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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

How long do you think your baby should sleep in your room for?

108 replies

josben · 06/10/2006 15:38

DD is 10 weeks and we are thinking about moving her into her own room this weekend as she is a very light sleeper and so we think she'll sleep better (and hopefully so will we!)
But I know that the recommendation is that babies should sleep in parents room for first 6 months (as we did with DS1 & DS2) but I was just wondering if everyone follows this advice?

OP posts:
Judy1234 · 06/10/2006 20:02

My sisters moved out of her bed to their own rooms this year at 5. They coslept etc. If she hadn't complained for 5 years about lack of sleep I might have felt it was fine.
I could never sleep easily with a baby pushed against me. I'd push it nearer the edge of the bed and it would wriggle over in its warm damp babygro up against me and end up almost pushing me off the edge. I think ours moved out between 6 months and a year. I moved into the twins room though when they were born and was there for a year or 6 months, I can't remember now as they were up a lot in the night feeding and it was silly for us both to be disturbed.
Do what you feel comfortable. In some cultures it is regarded as almost child abuse not to sleep with your children. In other cultures, may be ours even in some people's minds, child abuse to be naked next to a child. Just do as feels right for you.

Important point about babies though is they are like little robots and they're hard to reprogramme so doing it fairly early might be wise.

alexw · 06/10/2006 20:09

We put dd in her own room from day one and she slept well, so did we. Through the night from 6 weks (with dream feed at 10pm til 12 weeks).

amijee · 06/10/2006 20:28

No one really knows why cot death is reduced when the child sleeps in the same room for the 1st 6 mths. ONE of the theories is that it's the parents that wake the child constantly by their noises (I have to hold my dh's nose sometimes as the snoring is so loud!) and so the child is not in such a deep sleep and therefore the risk is reduced. I can kinda see this in my ds as he goes down hard from 8pm until midnight when we are usually not sleeping for the majority of that stint. He never sleeps as long whilst we are with him.

My concern is when 10 week old ds grows out of his moses basket but is still requiring frequent feeding and the cot is too big for our room. I mentioned the idea of getting a travel cot for this period of time and dh was not impressed.

I think it's a big step to move them out to their own room - more for the mum than the baby!

moaningpaper · 06/10/2006 20:29

about 18 months if I recall correctly

Panyanpickle77 · 06/10/2006 20:43

DD has just gone into her own room....she was 4 in June! Ds (14mnths) sleeps like a dream (never mind the pun), but only if he is on my bed, or with me in "Sniffing" distance. Each to their own I say. You can always try your baby in their own room (you could set up your baby monitor between your rooms if you are worried about missing them waking). If they settle great, if they don't you can always move them back to your room. Whatever you choose to do, Good luck.

QuiQuoQua · 06/10/2006 21:01

thank you amijee. in this case DD would be safe anywhere, so loud DH snores...

bottomburp · 06/10/2006 22:03

it does not really matter why having your baby sleep in your room reduces risk of cot death, there are only theories out there. however SIDS research has conclusively shown that if you have your baby in your room for first 6 months it HALVES the risk of cot death.believe me i am not militant about anything, really quite easy going but was so worried about cot death and knowing the above i cant imagine why anyone wd not do it.then again parenting is individual and full of choices.

i moved my DD into her own room when she was 6.5mths old, my reasoning was that if i left it later she wd be more aware of the change and more upsetting for all of us.the month before we played a lot in her room and spent lots of time in there so it wasnt totally new.

bananaloaf · 06/10/2006 22:07

ds1 was 8-9 months ds2 still with has a 7 months. kinds keeping ds2 with me cos i wont be having anymore and i like havinghim in the same room.

deaconblue · 06/10/2006 22:08

We did just 10 weeks until big fat ds was too big for moses basket and our room is too small for cot. Have to say he started sleeping through the night soon after and I wonder if it was due to us not disturbing each other too much.

Sunnysideup · 06/10/2006 22:16

I wasn't aware of this advice when I had ds 4 years ago, maybe it's come out since; but our bedroom at the time was so tiny that we couldn't even fit a moses basket in there with us - sounds unbelievable I know (we've moved since!)

So ds was in his moses basket in his room from 5 days old (the day we brought him home from hosp!)

bottomburp · 06/10/2006 23:02

think research hadnt been done 4 yrs ago

tutu100 · 06/10/2006 23:15

I moved my son into his own room at 7 months. I would have kept him in with me for longer but DP (who had been sleeping in spare room after breaking his collar bone) said he wouldn't come back to our bed until our son was in his own room. I was petrified, but tbh he slept much better once he was in his own room and I bought one of those movement monitors. I found it really helpful.

pointyfangedWeredog · 07/10/2006 08:47

Do you not get carry cots anymore? I suppose those 3 wheeled buggies are so de rigeur and moses baskets are so bijou that it's hard to get a boxy ugly carry cot.

