Do you let your baby sleep alone?

[Nessalina]

Can't decide if I'm being PFB, but me & DH have been following safe sleeping guidelines to the letter, so at 7:30 I put our 4 month old baby to bed and I sit in the darkened bedroom with him, watching Amazon prime on my mobile until about 10:30 when I go to sleep.

In chatting to other mums at baby group it seems that a lot of them put the baby down and them leave them to it with a monitor, and then come up to bed whenever they would normally.

So I know SIDs guidelines are that baby should sleep in a room with an adult, but am I taking it too far?? I would kind of like to get my evenings back...

No, my mum would never do this. But, approx x10 the number of babies died from SIDS the year I was born compared to 2012 when I had DD1.

Was that mot to do with many more smokers, no requirement to use new mattresses, front sleeping (the biggie) and more FF though?

Apologies if I've added 10 years to your age!! Going by my age!

stargirl, i wonder is that statistic an awful lot more down to the fact that when we were babies, we were put to sleep on our fronts/sides, that smoking was way more common, etc...i can't help but suspect that sleeping on our own in a room has a very minuscule impact on those numbers

70% of the fall was within two years of the back to sleep campaign according to this link.

Whilst I doubt there is much academic study, I am pretty sure that parents in the 90s weren't routinely sitting a darkened bedroom with their baby. If the baby was the sort that slept in the living room in a moses basket with light, maybe. If the baby required you to sit next to their cot in the dark. No. That was pretty unknown when I had DD1 (or certainly I never heard of a mum who did it, or heard it discussed on MN) and she's only 6. I've said it before on this thread, but I think more people are rigid with those rules since smartphones and streaming make it a little more palatable.

Another big risk risk factor from that study was smoking, which has also fallen and fallen in the last 20 years.

Penguin - it's been the same for years. I was told the same for ds1 (5) and my sil was told the same for nephew who's 12

I didn't say it wasn't the advice Art. I said I didn't know anyone who did it unless their baby was the type who'd sleep in the living room with life going on around them. All this sitting in the dark for three hours every night is very recent in the circles I move in, and on MN from the threads I read. I am certainly willing to hear people did it 12 years ago (doing what?! Presumably trying to read with a tiny light), but I don't think it was very common at all.

I think smartphones and tablets probably make it less onerous than, say, a decade ago. It is a minor thing compared with the biggies mentioned - lying on their backs, not smoking in pg or post-natally and breastfeeding.

Well no pottering about upstairs folding baby clothes and other thrilling tasks for me tonight. Someone "just cannot even handle it today" to use the popular Internet saying. The irate little eye opens almost psychically if I edge off the bed (considering she has a cold and is actually snoring ... how does she know??).

Thank goodness for pinterest. At least I can look at cake.

I agree, it is now feasible to do it because tablets & smart phones exist, you're not just sitting in a darkened room watching a baby. And because it can be done, your brain says "why take the risk?"

Having looked into the stats, I know that SIDS drops off at 4 months, before the even bigger drop off at 6 months (apparently 74% of SIDS cases happen before 4 months), so I feel like that's a good point for me to start giving him and me a bit more space in the evening before the big room move. To be honest, most days
I enjoy the evening baby time while he's asleep as it's the only time I really get all to myself, but it'd be nice to feel like I could do something in a different room!

no I would get on with whatever I needed to do or stay downstairs. I did have baby monitor. both dds stayed in our bedrooms for 6 months' but ds went straight into his own room after 2 days' of coming home from hospital. all grown up now

Nessa that's interesting. A misery loves company friend convinced me 4-6 months was most dangerous because you start taking more "risks" but baby isn't 6 months yet. Very glad to hear it's more like what I'd expected, it gradually reduces over time.

Mind you 6 months is so arbitrary anyway, it must be more a sliding scale. I know an adult who died of something like SIDS ...We can't exactly all watch each other sleep would be well creepy.

6 months is a very arbitrary time mentioned to do with babies for everything, they don't magically change overnight. 6 month old babies are 'supposed' to be able to sleep through the night without feeds ... Hah bloody hah. No chance of DS going on his own room while I still feed him twice a night.

Gosh I did it wrong then. I did not realise that people actually spend their evenings sitting in a dark room whilst baby sleeps! I interpreted the nhs advice as the risk is lowered if baby sleeps in the same room as you (i.e. overnight, not for every sleeping moment). And that was only two years ago! We just whacked the video monitor on and went downstairs to watch telly.

I'm due dc 2 in July and I'll be putting her to bed (in the evening)as soon as I can. Unless she's premature (nothing I can do about that) then she'll be a girl (again, not a great deal I could do about ds's gender!), breast fed (hopefully), on a new mattress, in her own cot, not overly heated, on her back, I'll be over 20 (by a bloody long way!) and I've had decent ante natal care and we don't smoke. I think that the benefits of 2 hours downstairs with dp will far outweigh the, mercifully tiny increase in risk caused by her being alone for a couple of hours. If she turns out anything like her brother it will only be from 4 months as he wouldn't settle for cluster feeding till then anyway.

I currently leave ds (6 wks) for short periods alone. DH is out at work 6pm- 7.30am and I don't understand how I'm supposed to manage if I don't. He is with me most of the time but if he settled in his basket I will nip downstairs to get a drink or load the dishwasher. If he seems really settled I will have a quick shower if I've not had one earlier in day. Do people really not leave babies even for 5 mins to nip to loo?
I do have a video monitor and breathing sensor which I use.

Mine slept either in a sling on his dad or cuddled up in me all evening. Loved those long cuddles. He didn't sleep alone till at least 6 months.

Nearly always DS slept on me (if not in his pram, or in his beside cot at night) which meant I was pretty much stuck underneath him. If he was asleep in the pram he would be in the same room as me, but I would nip to the loo. In the evenings we would do the same, either asleep on me or DP until we went up to bed. It didn't seem to be particularly onerous, but we were fortunate that DS would sleep in the living room with just low lighting and the TV on quietly.

Also that you were both around in the evening Culture. I found the times DH was around far more manageable.

Yes, it is easier when there is another pair of hands. Although my DP works long hours and would not be home before 8pm (often more like 9 or 10pm), so I only got a short respite!

That is hard too. 8 is ok. 10 is no loo trips or drinks all evening.

I seriously cannot see the logic in denying yourself drinks and loo trips, if your bf that will affect your supply. If the baby is quite safe in Moses/cot then 2 mins on their own is a tiny tiny risk.

My dd slept in her crib with us downstairs from a few weeks old following bath/ bf at around 6/6.30 with baby monitor on. You have to be comfortable in whatever you do, so do what works. I'm amazed at the number of people sitting in a dark room all evening though!

I think this all sounds 100% completely bonkers.
My baby is 5 months old. From about 8 weeks she had all her naps in the nursery with a video monitor and from 10 weeks she slept in there at night too.
I would be literally insane by now if I was tiptoeing around and not watching telly.
I went with the most commonsense and obvious of the guidelines around temperature, bedding and sleeping position. FUCK the ones about making sure the baby is with you 24 hours a day. I honestly think they only serve to make people feel guilty and go crazy.

I'm with you tak1ngchances, sitting in dark quiet rooms with sleeping babies all evening seems completely mad to me

Another one who thinks this is a little OTT. It never occurred to me to sit quietly in a darkened room watching my dc sleep. If you take that level of monitoring any more seriously you'd have to cut out your own sleep completely because clearly while you sleep yourself you can't watch their every breath.
Both of mine slept in their own bed and room from birth, and I slept in their rooms for the first weeks. After that, monitors all the way, or when they were ill I would revert back to staying in their rooms.