Rushing to move baby into their own rooms or to sleep on their own...

[Safesleeping]

I've seen so many posts recently about putting babies in their own room and such a young age so the parent/s can sleep better. So many comment "my baby makes to much noise at night" "my baby needs to learn to sleep in their own". Its so sad, your baby needs and wants to be around you, there is the 6month rule for a reason.

Why do you really need to push your baby out at such young ages? Did you not think about these things before having a baby? I really hope nothing happens to these babies that are being put into their own rooms because mummy needs more sleep...

The guidelines don’t explain the WHY because we don’t actually know what causes SIDS in most instances. Nor do we understand why some of the ‘protective factors’ are protective. It’s all based on correlations because we just don’t know. And it’s much more complex than the safer sleep campaign might lead you to believe (as you illustrate nicely around dummies @Foxinthechickencoop).

People do need to try to figure out what works for them to some degree. Not least because many of us have babies who clearly are not on board with the guidance and any sleep (for everyone) is safer than no sleep (for anyone).

Maybe just keep the baby in parents bedroom. Dad drinks or smokes and rolls over which kills the baby. Much safer.

These kind of posts are pathetic. Not sure why I have wasted 5 mins engaging with this nonsense

How about you worry about your own life and kids and let others worry about theirs? Parenting is hard enough without other parents judging you for making different choices.

I did share a room with my two till they were 7/8 months, but what annoys me about this sort of discussion is how selective judgy people are about the guidelines. According to mumsnet putting a baby in a different room makes you an awful selfish parent, yet many mumsnetters adivcate bed sharing even though that is also against safe sleep guidelines according to the lulluby trust. In fact the risks are similar and relatively low for both, whereas falling asleep on a sofa together is 5x worse (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC28288/)

By far the most important thing to follow is the 'back to sleep' advice. That campaign decreased SIDS by 81% in the UK.

*advocate (darn autocorrect!)

@Dinosaur01

It’s not a rule it’s a guideline. I put my son in his room at 7 weeks and he’s a wonderful sleeper now. If you have a video monitor with sound it’s basically the same as having them next to you anyway.

Just to say, whilst it's your business when you moved your child your advice is incorrect. It is in no way the same as one of the many benefits of keeping baby in with you is so that they can hear your breathing. No monitors can replicate that and please do not offer that advice to unsure mothers contemplating a move as it's untrue and against guidelines

@arialanna I totally agree. Couldnt agree more. Sleeping in the same room seems to be everything on MN, and the rest of the guidance never gets mentioned.

Is that ok, or should I have slept on his bedroom floor for six days?

According to some on here, leaving your baby to sleep on their own at 5 months and 31 days is extremely irresponsible, dangerous and terrible parenting. But 6 months and 0 days? Fine!

I totally agree, mine is 20 months and still sleeping next to me in a cot! It's not the norm but feels right for me, but everyone is different

I moved my baby into his own room at 6 months, because we've all been disturbing each other during the night and I thought it was the right time in terms of the guidelines. I didn't realise that the advice has now changed to 12 months! We've all been sleeping so much better but I'm now wondering if I should move him back in with us.

@JKDcot

Mumsnet is a forum site.

These types of posts are important to some even if you do not agree. Of course you are allowed your opinion also, but branding it ridiculous and pathetic is very unconstructive.

Unfortunately SIDS does happen and there is an increased (albeit still very low) risk at moving a baby out of a room prematurely. It is a serious topic.

There are many reasons why some people may feel they need to move their baby into a different room at a young age I’m sure Parents feel this outweighs the slightly increased risk it presents. But it is important to know it does increase the risk and to make a judgement with that in mind.

@hummusandpitta

I totally agree, mine is 20 months and still sleeping next to me in a cot! It's not the norm but feels right for me, but everyone is different

Why is it 'not the norm'? It seems normal enough to me.

Well I must be the worst mother in the world. I was living abroad when I had my daughter (she's 12 now) and neither myself nor my husband had had any experience of babies at all. Literally didn't know a thing, it was also a place where they just don't tell you what to do with babies, you go into hospital, you have it, you go away again. I didn't know how to put a nappy on when we took daughter home. I learnt how to make a bottle from the box! We had read a couple of books but had no idea really of how things worked in practice. She was in a cot in our room for a few weeks, then when she was 8 weeks old we moved to another country, also abroad. She then went into her own room. No monitor or anything. When she cried, which was maybe once a night (she has always, again by pure luck, been an excellent sleeper), she was fed. We were blissfully unaware of "The Guidelines".

Of course, I'm not saying that guidelines aren't brilliant and I must admit, I wish I had known more about them and we were lucky that daughter was healthy and nothing happened, "there but for the grace of" and all that. They say ignorance is no excuse, but genuinely, having no family around or even friends with children and being in a new country where we knew no-one, we didn't realise we were ignorant of things if you know what I mean? We knew she needed to be dry, clean and fed and somehow we knew about the "back to sleep" rule but that was it, the rest of it, we made up as we went along. And fortunately she has turned out just fine!

But hey ho, if I'm a bad, neglectful mummy so be it!

