What did you do while baby slept?

[squizita]

My dd is 3 months and sleeps well at night in the main.

In accordance with safety guidelines I stay with her when she's asleep, at all times. OK for day naps in the living room, pram or sling ... but baby bedtime means 2-3 hr in a dimly lit bedroom before I can sleep myself.
Apart from mumsnet and Netflix what can I do.

To be brutally honest I feel almost trapped and really down about it. Sitting in the dark every night for 6 months for fear of SIDS. How did you distract yourself?

I love our video monitor. It's an entry level one, so not amazing sound or picture quality, but as you can see him move about I am usually there before he fully wakes up and starts crying anyway (and so he goes back off to sleep quicker). I also worry when he hasn't woken for a while ( he is 6 months and not the best sleeper, started sleeping on his own upstairs from 3 ½ months because he started to wake up with any noise), but with the monitor I can see he has turned over or moved and arm etc.

I guess tenure all different chazzer. DD hasn't slept on me since 2 months old, she just won't do it. It's too exciting for her with people around and things going on! She'll only sleep in a dark room, in her cot. Would have loved to have her snuggling on me and snoozing!

I second that gottobe. Despite the dinner parties and subwoofer errors my dd from 5 monthsish only slept in her cot and hasn't snoozed on me for a very, very long time. Even when Ill.

squizita... assuming you have an iPad or an iPhone, then I highly recommend a Withings Baby Monitor www.withings.com/us/baby-monitor.html. They are expensive (£250+), but they are fab. You buy the monitor then download the free app. They are a video/sound monitor all in one. It was (probably still is!) the best thing we ever bought.

It was lovely gottobe and just what I needed at that point in my life. He doesn't do it now though, possibly briefly if he's poorly.

If you have an iPad and iPhone there are several video monitor apps that are very cheap as a standby / additional help. We use one now sometimes as our dd won't tolerate a monitor.

Sorry, I probably should have added that it works on your home wifi. You can also use it (15 minutes free a day I think) from anywhere. DH has listened in and actually spoken to DC on it from business trips abroad at bedtime. We now use it to listen in and check our home when on holiday!!!

Oh good God! Unless you live in Buckingham palace, have a cuppa, a nap, watch telly, hoover, clean your lav, have a shower, do your ironing, get a grip. What do you think may happen that won't when you're in bed ffs?

We've got android devices but I bet there is an equivalent app/monitor for them. Will get DH onto it he's a right gadget man!!

Tonight as you may have noticed I'm on t'interweb. Looking at the sales and mentally deciding what to buy. flicking between a Silver Cross stroller which would be useful and designer shoes which won't be especially as I live in DMs and Converse.

Once DD was falling asleep for the night early evening we popped the video monitor on and left her to sleep, popping up to check on her frequently. In the mean time we enjoyed having some time in the evenings to eat, read, whatever. I would have gone mad sitting in a dark room with her for hours ...

I sleep, that's what I do. baby is 19weeks I'm back in full time work so at night about 8pm we retire to the bedroom have a play and a cuddle he feeds, has a bath goes to sleep and so do I, like a light I'm putters and he is in the cot. he wakes about 4 times a night but goes straight back to sleep after a feed.

Right it does sound like the ante natal classes were hyper scary!! Clearly it's pretty normal to move around etc provided baby is covered safely, right temperature etc.

I've found some HCP excellent with anxiety and some use it almost as a cosh to stop me asking awkward questions ("well better safe than sorry... I imagine you want to avoid any possible risks with your history..." and my brain is saying shurrup manipulative biatch, but my heart is saying 'be safe, be safe, don't be a bad mum...'). I got quite annoyed when they couldn't even use the red book properly at weigh ins yet I've hung on their every word about other things. Ironically I was quite militantly sensible when pregnant, but then I had a consultant to back me up!

We crept around our sleeping baby in the living room for about 2 months. My sister could barely suppress her giggles. After disturbing him about 20 times one evening when he was 5.5 months we decided to put him into his cot a full 2 weeks early .
I'm a very Do-it-by-the-book Mum too, much to everyone's surprise. I was actually thinking of starting a thread on it as so many people seem to follow some some bits of advice to the letter but completely ignore others! I find it very hard not to do as I'm told by hcp ( even when I think they're completely wrong) and will torture myself about every guideline I read. My DS is just turned one and I'm only just staring to trust my instincts a little more- he got cows milk 2 weeks early too. Two Whole weeks . And he was ok!

I was trying to remember what I did at this stage, and I used to go to bed when she slept. But my dd has been such a bad sleeper that we've always gone to bed at the same time as her. Even now at 11mo we go to bed 90 minutes after her as she'll wake so often in the night and at 5am.

Can only remember DS. He was downstairs with us to about 4 months. Then in his cot and checked periodically.

I spend a chunk of each week with DH away. No way in a million years could I sit in the dark all evening. Other children, lunchboxes to do, cleaning up, etc.

