Sleeping

[overduemamma]

At what age did you leave your babies to sleep in the bedroom alone with a monitor? I have an 8 week old baby and just wondering what's the right age to start taking them to bed and coming back downstairs?

Yes, there's no evidence at all promoting the use of breathing monitors. Plenty of SIDS deaths have occurred whilst on a monitor sadly.

As others have said, it's about what you are comfortable with. From 6 weeks until around 4.5 months, we would leave her in a room with monitor on but would be going to bed ourselves within an hour of putting her down (usually within 20 minutes when she was younger). She woke up when moved from one place to another but slept really well in the same place. As we were generally considered low risk for SIDS where sleep guidance is concerned, we were happy with that.

At 5.5 months, I put her down and don't go to bed myself for another 3-4 hours at least with monitor on. Again, generally low risk for SIDS and be aware that the risk doesn't suddenly fall off the edge of a cliff the day she hits 6 months, it gradually reduces with time - I am comfortable with her being there from then. It also teaches her to sleep in her cot at night, in the dark.

Read the guidance then go with what works for your family

The guidelines are 6 months but we put DS in his own room at 3 weeks - without a monitor - he learned to self settle and has always been an excellent sleeper.

But as others have said, read the guidelines and decide what works best for your own situation.

Mine slept alone in incubators for the first 2 weeks of their lives. When they came home at 14 days old I put them upstairs in their cots for all their naps and at bedtime. Both had sensor monitors.

I did that since he came home from hospital. I never wanted him to sleep downstairs, and plus I really don't like Moses baskets at all, so I'd never have one. He only slept in his crib upstairs with the video monitor. The health visitor knew that and didn't have any issues.

DS at 8 months sleeps in his cotbed in our room. We don't disturb him, he doesn't disturb us. It's actually lovely when he wakes us up in the morning with a huge smile on his face right next to us.

I am repeating what I have already written on a different thread but based on all the research I have read even so called "safe co-sleeping" meaningfully increases the risk of SIDS:

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e002299.full

"When neither parent smoked, and the baby was less than 3 months, breastfed and had no other risk factors, the AOR for bed sharing versus room sharing was 5.1 (2.3 to 11.4) and estimated absolute risk for these room sharing infants was very low (0.08 (0.05 to 0.14)/1000 live-births). This increased to 0.23 (0.11 to 0.43)/1000 when bed sharing. Smoking and alcohol use greatly increased bed sharing risk."

In other words, "safe" bed sharing increases SIDS risk by a factor of 3.

The study also refers to Netherlands where SIDS rates went down after an active campaign to discourage bed sharing.

Of course, it is up to the parents to make their own decisions but it is always useful to know all the facts. Even "safe" co-sleeping does not appear fully safe. It is possible to reduce the risk but it will not be as safe as having the baby in a separate Moses basket or cot in the room with parents.

FWIW - I have taken a risk based decision and moved my baby to a separate room when she was 12 weeks. I did consider co-sleeping when she was a newborn but decided not to go that route after looking at the stats.

Lots of problems with the research though. This is a good summary.

sarahockwell-smith.com/2013/05/21/bedsharing-sids-why-we-have-it-all-wrong/

And it doesn't explain why SIDS deaths in other countries where bedsharing is the norm are so much lower than here. (Might be because a parent suffocating a child (usually though unplanned bed/sofa sharing) is classed as SIDS despite the very clear cause.)

DS slept in our room until he was a year old. At 3 months old DH and I let him nap in our bedroom with the monitor.

Being able to hear them doesn't cover the SIDS risk though. They need to be able to hear you!

Titty - thanks for the link. It is interesting but it does not tell you the research is wrong. It indicates there are opportunities for further analysis (with additional risk factors to consider).

The second question is also interesting. My understanding is that the UK SIDS stats are already relatively low. The 2 developed countries that are doing meaningfully better than us are Netherlands and Japan. Netherlands was specifically mentioned in the link I provided (with SIDS rates going down post the anti-bedsharing campaign). As for Japan - SIDS stats do happen to vary by race and ethnicity and babies of APAC origin seem to fall into the lowest risk category:

www.cdc.gov/sids/data.htm

Thanks for everyone's replies. Baby will be staying in my room until she's at least a year old but was I meant was when do you start putting them to bed on there own and leaving them with the monitor?

Not until they are at least 6 months old.

Titty sorry if I missed it but I'm also fascinated by the hammock... please may you share?!!

It's one of these. Absolutely brilliant.