Evenings & keeping baby with you for all sleeps

[AngelDog]

DS2 is nearly 7 weeks. I want to follow the FSIDS recommendation to keep him with me for all sleeps till 6 months. At night we co-sleep and in the day he sleeps in the sling (which is most of the day - he usually only has a couple of proper awake spells per 24 hours).

However, in the evenings he's now becoming sensitive to light and finds it hard to go back to sleep in the sling when I'm in a room with the main lights on. I spend the evening mainly in the kitchen trying to catch up on washing / washing up / getting organised for the next day, so sitting in a darkened room to get him to sleep is difficult.

We do have a carry cot, but if he's in the room with me, the lights presumably would still disturb him - and (during the day at least) he only sleeps for short periods if put down, whereas when he's in the sling he'll sleep for a long time at once.

DH has no capacity to take over the household jobs as he's really busy and is having to go to bed early/get up late so he can cope with DS1's night waking (DH has insomnia so this is a big issue). I'm limited in how many of the jobs I can get done in the day as DS1 needs lots of time & attention at the moment following a distressing medical procedure & traumatic aftercare.

How can I give DS2 dim lighting levels for sleep while keeping him with me and still being able to get on with jobs in the evening?

Get a little table lamp for the lounge and turn the big light off so its only lamp and tv lights.

Try and get as much stuff done in the day so evenings are for relaxing.

By eight weeks dd was going down in our room at 7pm and I went in at 10.30 for a dreamfeed and bed. We live on one level.though so she was never out of earshot and similarly could hear us pottering around.

Sorry - should have added - could you try swaddling him in the travel cot so that he can sleep in a dimmed lounge while you potter on? Alternatively, sling him in the day and do chores while he snoozes, and just chill in the evbing with him asleep on your chest?

Does your carry cot have a half hood? Or would you be able to fashion one somehow? All the nannies around where I live walk their charges outdoors in the blazing sunshine by draping a large muslin square over the raised hood of the carry cot. Obviously it's not air tight, but it does dim some of the light. Would work well in addition to table lamps onlt in whatever room you put him in.

I put a hood over mine while she's in the sling. Either dress her in a cards with a hood I can put up or while she's on the sling sort of hang a hooded cardy on her head. Once she's asleep I take it off cause I worry about overheating and I can watch her better. Once she's asleep the light doesn't bother her and she sort of goutches in to me anyway! ( yes I know I've made up the word but you know what I mean!)

Also I agree that can't you just chill in the evening and let him sleep on your chest. Good for you to relax a bit and gives you an excuse!

Cardy not cards

Thanks, everyone. I'll try a little lamp - and I remembered that the pushchair carry cot has a hood so I'll try that.

I would love to relax in the evenings, but I never managed it even when I only had DS1 and he used to nap. I just can't find time in the day. It takes us till about 11 to get up and out of the house - which we do every day or DS1 and I both go loopy. By the time we've come home, eaten lunch and done DS1's physio it's usually 3 or 3.30. I try to start doing dinner at 4.30/5, so that only leaves an hour or so in the afternoon. In that time I try to do household jobs, play at home, do half an hour's speech therapy stuff with DS1 and take him out for exercise (he is such a slow walker that I can't get him to walk when we go out in the morning or we never actually get anywhere).

We have low standards of cleanliness & tidiness, but I have to do 1-2 loads of washing a day, hang it to dry, put it away, wash up / sort dishwasher and do some basic tidying as a minimum. That takes all the evening time that I'm not dealing with DS2, and I don't get to bed much before 11 or 12.

I agree with keeping them with you for all sleeps, but I would be wary of sleeping in a sling. The FSID guidance does recommend keeping them with you for all sleeps - but what it actually says is:

" the safest place for your baby to sleep - night and day - is in a crib or cot in a room with you for the first six months."

They also say "our safety advice is always to sleep babies on their backs, on a flat firm surface" - for this reason slings/car seats are not recommended for sleeping as they can cause overheating and also restrict breath intake if the baby isn't positioned properly.

I am honestly not trying to scare you, FSID as an organisation is very close to our family, and I wholeheartedly believe in the work they do and the validity of their recommendations. For the last 31 years all babies born in our family have been part of the FSID studies that have informed the recommendations, including our DD, as babies in our family are considered to be at risk. I am therefore a bit of a zealot when it comes to safe to sleep.

DD had a crib downstairs where she slept during the day (I moved it around if I needed to be in another room for more than a couple of minutes), and at night she slept in a cot next to me.

Coola what would you recommend then for babies that can't settle in a cot or similar? Like Angel I use the sling through the day and also resorted to it at 5 this morning when ds had slept for the grand total of 1 hour from 10pm onwards and that was because he'd been taken out on the car!