Literally everyone I know had their DC either downstairs until they went to bed or put them to bed with a monitor. God it must be a strain on your relationship never getting time together too. I am quite angry at your hv /mw on your behalf.

Those guidelines sound impossible! What if you have older DC? I have a 7 week old and a 3 year old snd there's no way I can avoid leaving the baby alone asleep from time to time because I have to get DS to bed in the evenings and DH doesn't often get home before 8pm. DD will sometimes sleep in the sling while I get DS to bed but if she is asleep in her Moses basket then I have to leave her to get on with things obviously.

There's no way you can practically stay in the same room as the baby all night. I think your HCPs are scaremongering. That kind of extreme advice would surely only make an anxious parent worse.

Just get a video monitor and get some of your evenings back.

My twins were 6 weeks early and I put them to sleep in (one) cot in our bedroom for day and night time sleep from the day we brought them home (they were 2 weeks old but actually 36 weeks gestation)

I was trapped feeding them for hours so when they were finally asleep I couldn't wait to get downstairs to freedom!

Try not put more pressure on yourself, you don't have to be with her all the time. No nurse or doctor in the nicu said we shouldnt leave them alone when asleep!

Missed that guideline. I'm surprised I am also very "by the book" Regardless, baby stayed with us in the evenings in the moses basket in the living room or kitchen depending on what we were doing. At around 5 months the transfer upstairs started to unsettle her so we started a proper bedtime routine and starting putting her down upstairs. She has always slept well.

Sorry if I missed a post but why can't you keep LO with you downstairs while you just get on with your life?

Just to add - we also transferred her from the moses basket to a crib beside our bed and that went fine until she was 6 months old. Most small babies sleep to sleep through anything and it is certainly handier to get them used to sleeping around noise anyway. You don't want to be that person who can't flush their loo between thehours of 7pm and 7am

We are following the guidelines as our daughter was prem and low birth weight, which are both SIDS risk factors, but a bit more loosely than you, OP. She is still sleeping in our room and will until 6 months. For day time naps, I potter in and out, doing what I need to do around the house while she sleeps. In the evening she stays downstairs with us until we go to bed, but I think she is getting to the point where she is going to need a quiet bedtime, so we will think about leaving her in her crib with a monitor soon ( she's five and a half months/four corrected) b

I'm really sorry not to have read the whole thread, but I can't read that page of guidance and not explode. What absolute knothead wrote all that? It contradicts itself all the way down the page! So the baby should sleep with an adult for the first six months.... but here's how to settle the baby so it will sleep on its own.... get the baby used to sleeping with noise around it... but make sure you have a routine with quietness and dim lights to help it settle...aaargh!

IT'S ABSOLUTE NONSENSE in a page. I should think OP you are the first person ever to have read the whole thing.

Going back to your actual problem, I think you will go nuts if you don't get some time to yourself. I can't believe you actually have a decent sleeper and you are putting yourself through this. You poor thing. I didn't even bother with a monitor as it became obvious early on that I would soon hear ds if he wanted me to, and I have never actually checked on ds in my life once he was finally ASLEEP. Not saying you have to do what I did, but just to point out that people do these things differently.

Op, seriously how do you think people with older dc manage?

Dc6 , 2 dc with ASD. Work & a lone parent...

The thing is you really will drive yourself mad trying to follow rules. There are 100 different conflicting rules to follow. Like you say, you know what a bad parent looks like. (And how many of their children survive to adulthood? The vast, vast majority.) Follow common sense about safety, love your child, accept and try to understand them, and you can't go far wrong. Oh, and make peace with the fact that you are going to get things wrong, because otherwise it's just going to destroy you.

You're going to make mistakes, you know? This is just the beginning, the very very first thing that you can possibly decide on. It feels paralysing. As they get bigger it gets easier to accept risk, but you're going to need to come to terms with the fact that you can't control every variable. Shit happens to good people, but mostly nothing happens, even if you do things badly. And if something shit is going to happen it happens whether you followed the rules or not.

I am sure that this will get better in time. If it doesn't and you find your anxiety increasing or staying at this elevated level, seek help. Seriously. It's going to impact on you being able to enjoy anything about your baby and that isn't right.

This is great :) www.huffingtonpost.com/ava-neyer/i-read-all-the-baby-sleep-advice-books_b_3143253.html

oh and HCP know shit,mine recommended that we should push for growth hormone treatment because my DS was on 9th percentile at 2 weeks old.

If you can manage spending most of the time your baby is asleep in the same room as them then I'd continue to do so - but equally you can of course pop out to make a cuppa/stick a load of washing on. My kindle has been a godsend (the guidelines are about you being close by to regulate their breathing and prevent deep sleep - you don't actually need to be watching them). If you aren't coping though or feel you need some time out, then take it. Sounds like you are doing a brilliant job.