to move DS into his own room so DH can move back into our room?

[2point4kids]

DS2 is 10 weeks old now. He is sleeping in a moses basket beside my bed.
DH has to get up early for work so has been sleeping downstairs in the spare room every week night so he doesnt get disturbed and be tired for work.
He generally sleeps up in our room at the weekend and I sleep downstairs to get a break!

DS is down to 1 night feed now but its probably gonna still be quite some time before he sleeps through..

I'm thinking of moving him into his own room soon so that DH and I can both sleep in the same room again...
I know you are supposed to keep them in with you till 6 months old but...It feels like we never see each other at the moment! he isnt home from work till about 8/8.30pm and I am usually in bed by 9pm (knackered!)

AIBU?

[VacantlyPretty]

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[krang]

Cot death may indeed be the 'leading cause' of deaths in babies in the UK but that is still only around 300 deaths a year.

There were 669,601 live births in the UK last year. Do the maths and work out the risk.

Incidentally, your argument regarding the earth being flat is utterly inconsequential. We have good, hard evidence that the earth is not flat, whereas we still have very little idea about what causes cot death.

And yes, I do have my baby in a car seat as I have researched the risks of not having him in a car seat. The risk of him dying in a car accident with no car seat is far higher than the risk of him dying of cot death because he sleeps in his own room (in a FSID approved sleeping bag, in a non-smoking, non-drinking, non-drug-taking correctly heated household.)

Live your life in fear if you like. It doesn't sound like much fun to me but as I have said before, whatever works for you.

[krang]

Incidentally, I was weaned at 8 weeks.

And it didn't actually do me any harm.

[VacantlyPretty]

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[ChukkyPig]

We had the reverse problem - my DH works shifts and the alarm often goes off at 4.45 or 5.45. Our DD slept pretty well from the word go and I didn't want her to be woken unnecessarily by the alarm going off. So at 6 weeks she went in her cot in her room and I slept in with her on the put-down for a couple of weeks. She seemed to prefer the cot to the moses basket and slept even better. So when she was about 8 weeks I went back to my room with DH. I think you need to weigh up what is going to work best for your situation with how comfortable you would feel with going against the official 6 month advice. As some other posters have said SIDS is incredibly rare but of course if something did happen you'd never forgive yourself. Also not much good putting baby in her own room if you're in there there every 5 mins to check she's breathing! (I have to stop DH doing this too much!!!)

[Mollymom]

My baby is 7 months old and still in my room (and bed), DP sleeps in the spare rom to get enough sleep but he does start work at 4 am so needs his sleep-he drives HGV for a living

[krang]

'krang my point about the earth being flat is obviously lost on you.'

Not at all, it's just that it was a rubbish point.

[Page62]

i am a truly horrible mum reading this. i put my children in their own cots in their own rooms from about 2 and a bit months and (gasp) let them sleep on their tummy as they screamed blue murder when put on their backs. sleep on tummy, and pretty much slept thru the night
they are now 4 1/2 and 2 1/2 and seem perfectly ok. i know there were risks we were taking, but we tried to reduce the risk everywhere else (no smoking, breastfed etc etc). In the first few months when the kids woke up in the night, i would go and feed them in their rooms and stayed there till DH had to go to work, that way, we always had a few hours every night in the same bed, and the last few hours i spent with kids (ok, so not technically left in their own rooms throughout the night -- but once they slept thru, i did). Whatever works for your family.

[2point4kids]

So, from the stats below the risk of sids is 0.04%. IF the risk were to double by not sleeping in the same room as the baby (and i'm aware that it increases, but not necessarily doubles) then that risk is then 0.08%...which is still incredbly low
(and what about when baby naps - do you always have to be sitting near enough so they can hear you breath?)

Clearly I want to keep my children as safe as i can but there always other factors to consider as well..

For example there is evidence (crash tests, which reviews) that show certain car seats are safer than others. If everyone followed the guidelines to the letter then only the safest car seat would ever be sold.
Instead, most people are happy to get a car seat thats in their budget, perhaps fits on their travel system and has come out 'safe enough' on the tests...

There is a bit of give and take in everything imo..

VP - can you honestly say that you follow every safety guideline to the letter with no thought to any inconvenience or extra cost and no compromise at all?
If you cant say that, then you have to admit to being a little paranoid about this issue..

[mum2oneloudbaby]

i'm with cappuccino can't he sleep through it.

to minimise disturbance i used to take dd and feed her in my big comfy rocking chair in the nursery during the week.

but dh would never have moved out of our bed i wouldn't stand for it

[beansprout]

2.4 - that, of course is your choice entirely. Having been to the funeral of a SIDS baby, I realise I am a bit sensitive on this issue but anything I can do to minimise the risk is fine by me. They are tiny for such a short period of time. If I can't put them first now then when will I?

