To be thinking of putting my 4 week old upstairs to bed?

[m4rdybum]

Asking here because I'd like a wider range
of views, other than the group of Mumsnet posters who only go by exact guidelines and have no room for manoeuvre. Also because I'm open to being called unreasonable if it means I'm more successful in raising my DD.

DD is 3 weeks old. DH goes back to work just after she turns 4 weeks.

We've started toying with the idea of getting her used to being upstairs for "bedtime" (starting when DH goes back to work), which at the minute would be around her 8/9pm bottle. I also totally get that a routine probably won't stick with her for a while - but we're quite lucky that she already has her own predictable feeding routine on the go (for now) - it's more for us at the minute.

Me and DH usually go to bed around 10pm. She currently sleeps in her Moses basket in the living room and gets taken upstairs with us.

I know of the recommendation for babies up to 6 months to sleep in the same room as parents day and night, to help reduce the risk of SIDS and want to stress that of course I'm hyper aware of this and don't want it to happen. DD sleeps next to our bed and will do so until 6 months.

But I'm curious as to who follows this to the rule when it comes to start thinking about a bedtime? There's a lot of kids in my family and most have started going up to bed between 1 & 2 months old.

We, of course, have a baby monitor and also would check on her regularly until we went up to bed. It would just be nice to not have to worry so much about being quiet with her in the room.

Has anyone else done this? Any recommendations? Warnings?

Please don't let some random gobby cow on the internet upset you.

I feel horrendous that if I had just put him down more when we was tiny maybe I wouldn't have such terrible nights now. Maybe this us all of my own doing. So then I try to think about improving the situation and I am told I am a bad parent.

I've messed it all up.

mississippi this is why didn't use MN until I was past the baby and toddler stage.
This would have made me feel like I was a terrible parent. I am glad a few more people are calling other posters out for being nasty and unhelpful.

Mississippi, I’m not sure who you’re upset with?
I you can encourage babies to sleep through but obviously this won’t work with all babies. Lots of people on this thread have stated that it’s cruel to put your baby down to sleep for a couple of hours in a different room or to try to establish any routine. My reply was in response to these posts. Establishing a routine early on can help, it won’t in all cases.
How old is your baby?

You really haven't messed it all up at all. You do the best you can. Nobody's perfect, we've all been imperfect parents and our children have grown up to be healthy decent adults. You'll be fine, so will your baby. 💐

I feel like maybe I haven't given him the chance to self settle. But when I try it doesn't work.

I'm angry at myself.

I just need to get off MN for a bit I think.

I'm well past the early baby days but responses like @PoutySprout's are the reason I would have steered clear of Mumsnet for advice. Making new mothers feel like shit simply because they're asking for help or advice.
Absolutely vile behaviour and practically bullying. Arrogant too.
Spouting this righteous fourth trimester bollocks as though it's fact as well. 
I hope op and others on this thread are ok. I know I felt very vulnerable when my baby was this age and the last thing I needed was some overbearing cow berating me on the internet.
Nice work @PoutySprout 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

You're damned if you do damned if you don't. The 4th trimester theory and attachment parenting more or less worked for me as mine is a clingy baby who doesn't seem to mind a bit of light and noise but if I had a second baby who was the opposite I really wouldn't want to keep them awake and over tired all day if I could just put then down in a safe space with a monitor for naps.

Guidance is all well and good but it needs to start from the reality that in 21st most mums of babies and toddlers are going it alone, partner at work, often no family support and no live in nanny. Otherwise it's confusing and unhelpful.

Thanks @TeddyIsaHe & @AppleKatie

DS id completely fine now. I, on the other hand, will never be ok again, I don’t think.

Hilarious that it's always the same posters cluttering up these threads with their expert opinions and justifying their own actions when they have only been parents for about 5 minutes

Is that directed at me? If so, I have been clear that I have one seven month old and no fucking clue what I'm doing. But I'm not advocating any particular course of action - my only (clearly very futile) hope is that we could all be a bit kinder to each other and a bit more understanding that people make different decisions for different reasons, and that doesn't mean they love their baby any more or less than you.

@Mississippilessly You cannot teach a baby to self soothe, that's a myth so you have not messed up at all. Maybe this will help? For true self soothing the only thing that will help them learn is time and opportunity to practice it. Letting them cry is not the same as giving them an opportunity so don't be hard on yourself.

Lisa, I think if you look upthread it's pretty obvious who it's directed at. And it's not you. On this thread you've been one of the most supportive and constructive posters.

LisaSimpsonsbff wise words indeed. And I'm pretty sure the comment wasnt directed at you!

I can’t believe people can’t see how hypocritical they are being re calling Pouty rude etc whilst insulting her repeatedly!

Who insulted her?

Mississippi - sorry if I spelt that wrong. You haven’t done anything wrong. Cuddling your baby can never be wrong. My first would never self settle. I cuddled her loads. Kept her with me until 6+ months. She settles and sleeps just fine now and has done for years. With DD2, I was very poorly. She had to be left to go to sleep on her own sometimes as I wasn’t physically there as was in hospital. She is a much worse sleeper despite self settling as a tiny baby.

