you did. It’s just that the choice I made was different to yours.