But if carry cots hadn't gone out of fashion that's what all these heaving 10 week old babies could sleep in before going to cot.

Gap in the market.

foxtrottingtotransylvania · 07/10/2006 09:08

Until they outgrew the moses basket and/or were going through the night (am i the only mummy who didn't get up in the night, just hauled them out of the moses basket straight in to my bed to BF?)

Pruhoohooohoooooni · 07/10/2006 09:14

I know someone who slept in his parents' room until he was 15.

Mojomummy · 07/10/2006 09:16

DD1 went into her own room about 6mths.

DD2 is in her crib - I do the same as FTT & haul her into my bed for a feed. I used to fall asleep, but now I'm getting quite good at putting her back ! She'll stay in our room until 6 mths.

LizzieMint · 07/10/2006 09:39

Our LO is 18 weeks and sleeps in a crib by the side of our bed - she outgrew her moses basket at 8 weeks but I wasn't going to put her in her own room so young.

One theory i have read about as to why it reduces the risk of cot death is because newborns have very erratic breathing patterns and can't regulate themselves very well. The theory is that when they come up into a light-sleep phase (about every 45 minutes), they can hear your breathing so they kind of re-sync their breathing to yours. In our post-natal classes we were told that the highest-risk time for cot death was between 2 and 4 months old, so we definitely didn't want to move LO out until she was at least 4 months old.

As it happens, she's now got plenty of room in her crib so will stay with us until 6 months.

(I did the hauling into bed from the moses basket too - absolute minimum effort in the middle of the night! she started to sleep through at 10 weeks though, so no need to do that any more!)

bluemoo · 07/10/2006 09:51

I think 6 months is great if you can manage it / fit a cot into your room.
We managed 6 weeks with ds. He then started to wake up and chat loudly at 5am! Wasn't unhappy, just felt like a good natter, so now he's in his own room, but its only just across the hall.

I can't work out the cot death reduction thing either. I thought it must be because of early resuscitation as you;re more likely to notice if they stop breathing, but obviously not. Wonder if they related it back to other risks for cot death and its more related to parenting skills etc.

moonstone1201 · 07/10/2006 10:05

DS went into his own room at 10 weeks, about 2 weeks after he started sleeping through the night. We found that when he was sleeping in our room he woke up if we got up to go to the loo or anything, and took ages to get back to sleep again. We have both bedroom doors open, and he sleeps in one of those Grobag things, which are meant to be safer.It's worked really well, as sometimes when he wakes up he makes little noises before going back to sleep - we sleep right through that now, although if he cries we can still get to him quickly.

EllieHsMum · 07/10/2006 11:44

We put our baby in her cot in her own room 2 wks ago, now 19 weeks old. She had out grown the bassinet (slightly larger than moses basket & was a gift received from America). She was making so much noise & not sleeping kicking & banging about. I was really torn, thought it made me a bad/unfit Mum even just to consider moving my precious baby before 6/12 months! Even though we have a monitor which has a movement mat beneath the mattress.This detects no movement/breath for 20 secs. If this happens(which is has a few times I've never moved so quick in all my life!) an alarm sounds. This happened because wriggle bum had moved to the other end of the cot sound asleep. The first night I slept with her(not in the cot.I didn't sleep, but baby did. I would say go for it, but its a very personal choice.Good Luck!

WriggleyWitchesJiggle · 07/10/2006 14:42

DD moved last week (4 and a half months). To be honest, the only reason we didn't move her earlier was the faff of getting up so often in the night to feed her. I'd say move her as soon as you have got over that 'oh my god, is she still breathing' stage. I used to wake and check at least 50 times a night in the first few weeks !

madmarchscare · 07/10/2006 16:10

about 14 weeks as he was a bit of a snorter too. We all slept much better.

Emsky · 07/10/2006 17:43

We moved house when DD was 6 weeks old and saw it as the ideal opportunity to move her into new room and new cot. It worked well , she slept 14 hrs last night!

hermykne · 07/10/2006 17:45

i think 6mths, with hindsight you'll look back realise it was magic, amongst the raging hormones!

fatfox · 07/10/2006 21:12

Both DS and DD slept in a moses basket by the bed when tiny, then moved into the bed and co-slept for BFing and health. However, DS didn't move into a child's bed until 3 and DD is now 3 and still in our bed. She will be in the bottom of the bunk bed by Christmas though, as baby No 3 will arrive Feb/March.

I love sleeping in the same room as my children, it feels really natural to me and means I'm close by if they have a nightmare or become ill. I've managed to get to them a few times to prevent them vomiting over the bed when they've been poorly.

I think whatever people feel comfortable with is generally the right thing to do and echo Xenia's comments about the cultural differences.