When to put baby in own room?

[magnum]

I just wondered when it was safe to put my dd in her own room at night? She is 7 weeks old and is quite tall and won't be in her moses basket for too long which is in our bedroom. We can't fit her cot in our room as its not big enough. I've heard somewhere that babies should 'share your air' until at least six months. Does anyone know?

Steppemum, I think that we don't necessarily follow 'expert advice' - look at the amount of people who don't breastfeed, don't make their own baby food, don't sterilise everything for a year etc etc. (I'm not making any judgements on any of these things BTW). I think it all comes down to personal choice, convenience, and what you think is best for your situation. There are so many recommendations out there for how best to look after your baby, I think you could probably spend the first year just reading about them all, let alone doing them!!

We put dd in her room at 6 weeks, using the moses basket in her cot for the first week, with no problems.

Aloha; that research rings a bell with me - I definitely sleep more lightly with ds in our room. He's 9 months but as we are renovating our house (a Victorian wreck!) and building his bedroom we have no choice at the mo. I can't wait till his room's finished so I can get a decent night's sleep. Dh never EVER hears ds stir whereas I hear every mutter and so my nights are always broken.

Message withdrawn

I've just read the message from steppemum and now feel bad!! I put ds in her own room 2 days ago and she loves it. She loves the colours, toys, musical mobile etc and is now sleeping better than ever. Her room is only about 3 feet from ours and we have monitors on all night as well. The cot is much more comfortable for her than the moses basket was as she is a tall baby. The reason we wouldn't be able to have her in with us much longer anyway is because her cot won't fit in our room so it would be impossible to keep her in with us until she is of the recommended age. I now feel guilty about her being in her own room!! What do I do now... move house??

Our dd (now 2.5) was in her room from the day we came home from the hospital. We too had problems with space near our bed, and were using the carry cot from our pram, rather than a moses basket. I'm also a really light sleeper, and couldn't cope with all that snuffling.

We simply put the carry cot in the cot, so that it was a sensible height for lifting her out etc. (This seems to have helped the transition to the cot later on). We have an excellent monitor, which we kept on the super sensitive setting (although we could hear everything through the wall).

My husband was on the road a lot with work at the time, and as I was breastfeeding, and dd tended to settle well, there was no need for both of us to be woken all the time. I was also paranoid about falling asleep in bed with my dd whilst feeding her in bed (I had recurrent nightmares about squashing her), so I used to get up and go next door to feed her. It was actually quite nice pottering about - I had a drink and a snack to hand, and also got through most of the Harry Potter books over the months, if I remember correctly! We had a dimmer switch on her room so we could keep the light low, and I had a comfy chair.

All in all it really helped to keep disruption to a minimum. One benefit is that our dd has always been ok about sleeping in her room with the door shut, in the darkness (although I appreciate this may well change!).

I did get a lot of comments from other mums though - several seemed to be suggesting I was risking cot death, or was heartless because my baby would want to know I was close by. As I was in her room the instant she cried, I didn't worry myself about this though.