SIDS guidelines....A question

[MrsO501]

I know that the sids guidelines state that my DS should sleep in the same room as us until he is 6 months and this is what we are doing but i just wanted to ask if anyone knows what it is about being in the same room that decreases the sids risk? Is it that you can hear the baby, or is it something else? If we are asleep and not looking at our DS then why does it make any difference that he is in our room 6 feet away from us? I am confused!

You do not need to sit in a dark room..? We took our baby to bed at 7pm and went up with him till he was 6 months

We would either sit and watch TV / read a book with a side light on, in bed while our baby would sleep next to us in his crib.

I was told a baby should not be left to sleep without a adult in the room until they where over 6 months old after hearing this I personally couldn't go against that advice as if the worst did happen I couldn't live with myself so for my peace of mind I needed to follow the guidelines to the letter.

Everyone is different though so just do what makes you happy.

Even when DS was born in early 2012 I'd never heard of anyone sitting in the dark all evening with the baby. Everyone kept them downstairs until lights, talking and the TV started disturbing them (seemed to be around 2-3months for most) then popped them upstairs, with a monitor on their own. Some people checked up on them every 30mins to an hour but most didn't seem to do that. I didn't, DS was just left from 3minths (when he started going down earlier than us, prior to that he stayed away until 11pm).

After the first few weeks, day time naps seemed a pretty split area, with half of people I knew either keeping baby downstairs and half putting them upstairs with monitor.

I do think things are going really over the top and postnatal depression rates increase with it too. Yes you should reduce risks but not to the extreme that you loose your sanity with it.

Well actually some people do need to sit in a dark room to follow the guidelines. That is the point being made. Some babies will sleep well with lights and telly - whatever room that is. Others get to point where they need dark and quiet. At which point you decide whether to put them to bed and leave them for an hour or two or sit in the dark.

SIDS is a very low risk. I underatand the importance of guidelines but i still find it baffling the amount of worry people do about it compared to other serious risks. For example, few people worry about car journies Quite a small number have done first aid courses. ..

• awake until 11pm

Sorry for other typos too. Using my phone.

I agree whyowhy. Anxiety generally seems to be rising exponentially. There is a whole thread about going to the loo when out where some people seem certain that parking the baby outside the cubicle will result in abduction.

I remember reading on one of these SIDS risk type threads that a mum was sitting in a dark room with her baby every night and ringing her partner downstairs to come up and "take over" whilst she nipped to the loo. So that the baby was literally never left alone, even for a wee. That just seemed like an unsustainable level of anxiety to maintain for 6 months.

I'm watching this thread with real interest as I have a four month old and had never come across this guideline - in fact the HV I saw two months ago stressed the importance of establishing a bedtime routine as early as possible and getting DD used to self-settling in our room in the dark (and the benefits of getting an hour or two with DH!)
I was feeling really proud that over the last month she has started settling happily upstairs after her last feed at 9 but now feel guilty that we've been leaving her for a couple of hours (with a monitor and regular checks) until we go to bed!
It really is so hard to know what to do for the best - and doesn't help when the advice is inconsistent and even contradictory!

Thee NHS Guidelines are pushing the 'dark quiet room' actually. From NHS website

*It’s a good idea to teach your baby that night time is different to daytime from the start.
During the day, open curtains, play games and don't worry too much about everyday noises when they sleep.
At night, you might find it helpful to:
keep the lights down low
not talk much and keep your voice quiet
put your baby down as soon as they’ve been fed and changed
not change your baby unless they need it
not play with your baby
Soon, your baby will learn that night time is for sleeping.

You may feel ready to introduce a bedtime routine when your baby is around three months old. Getting them into a simple, soothing bedtime routine can be helpful for everyone and can help prevent sleeping problems later on. It's also great one-to-one with your baby. The routine could consist of:
having a bath
changing into night clothes and a fresh nappy
brushing their teeth (if they have any!)
putting to bed
reading a bedtime story
dimming the lights in the room to create a calm atmosphere
giving a goodnight kiss and cuddle
singing a lullaby or having a wind-up musical mobile that you can turn on when you've put your baby to bed
Leave your baby still awake, happy and relaxed in their cot and they will learn how to fall asleep on their own. Try to avoid getting them to sleep by rocking or cuddling them in your arms. If they get used to falling asleep in your arms, they may need nursing back to sleep if they wake up again.*

So from birth keep the room dak and quiet, and apparently from 3 months it's inportant they are in the dark, in their cot and apparently being left alone to go to sleep (but not alone as you have to be in the same room... Hiding behind then bed?) so there is no wonder people are going up to a dark bedroom with their babies and sitting in silence, because they are following these guidelines to the letter. If it's that important to keep sleeping babies with an adult every second then it would be nice if they also removed all that crap about leaving them alone in a dark room to settle from 3 months and people maybe would feel better about them just being in the corner of the living room!

Although if you can sit in a light room with noise and the baby sleeps I can see why you think it's fine to do that for 6 months. We couldn't do that with DS, he'd be wide awake half the night. So from 3 months he went in the cot at about 8 and I'd eat and get an hour or so of actual downtime before I was back up for the night shift from about 10-11 (when he wanted his next feed anyway!)

See I think it would be selfish to not try to protect your baby as much as possible. Yes the risks are low, but it isn't a hard thing to do to protect them from even such a low risk, you just need them in the same room as you. It isn't really asking very much at all, I don't understand why people act as though it is such a terrible hardship.

