When did you let your baby sleep alone?

[segc94]

I don't mean in their own room all night, I just mean in the evening time after 7pm until we go to bed at about 10/11pm.
My 7week daughter sleeps between this time and wakes up for a feed and then goes back to sleep.
However when she's sleeping downstairs with us she does get disrupted with us talking or if the tv has a loud part.
So I'm wondering is it safe yet to let her sleep in her Moses basket upstairs on her own (with monitors obviously)

Also, what age did you put your baby in there own room?

Sweet I would either co sleep or sleep on a mattress in her bedroom. I wouldn't be able to sleep knowing she was in a separate room so young.

I've never understood the point of the monitors, I thought the point of the baby sleeping in your room is because your presence is supposed to regulate their breathing and ensure they don't fall into too deep a sleep? Is their any evidence that a monitor reduces the sids risk?

Monitors, whether audio/video/breathing sensor, don't reduce the risk of SIDS. That is well documented. By the time you're alerted that the baby has stopped breathing it's too late.

I have a video monitor as I like to see when he's asleep, if he's sat up/stood up or just whinging in his sleep etc.

3 months
8 weeks
4 months

That's my 3. I wouldn't wait 6 months because by 4 months at the absolute latest babies are too easily disturbed downstairs. I start a proper nightly routine at 8 weeks or before. The only reason my youngest was 4 months was due to reflux and undiagnosed cmpa. A lot of the guidelines aren't practical so you have to use your own instinct, each baby is individual. My 2nd baby slept on her front too!

londonloves the one I have has a movement sensor under the mattress which sets off an alarm if he stops breathing. The audio / video ones I'm not sure how people use them.

brawnelamia - your presence is supposed to regulate their breathing I'd never heard that but would be interested to know more. Can you remember where you heard / read about it?

Currently pregnant with my first baby. Baby will not sleep alone until they're 6 months old, as per safe sleep guidelines. God forbid if anything should happen to her, I want to know I did my damnedest to prevent it.

Safe sleep guidelines - www.lullabytrust.org.uk/safer-sleep-advice/

8 months before he slept on his own. The SIDs guideline are there for a reason. It's not just about being able to hear/check on the baby (which I thought before I read up on it) but rather that being in the same room as you regulates their breathing.

Better to err on the side of caution and have baby sleep in the same room until at least 6 months. Seems like a million miles away now (or was that just me ) but it's only a few more months before their ready.

*their = they're (before the spelling and grammar police get me )

I am not sure missy, I can't remember if it was something I read or was told by a health visitor. To be honest, the advice chimed with my personal inclination to keep my babies as close as possible in the early months, so I probably didn't look into it any further

Things were different back 15 years ago. Pre madeleine, pre sally Clarke cot death. I didn't really know much about sids and monitors weren't used by anyone I knew.

I put ds1 in his own cot in his own bedroom after a week because he was so snuffly and noisy, neither Dh nor I could sleep with him in the Moses basket in our room.
He was a fab sleeper, so I moved him from the (second) Moses basket in the lounge, at 6pm, into his cot, as part of his bedtime routine.

I'm sure you are all shocked by this. But I wasn't aware of the guidelines, as they are now, and my Hv was totally happy.

Things do change!

Our son is 16 months & still sleeps in our room in his own cot.

And I used to adore getting up, going into his room at 10pm and 2am, sitting in my mil's beautiful Ercol rocking chair and breastfeeding him. He gave a big burp and was asleep again before I was out the door. I was at my happiest at those times.

Don't worry. I got my comeuppance. Ds2 screamed off and on practically all night every night, for nearly 6 months.

But guidelines change and how parents parent changes too. With time.

I've had a long day hubby's been at work all day not had my meal yet baby's nearly 5 months I've left her upstairs in Moses basket monitors I keep checkin on her. Gunna have meal and go up even during the night I keep getting up every few hours to check on her

Which baby monitors are the best the video ones? I need sumthing that I can see on my phone using the app

I have put my DS to his own room when was 6 months old. Not because I didn't feel it safe to have him far away, just because it was much easier with nursing and I liked the short distance. He was never disturbed by us, had a good sleep even when tv was on. My DD slept with us a bit longer until they moved into the same room.