[theaevie]

I moved all three of mine into their own rooms once they started sleeping through from 11 to 7. They were all evicted at 7 weeks. I found that our moving around at night disturbed them too much and of course the slightest little noise you're checking to see if they're ok and disturbing them in the process.

[spicemonster]

chefswife - I can assure you that with a baby you will suddenly find you are able to go back to sleep (most of the time) very quickly. In fact, it's often hard to stay awake to feed them. If I'd known that having a baby would have such a fabulous effect on my insomnia, I would have had one years ago

[NellyTheElephant]

I really sympathise with people whose DH's slept in seperate rooms during the weeks, loads of my friends used this arrangement and it worked for them, so I'm not sure what the big deal is.

I moved both my DDs out of our room almost immediately (by 2 weeks both times). Unfortunatly I found I got absolutely no sleep when they were in with me as I woke up with every snuffle etc.

Everyone is different, but for me the argument about it being more relaxing and easy to feed if they are in the same room didn't apply. I didn't like bf sitting up in bed as there was not much support for my back (unless I spent ages faffing around with pillows) and if I fed lying down then we'd both drift on and off to sleep so a feed might take up to an hour and a half as opposed to 20 mins if I made the effort to get up. Also as both my DDs pooed every time they fed there was never any possibility of pulling them into bed, feeding then popping them back into the moses basket. I always had to get up and do the nappy. I found both mine slept MUCH better once in their own room and both slept through the night by 2 months.

Obviously SIDS is a fear - but it's always a fear, even if we were technically sleeping in the same room it could happen during a lunchtime nap, or in the early evening when we were downstairs. Thinking about it makes me feel ill, yet none the less I know that if we have a third child I'll probably do the same thing and move them out early, it just seems to work best for us, and the SIDS risk IS very small especially if things like sleeping on their back and no smoking are stricly complied with. Not really sure what I'm trying to say - I know that the advice is that babies should stay in with you for 6 months but I also know that very few people seem to stick to that, for loads of reasons and lots of different situations......

[Poohbah]

I am clearly a freak among mums.

[bergentulip]

beansprout, your point about if you can't put them first when they are tiny, then when,... well, I think that is exactly why I put both mine in their own room and cot as soon as I felt it made sense- so, at about 2.5-3mths.
It would have been far easier on me to have them in our room for longer, but I wanted them to get used to sleeping alone, getting undisturbed sleep, no comings and goings etc etc... and now with DS2, that they get used to sleeping in the same room together, and can sleep through eachother's nighttime moaning.

But that was our decision in our family, and I do not see the risk of SIDS is great enough to affect the other more routiney and stabilising factors in my babies' lives.

Great point by 2.4children, by the way, about naps. Because exactly, if that's the worry at night, and the reason for keeping a baby in your room, then you cannot leave them alone during the day either, at all. Which is, umm... just not feasible for most mothers.

[Hulababy]

It actaully bugs me a lot when I read of fathers suddenly deciding that theya re going to sleep elsewhere as thy are too important (being at work and all that) to be woken and disturbed in the night. Grrr!

I simply wouldn't have stood for it with DH at all; not that he would ever have suggetsed it anyway. DH worked all the way through DD being tiny and not once did he shurk off at bed time and go elsewhere, and he got up in the night with DD at times too - we shared the role of caring for our child!

Mum needs her sleep just as much as dad. She is going to be busy during the day too - looking after THEIR baby (not hers, his too!).

I am afriad I would be having to have stern words with the father as to why he thinks he should have the right to a full nights undisturbed sleep every night, but not mum.

And baby would be staying put until the recommended 6 mnths in my house, regardless.

[MissingMyHeels]

FSIDS suggest you keep baby in same room for daytime naps too.

[pointydog]

yeah, move the baby out. Some jobs are an absolute mare if you can't get a decent sleep, no reason why both of you should lose sleep.

[pointydog]

If the mum is breastfeeding and not going out to work, then why on earth make the dad wake up for every feed as well? How odd.

[pointydog]

"I merely said that I am surprised at quite how mant people responded by saying how selfish and out of order my DH is"

crikey, I'm surprised too.

[MissingMyHeels]

It's unlikely he would fully wake up and the reason why is because it's the safest thing for baby. Surely that is reason enough for keeping the baby in the parental bedroom?

[TheFallenMadonna]

I don't think he's selfish and out of order. I'm just surprised he doesn't sleep through it all.

[pointydog]

Thousands of people are light sleepers. And if the job is stressful, any disturbance in the night and a light sleeper could be awake for hours.

Let him sleep for crying out loud.

[VacantlyPretty]

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