Bedtime for parents when baby sleeps

[Nicolahollie]

This might sound stupid but I was wondering what other parents do at night when they put their baby down to sleep?

i try to get my 7 week to go bed at around 10pm, we have a Moses basket upstairs (for nighttime) and downstairs (for during the day). During the week isn’t such an issue as my partner goes to sleep early so we can all go to sleep at the same (ish) time but at the weekend we like to stay up a little bit later.

But if we put DD in her basket downstairs so we can stay up and watch a film for eg, she isn’t going to sleep due to the bright lights and sound. But then that means we would need to be going to bed at the same time as DD which is a bit early for us at the weekend.

what do other people do at weekends night times? Should we just be going to bed at 10pm at weekends too?

(I hope all that makes sense 🫤)

I love how you all are doing different things and doing whatever works for you rather than what the guidelines say. I think sometimes if you stuck to every little rule we wouldn’t get a wink of sleep and would lose our sanity!!!! Thanks mummies 🩶🩶

I went to bed with my DD and watched tv with my earphones in and my iPad until she was around 6 months then we started leaving her in her cot on an evening. But tbh it wasn't for long because we were knackered!

It's only short term, you baby needs to be in the same room as you.

They were happy to sleep on me which was fine, but they’d never go in a Moses basket next to the tv with it blaring on. So we were happy to put them to bed in a dark, quiet room from early on.

no one really knows why SIDS rates are affected by the baby being near you. At a best guess it’s because the baby regulates their breathing near you. But you can also reduce SIDS risk by not smoking, breastfeeding, not letting them get too hot etc.

I did all that so was comfortable to let my baby sleep in a room alone for an hour or two. I would sometimes flit in and out though and on one bonkers occasion came and breathed loudly over her cot 🤣

I put our baby to bed upstairs with the monitor on when she started getting disturbed by our noise in the living room so I think it was around 3 months. She was our second and I did it from way earlier with her older brother so I was happy with a video monitor while we got on with our evening.

If you’re not comfortable with that and want to stick to the guidelines, which is understandable, could you take an iPad up to bed and each have an earphone in. You can still watch a film and have a glass of wine in bed without disturbing baby then. 6 months will come around before you know it and you’ll have your weekend evenings back.