I don't see the point of the video ones personally but each to their own.

I used an audio one because we used to have the TV on and I wanted to hear him at the first hint of crying, not when he was massively upset and in a state. Also we had a really rustly bed protector so I could hear if he'd woken up and was rolling/crawling around, as there was only a bed guard on one side.

The breathing regulation thing is just a theory, it's totally unproven, there isn't any way to monitor it. We only know that room sharing is correlated with lower SIDS rates. But some of the best data we have about room sharing and/or bed sharing comes from the sleep lab at Durham. I remember one of the ladies there did a webchat on MN several years ago, it was amazing. You can see their studies if you google sleep lab at Durham.

Agree with Oblomov - my DS is now 17 and when he was born he went straight into his own room, on his own - he learned to self settle and I have never, ever had a broken night's sleep (until now - waiting for a teenager to come home .)

The guidelines were different then, I followed GF which is hated on Mumsnet (actually even in those days). I absolutely understand why people want to follow the guidelines now but a part of me does wonder if that is why so many babies have trouble sleeping as they are never left on their own and never seem to learn to self settle?

I absolutely understand why people want to follow the guidelines now but a part of me does wonder if that is why so many babies have trouble sleeping as they are never left on their own and never seem to learn to self settle?

I don't think babies not sleeping is a new thing

I have put my DS to his own room when was 6 months old. Not because I didn't feel it safe to have him far away, just because it was much easier

Yes this is another thing, getting out of bed is a proper effort in the middle of the night! I love my bedside cot.

Sorry - people are saying that when their baby goes to sleep at 8 PM they go and sit in the same room with them even if they don't plan to sleep until 10PM? Until the baby is 6 months old?

I never took the guidance to room share until 6 months to mean that a newborn can literally never be left asleep unattended for any period of time until then. And I have two pediatricians in my family who sent me every piece of research about safe sleep/SIDS out there.

I absolutely understand why people want to follow the guidelines now but a part of me does wonder if that is why so many babies have trouble sleeping as they are never left on their own and never seem to learn to self settle?

Well there's a correlation between deep sleep and SIDS. That's why the guidelines recommend the room not being too warm, babies on their backs, BF, etc. All things that encourage them to wake more regularly. I'd rather be tired if it is safer.

I never took the guidance to room share until 6 months to mean that a newborn can literally never be left asleep unattended for any period of time until then. And I have two pediatricians in my family who sent me every piece of research about safe sleep/SIDS out there.*

Well that IS the guidance, of course it's not always practical but I'm not sure why you're incredulous about people following it.

No I didn't sit in the bedroom We had DS downstairs in the evenings in a bouncy chair or on our laps or on a blanket on the floor until about 8 months when he started crawling/cruising and needed supervision or wanted entertainment, that was the point we decided bedtime would be a useful thing to implement. Before then it was nice to have longer cuddles and I didn't want him to be in another room.

I don't know, TBH, whether the guidance actually means that they need to be in the room with you for all sleeps all the time. It seems lots of people interpret it that way but then others don't, and I don't think it's actually made clear anywhere.

I know one guideline I actively ignored was not to let them sleep in their car seat. I wouldn't have put him in it overnight but if he fell asleep in the car, you bet I was bringing the whole seat inside and leaving him there until he woke up.

DS was upstairs in his cot, at the foot of our bed, from birth. For about 2 weeks I would go to bed with him, so that I could sleep before doing night BF'ing. Gradually I started staying downstairs, having dinner with DH etc. We were all in bed by 10pm.

SIDS guidelines are just that, guidelines. My baby would not settle downstairs. Guidelines suggest that a dummy also reduces cot death risk, but DS never took one. Does that mean I've failed him too?

For the record, DD slept in our room in a cot next to the bed for 5 months, and I breastfed until well into toddlerhood. But I never thought that for every single nap or short period of time she slept, another person must be in the room with her. In the early days this tended to be the case because I slept when she did, and I also hardly ever stayed up more than 30 min after she went down to sleep!