To get irritated at people who continually preach about child 'rules' i.e. sleeping in with parents.

[tori32]

I have just been on a different thread where someone has picked holes in the op without having any real info about her sleeping arrangments. Saying what is an 8 week old baby doing sleeping alone and not with the op.

To that I say to Greenmonkies some of us have very large babies who could tip a moses basket over at 8wks (yes, I am not exaggerating) She also was uncomfortable in the travel cot and was moved into her own room at 3mths. The full sized cot would not fit into our room. DH and I are both largish and would never risk having a baby sleep with us unless feeding.

As for SIDS, yes it is recommended, however, it isn't always possible. I also found that dd1s jealousy of the baby reduced dramatically once baby went in her own room. This meant less bad atmospheres for everyone.

So I say to all preachers- wind yournecksin!

[Bumperlicious]

It's not just the breathing, you moving around while you are asleep 'disturbs' the baby too. Stops them from fall into too deep a sleep. Yes it probably means a less restful night in the early months, but that the whole point really.

[DaphneMoon]

It is difficult to keep up to date with these guidelines though. My DS is 8 so I don't have these particular problems, but the rules change constantly. When my nephew was little you had to wrap them tightly and put them on their sides, with my DS it was all change and you had to put them on their backs. What are the rules now, out of interest?

[LittleMyDancing]

there's very solid research on the safety of babies sleeping with their parents, which has shown unequivocally that in the absence of other factors like alcohol or smoking, it is safer for the baby to be at least in the same room, preferably in the same bed.

can't quibble with research!

[DaphneMoon]

Not sure it is safe to have them in the same bed. I know without doubt that my present DP would roll over onto a newborn. He rolls over onto me as if I was not there sometimes, does not seem to realise there is a 9 stone woman under him!

[foxytocin]

by hanaflower:

"tori32 You seem to rejoice in the fact you choose not to follow the medical guidelines. It's your choice, but I don't think it's the posters talking about the guidelines being unreasonable."

Tori's next move will be to tell you that she has been a paediatric nurse, et al and she is so well informed that it is ok to flaunt the rules in her case and possibly for all you people with big babies.

....or something to that effect.

[hollyandnoah]

yanbu,
my big baby was out of his moses basket at ten weeks. He had a travel cot in my room but as he was sleeping through the night at 12 weeks i put him into his own room. he was even more settled in his own room.
I was quite sad that he outgrew his moses basket so soon, because i spent weeks picking the right one for him.

[ElfOnTheTopShelf]

I had a magazine from FSID the other week, and it has a picture of a baby asleep, and you had to find 8 risk factors.
I only got 5
There are lots of reducing factors recommended against cot death, I have to say that we didn't follow all (we didn't have dummies, though that research came out after DD was born) but we followed as many as we could.
We had DD in a moses basket for the first few weeks and then in a crib in our room, and we moved her at about six months into her own room.

[foxytocin]

Daphne, the rules don't change 'all the time'. that 'reason' is the default excuse for a lot of people who didn't realise what the guidelines are.

Which is all the reason why Greenmonkies is validated for repeating them again and out of context, much to the irritation of some of us who don't seem to want to be reminded that they have chosen not to follow them.

hope that doesn't sound too stroppy. it's not meant to be.

[BabiesEverywhere]

We co-sleep and have a cot attached to my side of the bed for extra space, my health visitor told me off and said there have been 'incidents' locally (wouldn't go into details mind)

Hence I thought the medical professionals encouraged room sharing but not co-sleeping ?

My massive one month old son is the size of an average 3 month old baby and doesn't rock over his moses basket.

[llareggub]

hanaflower, that's exactly what I did with DS, although I did get paranoid about DS falling down the ever so tiny gap between the bed and the wall.

Co-sleeping worked very well for us, although the midwife who ran the breastfeeding "support" group decided to lecture me in front of the group about it and the fact I was still breastfeeding at 7 months.

[DaphneMoon]

I have not slept soundly since my DS was born 8 years ago. It is definitaly a mum thing. I would wake at a pin drop. What is the rule with dummies then? I did not have one for DS, it is another thing you have to wean them off. I know someone who had to prise one from their DD when she started school!! It also definitely delays speach. Can't tell you how many times I have seen a mum talk to their toddler and the toddler replies with dummy in mouth. I didn't understand a word!

[VictorianSqualor]

BE when I was in hospital they put DS2 in bed with me, and when I fell asleep feeding him I thought they'd go crazy, but they didn't.
Instead they got me a leaflet on preventing SIDS and sharing a bed, I was quite shocked tbh!

We also side-car, or at least we did up until last week, DS2 is now 5 1/2 months so yes, we've done it a bit early but I certainly wouldn't have done it any sooner (plus he is still feeding every couple of hours so it's not like he sleeps for long )

[foxytocin]

Daphne, don't worry about the dummy thing. if you go to hunker's blog, here and search dummy or fsid, some interesting articles and links about the dummy thing comes up.

I am a bit and about the dummy recommendation by the fsid. I am not anti dummy at all. I just hate the way how they promoted it as some ginormous lifesaver because MAM happens to be a sponsor of the fsid. The research behind the dummy thing has been questioned by peer review and has not been replicated either.

[DaphneMoon]

Sorry I disagree Foxy, the rules do change all the time. You only have to go back to when Anne Diamond researched it all and they are different. Let's face it when we have our babies, what is the first thing our mums or MIL's say "oh it's all different to when I had mine". There are so many contributing factors, central heating for a start. Our homes are all far too warm. I remember my mother telling me that she had to rub our little hands to get them warm when she used to go into our rooms in the morning when we were tiny babies.

[foxytocin]

Then can you define 'all the time' what all the time means to you?

for me all the time is every 2 or 3 yrs.

every 5 - 10 yrs or more, not 'all the time'.

[VictorianSqualor]

this was the leaflet my hospital was giving out. They did only recommend co-sleeping for breastfeeding mothers though, rooming in for formula feeding mothers.

[harpsichordcarrier]

but Daphne, that is EXACTLY the point: when Anne Diamond campaigned to change the recommendations it was because the existing guidelines were not safe. the recommendations of SIDS have saved thousands of baby's lives.
it really isn't THAT hard to keep up tbh.
you have a baby, you are given a leaflet, you read it, you follow it (or not).

[foxytocin]

VS, Prof Helen Ball at Durham Uni is in the process of setting up trials of sidecar cots in a major hospital in the North East. One study doing them was done in 05 I think. This is the second one.

When recruiting parents there have been some interesting responses to the student asking mums to volunteer.

I attended a lecture of hers about the findings of the first study. There was a photo of a ff-fed baby co-sleeping and a pic of a bf baby cosleeping and the differences in sleeping arrangements were obvious.

[DaphneMoon]

Ok harpsichord I was only asking what the general rules about babies are now, keep your hair on!

Smallwhitecat, hurrah another Frasier fan, I never get bored with it. Sorry going off on a tangent now.

[BabiesEverywhere]

VictorianSqualor, My hospital gave me a side car cot for my hospital bed which was fab, so you would think they would support co-sleeping.

However they did wake me up and tell me off for feeding him lying down, as I fell asleep. But it was the same side as the side car cot, so it wasn't as if he could fall off or anything ?

And there were notices above every bed saying that we were not allowed to sleep with our babies

[Mercy]

I wish it were true that parents were given the latest info each time they had a new baby.

2nd time around you aren't offered any free ante-natal classes and I wasn't given a single piece of literature either when I was pregnant or after I had given birth.

I have less than 3 years between my dc and had no idea certain advice had changed.