That's all well and good coola but my dd just won't sleep in the day in her cot. She will sleep in the car seat or in the sling. I never leave her so I would be aware immediately if something were wrong.

I have tried endlessly to persuade her up sleep in the cot in the day ( she does at night) but she just wakes straight away and eventually gets distressed and so overtired.

Women have been wearing babies since the beginning of time. Babies love slings in my experience so how could it be that bad?

Just going to throw my 5 pence worth in and say maybe you could have him sleep in another room (your room) in the early evening and then you go in to him later, thereby he gets a good sleep , you get your jobs done and everyone is happy.

Guidelines are guidelines and this one is based on particularly shaky evidence so do what is best for you and your family rather than sticking ridigidly to a vague guideline.

Do people really have there baby sleep in the same room as them day and night until 6months? That woul have sent me insane

1500mmania - yes they do. We did it for ten months, not six, on the recommendation of our paediatrician. Can honestly say it didn't bother me at all. Although that's because the family history means I wouldn't contemplate anything else so for me it was just what we did.

Whooah in all honesty I don't know - my DD has never napped in a cot in the day either. I just know the recommendations. She had a crib downstairs until she was too big for it, from then onwards she naps in a lie flat pushchair. I did try to get her to nap in her cot more than once, whilst I was upstairs, and she wasn't having any of it.

Until 10 months she was wired to a monitor every time she slept - every nap, every night, so a sling was never going to be an option regardless of what the research says. As we didn't have a sling there was no opportunity for her to "only" sleep in one. From birth her options were pram when out, crib or cot. We couldn't use anything else, so she either slept in one of those or we walked the floor until she was far enough gone to be put down. As she didn't know any different there wasn't anything different for her to express a preference for IYSWIM?

*IveBeenGood" - babies do love slings, and they do have benefits, but research has shown that anything other than a flat shape can restrict air flow into the lungs. Babies love slings because it is reminiscent of being cocooned in the womb, being cradled comforts them. But in the womb they didn't need to breathe. That said very few babies have problems, but some do, babies have died from restricted air intake whilst sitting in carseats. The deaths of some babies have been linked to overheating due to having their heads covered and also from not lying flat - and noone knows who those few might be or why those particular children were more at risk than others who are absolutely fine in slings and carseats and anywhere else.

FWIW the babies who died in our family died in their cots over night, so I am in no way saying that any one thing is a guarantee, rather that I choose to stick to the recommendations and guidelines because they are supported by research. If I didn't believe in that research and the results there would have been no point in us spending an hour a day completing research paperwork, and our family has done this with every baby for two generations now, for ourselves definitely - but also to further the study into how to prevent other families going through the same thing.

At the end of the day we are all trying to do what is best for us and our children, and we don't have to agree, nor do people have to stick to guidelines, because that is just what they are. I do think that more work should be done to make people aware of the guidelines, and the research that informs them though, because I believe people need to know the information to be able to make an informed decision.

I do hope I haven't upset anyone, that wasn't my intention at all.

You certainly haven't upset me Coola - it's clear from your post that you are v knowledgeable and have good reasons for sticking to the guidelines. I was just hoping you had some sort of magic answer that would make ds sleep in his Moses basket in the day!!

coola you haven't upset me either and I'm sorry that your family has experienced the horrendous loss of loved ones. God I wish my dd would sleep in her cot in the day, I do worry about her in the car seat. At least in the sling she is close but yes I guess you're right about the similarity to the womb where they didn't have to breathe! I guess perseverance is in order on the cot front! She is now 3 mo so getting bigger and maybe will go down easier now?!

Dd is 8 weeks old and didn't like sleeping in her cot in the day time until last week. I would recommend continuing to try as it does make life easier. Sometimes dd does go down for a much shorter time than she would if I had her in a sling or similar but I would rather that for my own sanity. My only worry with continued sling sleeping during the day is that babies will still want to nap in the daytime long after 6 months, and if they have only slept next to a chest, they will continue to want this.

For the record, my dd sleeps in a cot next to me at night, but here naps are in a different room with a video monitor. This let's me do the housework, and occasionally relax, and she is not disturbed by light and tv in the evenings.

Good luck with cot/crib sleeping.

One thing I did find that helped DD sleep longer was wrapping her up and putting her in the garden in her pram. If I wasn't doing gardening then I put her next to the open patio doors and then potter in that room. I used to do most of my ironing in front of the tv stood next to the doors whilst she napped outside so she was as close as she would be if she was inside.

The fresh air really knocked her out. When she cut down to a couple of naps a day I used to go out for a walk for at least one of them. Over time I could just put her in the pushchair/pram laid flat, in whatever room I was in, and give it a couple of shoves and she'd go out like a light.