We just kept them in living room with us into we went to bed and took them with us ( co slept most the time)

In most countries that are hot the culture is that people co sleep or whole families sleep in one room, and they go to bed much later so everyone goes together so I presume they don't have the issue of sitting alone with baby

Bug - that's at night though. 7pm isn't night to me it's evening. So keeping baby downstairs until 11pm when you go to bed is fine, they have the dark part 11pm-7am when you sleep also

I will add that he just slept on me in the front room as the other guidelines are about sleep habits and not safety and if it isn't a safety issue I will work around what fits best lifestyle wise.

So having got your judgey pants on that it is not a big deal, you didn't have to do it because yours would sleep in the living room.

But what if your baby won't settle in the living room?
My baby won't. She also wakes if I have the TV on in the room. So my alternative is to sit in my room in the dark from 7.30 onwards and not see my husband for 3 months except at weekends (she wakes if we speak in our room).

I don't think it's selfish to want to keep my marriage going and have some communication with my husband during the week. (He doesn't get home til almost 7 then he puts older dd to bed and I put younger dd down at same time).

As conscious as I was of the sids guidelines at about 4 months dd stopped sleeping in the Moses basket in the evening. The lights and noise from the tv disturbed her so we decided to put her to bed upstairs from that Point. I would check on her and very often be in bed myself not much more than an hour later but I still had somr time with dh. She slept much better in the dark and quiet. It was either that or she stayed awake screamin all evening because she was tired and over stimulated.

Here here Rosey.

God this competitive martyr parenting gets on my nerves.

Yes. If your baby will sleep while you get on with life, great. Other times it is a choice between sitting in the dark for a teeny risk reduction or leaving them for sanity and a tiny bit of adult time.

Oh, and what about single parents with older children (or people whose partner gets in late).

Ah, while you are making me out to be the insane neurotic one perhaps I should have added that I know two couples who had their baby die from cot death.

Same as I know 5 people who experienced stillbirth, tiny risk, but one I was quite aware of.

I think it just comes down to personal experiences. Oh and both of mine were jan babies so they were 5-6 mths at this time of year, so it was hardly sitting in a dark room! I'm also 'older' (gave birth at 38 & 40) so a few weeks to me really is a short amount of time

Mine are grown up. when they were 2-5 months old the thought there was a " reason" to go to bed at 8pm with baby snoozing in the cot and me quietly mumsnetting or watching TV on a tablet would have been utter heaven! As it was the buggers didn't sleep!

This is partly why having a new baby is do hard, you try to do what you think is best for your family and you get told it's selfish and that you wouldnt forgive yourself if your baby dies. Back to the self doubt.

Mine didn't have a choice. We live in an open plan, one bed flat. They had to learn to sleep through noise and lights. What other option would they have

I have not read every single post, but to answer your first question directly - it is not known. We have no evidence to suggest why this is helpful, it's just the case that SIDS occurs more frequently to babies under six months when they are sleeping alone than when they are in a room with you.

I just kept DS downstairs with me.

I am surprised at that NHS advice that Buglife posted. I've seen it before, but it surprises me because NHS advice is supposed to be evidence based, and as far as I am aware, the "quiet dark room" and the idea of "teaching a baby day from night" is entirely anecdotal and merely common practice, rather than evidence based. It even says "It's a good idea to..." - which is odd to me. I'm tempted to question it. Especially the direct instruction to avoid feeding or rocking a baby to sleep - fine, perfectly okay strategy to go with, but it's not evidence based. And it's not the only way.

This isn't about advice that I agree/disagree with, BTW. I'm perfectly supportive of advice which states that it's safest for babies to sleep in cots, even though I'm a supporter of co-sleeping, because the evidence that we have available DOES show that cots are statistically safer. That makes sense. But I've never seen any evidence at all (aside from anecdotal, which doesn't really count) that it's important to teach babies day from night or that the method suggested achieves this.

I think that you must do whatever is practical and safest. It was totally practical for me to have DS sleeping downstairs with me for daytime naps. I suppose that I sometimes left the room, but I was in and out, pottering, and I had a small house. It wasn't like I was going a long way away from him. Conversely, I would imagine that if your baby is very restless and easily disturbed, it would be better for them to be in a quiet and dark place to sleep. And then it would be madness to expect parents to sit quietly in with them. But it's just saying that it's safer for them to be with you, they don't know why, so if it's reasonable to do that, then do it.

Cot death is so rare that the differences you're making in risk really are miniscule. I would rather see more awareness raising and research going into stillbirth, which is much more common. Cot death guidelines are important but you also have to live reasonably.

Day times naps downstairs seem to work fine but after bed time he seems to need to be in his moses basket in the dark and quiet. I feel like I need to spend a bit of grown up time with my DP soon so I think DS might have to go upstairs with the monitor for an hour. It's so tricky as I don't want to do the wrong thing and baby brain is making decisions tricky atm!

onedog - Was that last post to me? I am sorry you know people affected by cot death. So do I.

But actually I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to conifer, who confidently announced that if you didn't stay with your baby you were 'selfish'. Before, in a separate post, adding that she didn't have to sit in the dark because hers slept in the living room.

I don't mind if people want to follow the guidelines to the letter. Their baby, their choice. It is the attitude that not doing so is bonkers and selfish that I object to.

NickyEds. You said smoking and putting babies on their backs are the biggies. Obviously smoking is an issue but the way you typed it seems like you were saying babies shouldn't be on their backs. I just wanted to flag it in case anyone still thinks you should put the baby down to sleep on their front.

We had a monitor and babies went to bed at 7pm in our room and we checked often by that wasn't straight away. I worried about cot death until they were two. More so with DC1 as he nearly died at birth.