Help me understand baby sleep routines & conflicting guidance?!

[moonseas]

Hello all.

I have a 14 week old DD and my (current!) worry revolves around sleep, bedtime routines and SIDS guidelines.

For night sleeps, she sleeps in a cot about 2 feet away from me in bed. She sleeps brilliantly overnight - 5-8 hour stretches, then wakes for a feed, then back down for a few more hours usually.

We’re currently doing all of her daytime naps in the pram, either out and about or rocking it in the garden. I’m always with her for these naps, unless I pop to the loo or make a sandwich or something quick. I usually read, listen to a podcast or do something on my laptop while she sleeps. With this method she goes off to sleep quite quickly usually.

However this pram method goes against advice I’ve read for all naps which is to put her in a dark room, play white noise, yadda yadda - because according to SIDS guidelines, I need to be in the same room - so am I supposed to sit in a dark bedroom with her for 45m-2h, up to 5 times a day?! I’ve also read conflicting advice (from the NHS and other sources) that babies need to be able to handle normal daytime noise, so to keep on with usual activities. She sleeps well through all kinds of commotion, to be fair. So in regards to naps, what’s right?!

When we get to ‘bedtime’ (which currently can vary between 7-9pm) I’m also struggling to understand what to do. The popular advice is to do bath, book, feed, etc - again, to keep things dim, calm and quiet. However, she’s too young to sleep alone regarding SIDS, so she needs to stay in the room with us - and we are a family who want to cook & eat tea, watch a film, chat etc.

So this would mean chilling her out upstairs, getting her sleepy and ready for night time - then bringing her into a light room with noise, chat and TV?! How am I supposed to do this? It feels unfair to ask everyone to talk in hushed tones and watch TV so quietly but that’s what we’re currently doing.

She can only handle 1-1.15h awake before needing to sleep again and sometimes she gets tired/overtired very quickly at night, so in that case it’s about getting her to sleep fast - meaning no routine at all, just putting her into the pram and shushing her.

Then we take her up to bed when we go up, dream feed her and she continues her good sleep.

For what it’s worth, we have a video monitor we currently don’t use with her, but could. I asked my HV her advice and she first said to wait until at least 4 months before putting her in her crib for bed at night with the video monitor while we carry on downstairs, but has since changed her advice and said we could do it now. Not sure why she changed it.

Does anyone have any insight or tips to offer?! At the moment it feels like we’re waiting until she’s 6 months to be able to carry on our family evenings as normal.

My son is 18 weeks old and since 10 weeks old he has been going in his 'big boy' cot with the monitor on from 7-9.30pm then we bring him into our room for dream feed and sleep. It works for us and he is generally very settled! Naps I can't offer any advise because he is a serial contact napper and unless we are out and about he naps in my arms, but I'm not risking ruining our night-time when it suits us for now!

A video monitor will not save baby from SIDS, and it would happen before you knew it.

Baby should be in the same room as you for ALL sleep, daytime and nighttime, until 6 months. So just put baby in a bassinet and take them up to bed when you go up.

At two months mine was still falling asleep on the bottle - so he'd have a bottle on the sofa, fall asleep, after winding I'd put him in his carrycot which was on the coffee table next to me, and we'd watch TV fairly quietly but definitely still make noise and chat until we wanted to go to bed.

At around five months he started being disturbed by us making noise, so we persevered for a week or so and then gave up and put him upstairs with the monitor (and frequent checks, I must admit).

The dark room, white noise etc is for when babies begin to develop sleep associations at 4-6 months. For the newborn stage just do what you need to to get the baby to sleep. Yes, dark room and all the other stuff helps set the mood, but if you can only do it in the pram then go for it. As long as it's flat I don't think there's a high risk of SIDS

Stop reading advice, do what works. If it's working, keep going it.

It's also quite common not to have your evenings to yourself for quite a while! Either she sleeps downstairs with you and all that entails or you/husband take it in turns to go to bed early with her and watch TV, read, etc. It's not long in the grand scheme of things until they're old enough to put down to bed and leave.

@MamaNolan Thanks for sharing your bedtime routine!

@bubblescoop I know, and I know the guidelines are there due to our breathing regulating hers, being close by for any issues etc - I’m completely aware of the guidelines. What you’ve suggested is what we’re currently doing - I’m more after other people’s experiences / thoughts on how this marries with the advice to get them calm in a quiet, dark room. FWIW our living room is fairly dim, and we keep things as quiet as we can - and she sleeps well in the pram in the room with us, save for any accidental loud noises.

Until my daughter was about 6 months old all her naps were either buggy, on me or in her cot occasionally with me napping next to her 😂

at night she’d usually be asleep on one of us while we watched tv until we wanted to go to bed

I didn’t really read any advice about sleep (other than safe sleep / Sids stuff!

and just did what suited us until I had enough and wanted my own space and got her into her own room

It sounds like what you are doing works for you and her so keep going. I think it's better to keep her with you than use a monitor.
With my baby he would nap on go in slung or pram or if at home I never made it dark so I could read or do something. Nighttime I always took baby with me.

You don't have to do what the books say. Do what feels right to you.

I remember just spending a few weeks going up at the same time as baby, I'd watch Netflix and just rest, it was actually quite nice! As PP said, it's not for long in the grand scheme of things and those nights tucked up in bed with my baby in her Next to Me were pretty precious when I look back on them.

That advice is for older babies.

DD is 7 weeks and I'm currently in bed with her beside me binge watching Hart of Dixie and eating jelly babies. DH is going to bring me a cup of tea in a mo too. There's definitely something nice about it!

Honestly, if whatever you are doing is safe and is working, then don’t change it. If it becomes unsafe or stops working, then change at that point. Don’t make life harder for yourself now for fear of the future.

We used to take DS up to his next to me for bed time and then just chill in bed watching tv quietly with a cuppa! It was lovely tbh

For naps personally I think it's really handy if baby is happy to nap in the pram. It means they'll nap either at home or out and about, instead of needing their cot every time.

Agree, do what works for you and try not to stress about what the books say. I know people who put the baby in their own room overnight at 10 weeks and some who still cosleep at 18 months.

For what it's worth we had DD in our room over night for 6 months. Around 3.5 months I started putting her in the next2me and coming downstairs. But I was so tired I'd be in bed by 10 anyway so it was really only a couple of hours. I started trying naps in her own cot probably around 6 months and starting the dark room, white noise stuff then.