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?

mutantdisco

I completely agree with you!!!!

Some people get verh judgemental about DS (6 months) sleeping in my arms, and it makes me angry - surely that’s where he belongs?!? He’s a baby for goodness sake. It actually annoys me, it’s a very modern and selfish idea as you say; to dump your baby in on their own so you can have “me time”. The idea of doing it under 6 months is actually very cruel IMO.

MRex

Thank you - we have bed guards but not yet at the stage of being used to stand up on; sounds terrifying 😂🙈

Argh, again, can we not describe our own parenting choices without slagging off other people's? If you find your natural instinct is to cosleep fab - but maybe other people have different instincts (I find cosleeping terrifying) rather than just denying their instincts because they don't love their baby as much as you? Neither cosleeping nor not cosleeping is weird - they're just different parenting choices.

findingthingstough

Didn’t see you speaking up with that attitude when lipstick was describing people who cosleep as “mummy martyrs”

Sorry though, I only get annoyed because IRL i get criticised a lot for cosleeping etc

If you read the thread I said quite early on that we shouldn't attack each other, and then after lipstick's (ludicrous) comments said that this showed why! I don't really get why people do this on both sides - I've made my own choices with DS, he is clearly happy and we all get an ok amount of sleep (though a bit more would be great) so I don't really care what other people do. If you don't like people attacking cosleeping (which is very reasonable - they shouldn't attack a perfectly normal parenting choice that works really well for some people) then telling them they're deficient mothers for not doing it is hardly going to bring them round, is it? And vice versa!

I don't like the them vs. us mentality you always seem to get with decisions on babies. All babies are different

@motheroftinydragons

But the population risk is a mixture of breastfed and formula fed babies. So if breastfeeding lowers it to four, you could argue that bottle feeding raises it to five, surely?

@crispysausagerolls

Tell me about it! I had a random woman fitting my glasses at specsavers tell me that by taking DD into my bed when she's in a clingy mood I'm 'making a rod for [my] own back.' Sorry, random specsavers woman, but who the fudge asked you??

deep breath

Rant over.

Does anyone know what the theory is behind breastfeeding being safer than formula feeding when it comes to SIDS? Just curious.

@nothisispatrick

No one knows. I found the following for you:

Case-control studies suggest that formula feeding is associated with a 1.6-(95% CI, 1.2–2.3)1 to 2.1-fold (95% CI, 1.7–2.7)35 increased odds of SIDS compared with breastfeeding. These associations persisted after adjustment for sleeping position, maternal smoking, and socioeconomic status. In reviewing the evidence, the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome concluded that factors associated with breastfeeding, but not breastfeeding per se , were associated with a lower incidence of SIDS.

Now, I don't know what factors associated with breastfeeding means, as I haven't read the full article. Apparently it doesn't refer to socioeconomic status, sleeping position or maternal smoking. Might be in the article somewhere though, link below:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2812877/

It's thought to be because breastfed babies wake more frequently.

That's why they don't make a song and dance about why the SIDS guidelines are thought to work - because they're basically all ways to ensure that babies don't sleep too deeply (less comfortable sleeping position, cool temperature, background noise) - or, as most people see it, that they don't sleep 'well'. It's hard work to convince parents to deliberately not do the things that encourage babies to sleep long stretches if you tell them that's what you're doing!

The exception is smoking in pregnancy and around the baby, which is thought to give them an inherently greater vulnerability (and is the single biggest risk factor for SIDS - 90% of SIDS babies have mothers who smoked in pregnancy; that's partially because we've reduced other risk factors and the total number of babies dying though, it was 60% before 'Back to Sleep')

Whoops, sorry, that's a review article. You'd need to go to reference 36 on the article I linked to and read that for the primary research.

Thank you, that’s interesting. I will do more reading. I find the lullaby trust just a list of dos and donuts with very little WHY. What about the parents drinking when room sharing? That is also advised against. Any idea why?

Because they might roll over and smother baby if co-sleeping. Or if you're drunk you might not be coherent and sensible enough to return the baby to their cot. 'Go on, just leave her in with us, she'll be fine...', etc.