Sorry, OP, but you're being well out of line here.

SIDS is awful. Absolutely awful. But if the baby stops breathing while you're asleep, how will you know, whether they're in the same room or not?

This seems to be a thread solely to judge mothers.

Being a mum to a small child is relentless, and if moving baby into his/her on bedroom can help you get even the TINIEST BIT more sleep to get you through, then so be it.

By far the biggest contributor to the reduction in SIDS is the back to sleep campaign.

Incidentally, cosleeping is also discouraged, there are only “safe” guidelines on how to do it because they realise that parents will do it anyway, but it still increases the risk of SIDS,

I don’t believe you have children and I don’t believe you have two friends whose babies died from SIDS. SIDS is exceptionally rare, and if you lectured a friend on the guidelines after her baby had died you’re a despicable person.

But welcome to mumsnet. And now I’m off to hit the report button.

@LindaEllen you are not more likely to know. You are right there.
The protective factor is that the baby is LESS likely to stop breathing. Because the noises and movements you make, means the baby is in a less deep sleep and therefore is able to use the rhythm of the parents breathing to regulate their own.

There really needs to be more information about this because as this thread has evidenced, it’s so easy to come to the wrong conclusions .

What I do know is it would have felt very wrong to me personally to put my child on a room on his own from six months. I don’t get it at all. He was still a little baby and I my instinct was that I wanted him near me.

Each to their own but I struggle to relate on this point in particular - I do think, often, the main motivation is selfishness. There you have it 😐

What I do know is it would have felt very wrong to me personally to put my child on a room on his own from six months. I don’t get it at all. He was still a little baby and I my instinct was that I wanted him near me.

My baby went into his own room from six months and it has really worked for him - he seemed very content from night one. His sleep is no longer disturbed by me and DH coming up to bed and waking him up, or by DH's terrible snoring or my trips to the loo. He's slept much better next door and seems less grumpy, better rested and brighter as a result.

I wasn't sure about moving him to begin with, but am now so pleased we did.

@LindaEllen you misunderstand what is protective about room sharing, it’s not that you hear them it’s that being close to you means they’re less likely to stop breathing. It’s going into too deep a sleep that’s the issue, you WANT your noises to be rousing baby gently. Also breathing out carbon dioxide into the air encourages them to breathe. Whether you can hear them breathing on a monitor or not isn’t the point at all. We’re not meant to be physically separate from our babies evolutionarily, we’ve evolved for mothers and their babies to interact as a dyad.

Well done you. I have a health condition that is triggered by lack of sleep and extreme exhaustion. I put my son in his own room at 4 months, more harm was likely to come to him if I allowed myself to get over exhausted.

Also, yes I did think of this before I had a baby but it was an unplanned pregnancy and it was agreed my partner would share the nights equally with me but he upped and left.

You have no idea what anyone's circumstances are so please get off your high horse. I literally can't stand people like you who judge parents for doing things too early/too late not enough and claiming the parents are selfish. Ive been questioned about everything from not sharing a room, not breastfeeding, only ever using a pushchair and not wearing baby etc. It's people like you who make already desperate/worried/scared parents feel even worse.

So again, well done you.

‘Mummy getting more sleep’ is not some selfish luxury like you make out. Lack of sleep contributes to perinatal mental health difficulties which is among the most common causes of maternal mortality and harms infant mental health.

The chance of an infant dying from sleeping in its own room is minuscule (and I say that as someone bed sharing with my preschool age kids). The chance of perinatal mental illness from sleep deprivation is considerably higher. If we’re prioritising children’s wellbeing we should prioritise maternal sleep.

I understand your point OP and I think I might be one of the people you’re criticising but your post comes across as very judgemental of mums rather than supportively pointing out that information given on here should be given responibly.
what I find interesting on MN is that co sleeping is seen as fine when this isn’t seen as fine. Co sleeping is far more dangerous yet it seems like that’s ok on MN as that’s a baby being close to it’s mum whereas this isn’t ok because it’s about the mum getting some sleep.

I also think you have to take into account other risks; if you’re so tired you’re falling asleep feeding your baby then what’s the bigger risk.

@user1493413286

I also think you have to take into account other risks; if you’re so tired you’re falling asleep feeding your baby then what’s the bigger risk.

Absolutely this. I agree that it's a matter of weighing up the risks and benefits and that's an individual decision based on your own circumstances. However, what concerns me is that people are making incorrect assumptions (eg that a monitor is as good as being in the room) and therefore aren't able to properly assess the risks. It's why I think it's always important to call out misunderstandings.

OP, i was so sleep deprived by the time i moved my baby into her own room (4.5m, if you're asking) that earlier that day i fell asleep at the wheel of my car, with her in the back seat.

Do you really think it would have been safer for me to keep her in my room, keeping me awake, for another 6 weeks? I had to drive every day. We could have both died.

She was a full term, breastfed baby in a non-smoking household. I did the research. I concluded that the risk of her dying when i inevitably had a car accident was much, MUCH higher than the risk of her dying of SIDS.

Please keep your fucking judgements to yourself.