Baby and own room - will she be ok?

[Blak]

Ok, so my DD is 4.5 months old and we are due to move home on the next couple of weeks, she’s been in the same room as us since birth but she doesn’t fit her Moses basket anymore so is in her cot bed. The new home we are moving too is a bigger house but the bedrooms are smaller which means because DD is not in her Moses anymore and her cot isn’t a cot it’s a cot bed it won’t fit in our bedroom with us and she will have to go into her own room. Is this ok? We have brilliant baby monitors and her room will be opposite ours?

We intended to have our eldest in with us for at least 6 months, but she went into her own room at 4 months because she'd outgrown her sidesleeper and there was no other way for us to room share without her sleeping in my bed with me, which I wasn't comfortable with because of SIDS risk and also because neither of us seemed to sleep well like that.

She was out of sorts the first night, after that she was totally fine.

Having this exact worry. My DD is 5 months old but has almost outgrown the snuzpod abs seems to be waking herself up. We can't get the cot bed in our room which is next to her room so debating if we should put her in the cot bed and hope we all sleep better

We put our DS in his own room at 13 weeks. He was fine after the first night. I did find I went into check on him as I woke in the night for the first couple days but he actually slept better in there than our room (DP snores loud lol) xx

The Lullaby Trust and the NHS recommend room sharing until at least 6 months, due to the SIDS risk.

Could you remove a chest of drawers from your room (and put it in the child's room)? That may make room for the cot.

It's not recommended until 6 months. Asking here is really irrelevant. Nobody's experiences will ever be safer than the current advice which had come from years and years of studies.

Can you push your bed against a wall and wedge the cot down one side?

Your baby won’t be able to hear you breathe (thought to be a protective measure against SIDS) through a monitor. It’s not a replacement.

I don't think anyone can answer this for you. The official guidelines say 6 months minimum however lots of parents will say they did this from x age. Ultimately all you can do is weigh up what level of risk you feel comfortable with knowing the facts available.

Blak What will she nap in downstairs? Could you duplicate that up in your room?

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

Blak What will she nap in downstairs? Could you duplicate that up in your room?

Be very careful here, many babies nap in parks and bouncers which are not suitable for overnight sleeping

Prams, not parks

@Feminist10101

Your baby won’t be able to hear you breathe (thought to be a protective measure against SIDS) through a monitor. It’s not a replacement.

This. You wouldn't be able to hear through a baby monitor if your baby was having breathing difficulties or overheating - babies who die from SIDS don't make a noise. Just rearrange did furniture - it may be inconvenient but it's only for a short time.

I put my DD in her own room at 16 weeks. I know, I know, before all the perfect parents who never put a foot wrong start their lecture, that sleep guidelines say 6 months. However, as a parent, I made the decision. She was waking everytime we rolled over in our bed. She was knackered. We were knackered. So I tried her in her cot in her own room and has slept through the night ever since. I had her monitor on all night so I could hear her if she cried (although I would have heard her anyway. She is 2 now and I wake if she has a moan).

If you as her parent want to put her in her own room at 4.5 months, do it. If you feel comfortable with it, do it. Every parent makes decisions for their own kids. She will be fine.

She will probably be fine, but it’s possible she won’t be.

Corrected for you.

Will she be ok...?

Probably, but maybe not. A bunch of strangers on the internet can hardly predict such a thing can then!

Obviously it's not recommended but there doesn't seem to be a limit on the size of the room in this advice. Is a small room with the door open near another small room worse than either end of a room the size of basketball court?

I presume she'll be close to 5 months by the time you move? I would start to be okay about that although personally would wait if at all possible (we didn't move DS until 9 months although some of that was laziness). The highest risk time for SIDS is 3-4 months so you'd be past that.

DD went in her own room at around 3 months and DS around 6 weeks
Not recommended but they are both fine

NB there's still a risk obviously, it's just lower than at 3-4 months.

@SnuggyBuggy

Obviously it's not recommended but there doesn't seem to be a limit on the size of the room in this advice. Is a small room with the door open near another small room worse than either end of a room the size of basketball court?

If you had a room the size of a basketball court it would be presumed you had the sense to still keep baby near you.

OP if you can't fit the cotbed in, you sleep in the baby room instead.

Its your decision, advice is not to do so until 6 months.

For me, it'd be a no. On the small chance something did happen, I could never forgive myself

No one knows but putting her in her own room increases the risk that she will die from SIDS. A baby monitor and having a door open will make no difference. To be blunt dead babies don’t move or make a noise a monitor won’t help.

There are more than 600,000 babies born in the UK every year and around 200 deaths from SIDS. Of those, how many are preventable (i.e. all guidelines were followed), certainly not all as I recall, so then how many are even possibly attributable to ending room sharing before 6 months? The number will be less than 200. It's reasonable for the OP to take the risk considering the odds, and considering that we don't even know enough about SIDS to know how many parents need to room share to 6 months to prevent one death. There's a good discussion of the evidence in Emily Oster's book Cribsheet where the author concludes that the safety benefit to room sharing is greatest in the first four months and then is diminishing.

@Thatwentbadly so if they dont move or make a noise, you being asleep in the same room as them wont make a difference anyway. I woke when my baby made a noise. I didnt sit up all night watching her be quiet.

We had to move my wardrobe and chest of drawers into DDs room so we could fit her cot in. Very few main bedrooms wouldn't fit a cot and double bed if you move the other furniture out. I couldn't have lived with myself if I'd gone against the medical advice and something had happened. It won't remove risk whatever you do, bad things might happen anyway, but personally I'd do what I could to reduce the risk. It's your decision and the odds of something bad happening are very low.