Just followed that and it's interesting (and a bit disappointing for those of us who breastfed):

Physiologic sleep studies of infants demonstrate that breastfed infants are more easily arousable than their formula-fed counterparts during sleep,54,88 which may explain a possible protective effect against SIDS. However, epidemiologic studies have not been consistent in demonstrating such a protective effect.16,18,31,49,89–98 Although some studies show a protective effect of breastfeeding on SIDS,18,98,99 others do not.31,49,91,96,97,100,101 In addition, a recent article has demonstrated that although breastfeeding is associated with decreased postneonatal deaths overall, it is not associated with a reduced risk of SIDS.102 Many of the case-control studies demonstrate a protective effect of breastfeeding against SIDS in univariate analysis but not when confounding factors are taken into account.31,49,91,96,97 These results suggest that factors associated with breastfeeding, rather than breastfeeding itself, are protective. One of these possible factors is nonsmoking, which is associated with a decreased incidence of SIDS and with both increased initiation and duration of breastfeeding.103–107 Although breastfeeding is beneficial and should be promoted for many reasons, the task force believes that the evidence is insufficient to recommend breastfeeding as a strategy to reduce SIDS.

I think it's drinking and bed sharing that is advised against, not room sharing? In which case it's to lower the risk of smothering. Smoking is a reason not to room share though, because it reduces the time in the day that the baby is exposed to your secondhand smoke.

@nothisispatrick

The general idea I've formed is that you sleep more deeply when you've been drinking and are less likely to wake if there's an issue. It's a wooly idea, but I've read in a few places that breastfeeding and co-sleeping means you wake when baby does. Breastfeeding itself changes the mother's sleep pattern/type so that sleep in shorter stints is more restorative, but she also wakes more easily as a result. Hence co-sleeping being more dangerous if you formula feed. I've not looked into any primary research on that though, so I'm not sure how well it bears out in the data. I've just read it a few times in a few places.

Aquilla

I thought so. But I wondered if it was something else as the advice doesn’t specify heavy drinking or being drunk. I wondering if it was to do with alcohol fumes or something, like with smoking.

findingthingstough18 is right.

Whoops, sorry, that's a review article. You'd need to go to reference 36 on the article I linked to and read that for the primary research.

The reference is also to a secondary source, because it's the American Pediatrics Association statement on SIDS. It does give the reasoning behind the recommendations, though - as above.

@Findingthingstough18

Whoops again. I didn't actually follow the link myself, so I presumed it would be primary research, erroneously as it turns out! My apologies.

It is a very useful source - but it shows again that there isn't as much consensus on these matters as people think there is. The American guidelines are not as firm on breastfeeding, much firmer on not cosleeping, and much more pro using a dummy than ours are, despite being based on the same available pool of evidence.

We slept together while baby was still in Moses basket so I guess until age 4/5 months. When that was outgrown I moved into own room BUT all doors were wide open at night. And then once they could start walking they decided to rejoin me in the bedroom and snuck in each night to sleep with me that went on for a good few years. Over 10 and still counting to be more specific.....

Breastfeeding itself changes the mother's sleep pattern/type so that sleep in shorter stints is more restorative, but she also wakes more easily as a result. Hence co-sleeping being more dangerous if you formula feed. I've not looked into any primary research on that though, so I'm not sure how well it bears out in the data.

I've read this too - but never found it true for me (I didn't wake up easily while exclusively breastfeeding, was absolutely exhausted by the frequent wakings and - most importantly - didn't stay in one position while cosleeping as I'd been told I instinctively would). I do suffer from sleep problems in general (I've had frequent and debilitating bouts of insomnia since my teens, and find getting to sleep hard even when not having an insomnia issue, but then seem to enter a very deep sleep) and wonder if I fall into a category of women it doesn't 'work' for. What that then makes me wonder - and I don't think there's an answer to this - is whether it then follows that it's more dangerous for me to cosleep than other breastfeeding mothers?

Thanks for the info. We follow all the advice except for dd is formula fed (not really through choice, bf didn’t go to plan). I find the studies and statistics around SIDS really interesting, I am not very good with being told what to do unless I know why I need to do it that way. It seems there is a lot of unknown still.

I read an article a few months back which basically said middle class mothers have nothing to worry about, it was published in the DM though

I've kept all mine in with me for a minimum of a year. 2 years for two of them. It's like tummy sleeping or using cot bumpers, your choice, but against SIDS guidelines. For the sake of risk, I would just say get dressed in the bathroom. If you do want to move them, maybe get a Snooza/Angel care/breathing alarm.

My health visitor told me the guidelines should be 12 months and they are soon to be changed.