I haven’t read the whole thread because it’s 18 pages long, but OP I would go for it if you feel comfortable with it. For the first two weeks of DS’s life he slept anywhere and through anything so was in a Moses basket with us downstairs in the evening. At about 2-3 weeks old however he started screaming a high pitched (what I now know to be his overtired) cry from about 6pm-10pm and nothing really comforted him. We started bedtime routine (Bath, milk, song, bed) and put him in his Moses basket inside the cot in the room which is now his nursery. He started settling much better in that time, I would check on him every 20-30 mins and then I got him out about 10-11pm for a dream feed and he was next to my bed in his basket for the night until he went to his own room overnight at 5 months (outgrew Moses basket)

I’m a midwife myself and as others have said on the thread was personally happy to take the considered risk of interpretating SIDS guidelines in the light of our needs as a family. The ‘hearing you breathe protects them’ theory is exactly that, a theory and my DS wasn’t affected by any of the other known risk factors (he was placed on his back to sleep, non smoking house, no choking or suffocation hazzards in the cot, no underlying health problems, clean new mattress etc). My marriage and my mental health benefited enormously from the short ‘break’ each evening which I feel made me a much nicer and more competent mother for the 21 hours a day he was by my side.

It’s a personal decision of course and other parents may feel much more comfortable keeping babies with them all the time and that’s fine. But they way I see it there will always be times you take calculated risks with your child - will they choke on that grape? What if you take them out somewhere and there is an accident or terrorist attack? What if they go on a play date and there is someone unsuitable in the house or they see something disturbing? What if they injure themselves badly or even in a long term way cycling or falling off playground equipment?

The answer is that a full and happy childhood involves lots of regular consideration and acceptance of small
and measured risks on behalf of parents. Some parents will make different decisions on different matters but there is no magic formula for a risk-free childhood.

Also I personally think the ‘too young for a bedtime routine’ chat is silly. If you do
something along the lines of bath-milk-song/story-sleep from the beginning then I find children accept it as a natural course of events and we have found it soothed my son when he was unwell/ teething/ jet lagged/ overtired as he knew what to expect at each stage which he enjoyed.

You could of course consider buying and Angel care or other breathing monitor for that bit of the evening and attend first aid training on infant resuscitation if it would make you feel happier about this

Good luck xxxx

Angelcare monitors don’t prevent SIDS and I’m surprised a midwife is giving that kind of dangerous advice tbh. They tell you when the baby has stopped breathing, but which time it’s already too late. And they also give a false sense of security, so parents become lax about checking baby because they think the monitor will tell them if something is wrong.

Lisa it is directed at you and a few others.

I think it's best to keep baby with you until you go to bed. It's no chore. You can still put her to 'bed', do a routine, don't pick her up etc but just have her with you. 4 weeks is too young.

When my twins were 8 weeks old, the second one had only just come home from hospital. He went from seeming absolutely fine to breathing very rapidly to floppy and unresponsive insanely quickly. I hadn’t even realised he was unwell. I dread to think what would have happened if we weren’t in the same room at the time. Turned out to be whooping cough which landed us in HDU for 11 nights, but that first day we took him in they checked his oxygen levels and sent us home, telling us it was bronchiolitis and it would get worse and to bring him back then.

We spent five days watching him in shifts 24/7. What I realised then is that breathing monitors will only tell you they’ve stopped breathing - they won’t tell you when your baby is breathing too fast, too shallow, has increased work of breathing, their oxygen levels are dropping, you need to be there to notice these signs. Small babies can deteriorate so quickly, I just wouldn’t take the risk and I don’t really believe that a month old baby benefits from a routine (but then my twins were not to be scheduled under any circumstances!).

The amount of people that are willing to risk the lives of their babies is astounding.

Here’s what has really surprised me about parenting forums since I got pregnant - during pregnancy women are generally absolutely anal about avoiding anything that could potentially harm their unborn baby. Not a drop of alcohol, quit smoking, avoid certain foods because of a very small chance of listeriosis, avoid caffeine etc.

But then babies are born and some women disregard some guidelines completely despite it being well documented that they’re a risk. Babies sleeping in swings / car seats, perfect prep machines, disregarding safe sleep guidelines... I don’t understand it at all.

OP, I’m not sure what benefit you feel you’d get from this but I’d say absolutely not worth the risk. I know a woman who lost a baby to SIDS decades ago before all these guidelines - she followed the general advice of the time and lost her baby. It has caused her so much pain to this day, and I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if she hadn’t followed guidelines. I can’t imagine the guilt.

I think we can have a balance, I don’t believe we need to completely martyr ourselves for our children, but at that age it’s so much better for them to be with you all the time. One of my twins was in hospital still at that age and every second I missed out on with him still crushes me. I still wonder whether that separation has contributed to the additional needs he has.

This is what pisses me off for mums with babies not sure to what do for the best, it's all wishy washy concepts or people taking extreme views and arguing with no nuance for how different babies are different

How does that help mums work out what to do for the best?

Yeah, in situations like this personal anecdotes and advice is usually totally useless. As you can see, everyone has their own opinion. If possible, base your decisions on scientific evidence and/or statistics. I always kept my baby sleeping in the same room as me until 6 months because statistically, the chance of them dying of SIDS is lower if you do that. And obviously I would do anything to lower the probability of that happening to my child.

@SinkGirl, I imagine it's desperation. I mean if you have a baby who will only sleep on their front or in a car seat then you are stuck. You can't make yourself stay awake indefinitely because your baby won't sleep on their back at all.