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 followed that advice with DS but decided that the best thing was to go with it and slept from 7pm most nights- it was the most refreshed I've ever been . I miss those days!

MaccaPacca could you sleep at 7pm though? Even with night feeds my mind says it's day! Not to mention the feeling of being isolated even from other mums with slightly older babies.
Hovering on the same floor helps me at the moment. So far so good.

Next step maybe to mostly hover on the same floor but pop downstairs for cups of tea etc?

Yeah, strangely I could and it really helped with looking after a newborn because when he woke at 2am I'd already been asleep for a good few hours. I am very good at falling asleep after years of shift working!

Sadly I've never had that knack even working nights! Drat!

Both my dcs for first few months slept downstairs in Moses basket or pram or on me and we then carried them up with us when we went to bed. After that dd went to sleep in Moses basket with monitor and I checked her regularly.

With ds he had whooping cough caught pre jab at four weeks and had choking fits so I never left him to sleep alone until completely better around 8 months, but he slept downstairs until I went to bed. Both mine been v good at sleeping downstairs though and through noise and we have a double room so they would be with light off in back half and we would be in front half with light on and tv quite quiet.

That said their sleeping from midnight until morning was atrocious for ages.

I have left DS to sleep on his own in our room at night until we go to bed since about three months (only didn't do it earlier because he would only sleep on me before that). He is far too unsettled a sleeper to move him mid-sleep, and I would never get a thing done if I couldn't use the couple of hours between his bedtime and mine productively. He normally wakes up repeatedly for the first couple of hours so the idea he's going to fall so deeply asleep he's at risk of SIDS seems rather remote!

I'm having a similar problem, DS is 15 weeks, hasn't fit in the Moses basket for a month now but I just can't make myself sit in the bedroom as night while not sleeping! Spoke to the hv about it as we have the angel care monitor which tells you if the rooms too got or too cold and obviously if no movement is detected, and I also asked about puttin him in the cot with the monitor on an checking on him every 10mins so he could still hear me pottering around but she still said it was against the guidelines so she couldn't advise me on that and even tho I think it's a stupid guideline I can't make myself just ignore it! So we've now got a travel cot in the very small living room and are making do with not having a proper bedtime routine and keeping him downstairs until we go to bed altho we have to whisper all night it's such a pain!

Thing is HVs can't officially advise you to ignore the guidelines, although mine have been quite pragmatic - eg pointing out that most people don't follow them!

Who are these people who see and have long chats with the hv too? I saw this one twice (non London ) and for my eldest saw her once.

Do they really see you all the time in some areas?

Mine visited before birth, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, then at 6 months and so on, and then inbetween I see her at clinic for weighing (every 4 weeks now but was every 2 weeks) that's the standard for my area, not sure if it's just a first baby thing or for every baby

We only had two "official"
HV visits at home. I've been for regular weigh-ins though due to feeding issues so have seen various HVs a lot for that reason

We have one at the house then you go to the clinic (which is obviously weight based) - you ring if you want more support. As mine triggered needless anxiety about feeding/health (GP, MW team and nurse all dismayed by the hv - who put me on come-every-week-watch for low weight when dd was NOT slipping percentile and feeding fine, knowing I have anxiety) I am reluctant to call about this!

My HV came every 4/5 days to my house from when baby was 10 days old till 6 weeks , it's stabdard practise if 1st baby but you can refuse it if you want there after you visit them monthly till baby 6 months then again at 1 year

Goodness! I had my first in London. You got one home visit at around 2 weeks. Then possibly a second a month later. That was it. No further visits to your home. Clinics run by healthcare assistants, not hv. You could ask to see the HV at some of the clinic sessions and stand in a big long queue I think, but no one I know ever did. They didn't even come to your house for the two year check.

Just had my third in another area and the set up is the same, though may be because it's not my first.