How and when did you move your child(ren) into their own room? Is this too soon?

[user242526]

Hi,

DD is 10 months old and I am slowly starting to consider moving her into her own room.

She has started sleeping through the night (does have a few bad nights here and there due to teething and being unwell). However, we seem to kind of 'disturb' each other. When I get into bed she gets disturbed, if I get up to go to the toilet she gets disturbed etc. Likewise, if she coughs etc I wake up and struggle to go back into a deeper sleep as I'm always on 'edge' as I feel as though I constantly need to keep an eye on her to make sure she's okay.

I'd like to find out about other people's experiences of this? How did it go? What do you do if your child is sick? When is too soon or on the other hand when is it too late? Any tips?

Thanks

Well I've got my 10.5 year old in the bed with me now.
He does have his own room but never once slept in it. Compromised with a single bed in our room.

Baby would be in the next to me until they are robust! My little one is such a still sleeper, I’m the yoga snoozer.

its probably less about academics and more about life learning if that makes sense ? Things like settling in the secure (hopefully!!) attachment, social cues, fine/gross motor skills, emotional intelligence… This probably makes me sound incredibly lazy but it’s nice providing that benefit literally in my sleep!! She is naturally bright so I have no doubt she’ll do well academically but who knows if that’s even an area that’s important to her long term goals ? (Currently she loves gymnastics and is putting in at least three hours a day on the mat so who knows!)

And then there’s the fact I’m a therapist and have a very neuroscience based practice so it feels poor form not to practice what I preach…

My dd is 22 months and has a cabin bed in her room but been cosleeping with us since birth.

She knows it's her room and a few days ago she was playing with some toys in her room and we said "this is your room and this is your bed and these are your toys!" She agreed and started pretending to sleep in it. So from that night, we put her to bed in her own room. So far so good. She does sometimes wake up at about 4am and climbs back in with us. But it is so nice to be able to come to bed and put a lamp on and read for a bit or chat, or something else...!

Yes same with my children. My children are happy,uncomplicated adults!

I probably didn't have that as my goal (mostly because I didn't know it was a thing - my children are in their 20s now!) but because it just felt right! x

Mine were 5 and 14. Yes that’s years not months. 😆

But I’m a different person with different children so if 10m works for you both then go for it! It’s not too early.

Hehe it’s definitely a side benefit ! The True Goal is trying to keep us from freezing - house is listed so we only have single paned windows and it’s bloody cold!

Both of ours probably about 7 months?
Establishing a lovely bedtime routine goes some way to helping. We also would repeatedly take them when a bit smaller, into their rooms and place them in their cot if we needed to do a couple of quick errands upstairs, just to get them familiar with it.

Baby monitor on, read a story, give them a little cuddle and don’t make a big fuss or hang around loads.

DS was a dream and took to it straight away but he was sleeping through from quite young. DD fought it a lot and still sometimes does at 20 months but she’s completely different 😂.

Be prepared for lots of making you feel guilty but stand firm if you’re going to do it. If they cry for a good few minutes, we’d go in and comfort but not give in to them coming out of the room. Sometimes we’d spend ages cuddling up comforting in their nursery chair until they got more settled.

I moved mine at 13 months and kept a cot in my room for about 5 months so that sometimes when he woke up crying I could bring him back next to me, safely

DS was 5.5 years old! Loved co-sleeping with him for all those years.

DD... 6 weeks. Would've been earlier if I had the room ready!

Yes I was squashed in between them! Wasn’t ideal but it worked for that short period. I’ve already told DH if we have a third I’m going to need a much bigger bed 😂

The evidence shows babies regulate their breathing better if they're in the same room as an adult. So HV2 was sort of correct. Babies can hold their breath- sleep apnoea. This doesn't happen in cultures that co sleep as standard hut does where babies are put alone very young. It's not conclusive but it's a hard thing to test.

Mine went into their own room at 7 and 8 months, I night weaned at the same time and we all slept better. Apart from maybe Dp who had to do a few nights on their floors. Next baby will be much the same. I'd prefer 6 months but I thinks there's too much going on with starting solids and them learning to crawl.

To all the people who have their children in the same room or even the same bed for years, do you feel you miss out on private time with your partner? Yes I mean sex, not only at night but in the morning, and also just cuddling in bed and chatting on your own? Presumably you're not having sex in the room while the child is in there.

I totally agree with you. My bed is a child, laptop, food and dog free zone (husband admitted subject to good behaviour hahaha). Because we need sleep and sorry but yes, sex is a healthy part of a marriage/relationship.

My oldest was 6 months, she then took febrile convulsions and we moved her back in beside us until around 15 months. Middle was approx 1 and youngest is still in with me at 18 months- pretty complex kiddo though so feels safer to us.

There are other areas of the house to have sex, and you can have sex in the room while baby is completely unaware of it - probably the first 6 months - and then you just need to be quiet so as not to wake them lol.

We are lucky our room is big enough that past 6 months the next to me bed gets put away and the cot is put up against the wall away from our bed though so I guess that helps.

But definitely other rooms... A whole house in fact.

6 months for all mine, as per SIDS advice. Wasn’t worth the risk to me of going against advice as the stakes are so high. I don’t think any of them felt abandoned!

Hi all, we're just dropping in to share some useful links.

Here's the NHS page on Safe sleep advice for babies

and here's a page we created on When to move your baby into their own room

Same here. We never had the children in our bed. If they were poorly in the night we would see to them, sort them out and they would be back in their beds.

That’s interesting - if I’d known that I might well have done things differently with DS1. But moving DS2 at 6 months was hard and I do t think it would have been easier later on, probably even harder! We all need bigger bedrooms! Squeezing the cot in ours was a challenge.

We moved our baby at 4 months. He has a monitor and we can hear him in his room next door anyway. He quickly then slept through the night. We used some light sleep training and it worked very quickly. I really believe a well rested mum and baby with good sleep habits is worth its weight in gold. Yes there are the odd bad nights or regressions but he's a very happy baby. Most of my NCT group have done the same.

I’m really interested in this. Is this now what mums are being told? That by co-sleeping they are helping their baby’s brain development? Ergo if you don’t co-sleep…

That sounds like an awful lot of (extra) pressure to me.

I’m no neuroscientist, but I’d be willing to bet children get most of this from their interactions when they are awake…

It baffles me. How does anyone have a healthy sex life if they’ve got a baby or toddler in their bedroom?!

I just figured for the first 6 months of their life it was worth it to help prevent SIDS. We got back on track afterwards.

I moved my son into his own room the day he turned 6 months. Ever since he was a newborn I’d breastfed him to sleep and then put him down in his crib in my room already asleep. I just started putting him down in his cot in his own room instead. He didn’t even notice the difference.