8 weeks old baby napping, Sid’s?

[jinn2025]

Hi all

I have a very lively 3 year and old and it’s quite a noisy house to be fair, DH is mega clumsy we have hard flooring all through the house downstairs so the noise of toys being dropped or thrown and running is quite loud.
My DD is 8 weeks old and she’s an great at falling asleep but wakes up at any and every noise then wakes up grumpier because her naps are 10-30mins due to the noise.
Now the advice is keep them with you while they sleep to reduce the risk of SIDs so we have a Moses basket downstairs which she attempts to nap in. Next to me crib in our bedroom and cot in the nursery, so when I’m at home depending which room I’m in she’s transported round the house with me.
I think it would help her if I put her down for a nap away from the noise upstairs with the baby monitor on.
Has anyone done this?

I’m sure lots of people have done this but I didn’t feel ok to do it until my baby was around 5 months old. Is your 3 year old at nursery during the week? We managed this phase by my dd being at nursery 3 days a week and I focused on baby DC, and on the two days she was at home did activities for dd and baby had to go along with it so usually napped out of the house or in the car.

It goes against Uk guidance but most other countries don’t have the same advice. Babies that age in Scandinavia regularly nap outdoors in the pram with parents keeping an eye with a monitor and their SIDS rates are not higher than the UK.

I think I would be keeping the baby with me and hoping she gets used to the noise it would be better in the long run.

Have you tried baby wearing? That way she might go back to sleep more easily if woken if she is getting the comfort of the contact.

I don’t know a single person in real life who never put their baby in the cot to nap.
I don’t think it’s realistic at all.
In my personal view a nap in another room, with a baby monitor on in a safe sleep space carries hardly any risk.
Much safer for the baby to be in a clear secure cot to sleep in than in a bouncer, swing, sleepy head, on the sofa etc which all carry more risk.

Buy the sunza HERO MD breathing monitor (£100) we did this and it hugely put my mind at ease as it would have alarmed if any of the kids had stopped breathing

I wouldn't and it's not a bad thing for them to get used to napping with noises around

The best advice i EVER got was to put baby down in basket and have the hoover, washer, dryer, the lot on, not to creep round them, just regular noise as much as possible. I ended up with a baby who slept through everything, and now a toddler who sleeps minimum 12 hours and could sleep through a brass band. Keep going with it. It was the best advice i ever got and definitely for the long run. I can now move around at night easily, change his nappy often without him waking (he drinks a lot of water at night) and i get really good long rests and sleeps myself. Persevere

Yes, I have and I would. If you look at the research, it's a correlation not an understood causation - but the best understanding is that it's due to parental responsiveness/ not sleeping as deeply/ breathing co-regulation. If you have the baby monitor and are also popping in every 15 minutes or so, they'll get that gentle sound of movement/ breathing etc. and I really can't see it as a much bigger risk. You wouldn't be leaving them alone for hours, which would be more risky.

This is just a baby’s temperament and nothing else.
I have younger children who were around a huge amount of noise as babies with older chickens shouting constantly, it doesn’t actually train them to sleep better.
There are adults who prefer calmer sleep environments, no one would think it was reasonable for an adult to be disturbed by hoovering 1ft away from their bed.

I wasn't trying to train him to sleep better. I was trying to, as a single parent, ensure that he was used to unavoidable noise so that he could sleep and i could clean. It just so happened that he now sleeps through all noise which is his temperament mixed with what he was used to as a baby.

I disgree it's temperament and "nothing else". It's temperament plus the noise i made in the beginning. Both together.

And im not sure where you got. "hoovering 1 ft away from the bed" from.. I certainly never mentioned that...

I think it’s a good idea to get baby used to sleeping in the cot.

If your DH is there at nap time why can’t he mind the 3 year old while you take baby up for a nap?

Congratulations on the new baby! 💐

It’s ok not to transport your DD around the house with you while she naps. Put her in the cot, give her a dummy if she uses one, leave the bedroom door open and check on her regularly to make sure she is not too hot or cold, breathing normally etc.

Full disclosure: I’m from one the countries where babies still nap outside, so admittedly I look at this from a slightly different angle. For what it’s worth, Our infant mortality rate is about half of that of the UK. Clearly there are other, more complex reasons behind the lower rate, but just wanted to gently point out that babies don’t actually start dropping off en masse if you don’t follow every single Mumsnet law to the letter. (I don’t personally know anyone who even owns a Moses basket.)

I took a look at the nhs safe sleep advice page, and it’s actually nearly identical to ours. The only difference is that it doesn’t distinguish between naps and night time sleep in any way. (On the other hand, it also doesn’t say you should carry a napping baby around the house with you.) I doubt that it was meant to be interpreted this strictly.

Would it not be easier to nap in pram?

Surely with 3 year old you’re out and about anyway. So just time naps to be in pram.
You can pram in garden at home if not going out and just park them by open back door with you nearby or Toddler also using that time to play in garden sandpit or similar. Or just quick walk around block with eldest on scooter

Or if your dh is home anyway he can also take baby for 20min walk some times.

Also, it’s very common where I live for babies to nap outside in in snowy winters. But they aren’t just left there alone unsupervised.

I would walk Ds to sleep, then bring him home and bump pram up front steps then wheel him to garden if nice and I would sit a few metres from him on sofa or garden with tea and laptop ( or gardening). Or potter around doing chores like folding laundry or sorting kitchen, again within eye sight and hearing of pram. And checked him every 5 mins or so

If raining I parked him in hallway or under door overhang which is also a few metres from our sofa.

People don’t just park pram up with baby in and go physically away

I did! I didn't want my older child having to keep the noise down in his own home.

I tried but couldn't get my baby down due to reflux. With a nosiy toddler, if it wasn't for the reflux I definitely would have put her in her cot for nap, with a monitor and would have gone in to check every 15 mins or so.

I think babies being able to sleep through nosie is just their temperament, with my first I made all sorts of noise but he eventually needed quiet to sleep and this one, is such a light sleeper even the creaking door wakes her. She had a lot of noise as a baby as my toddler makes noise!

@NikKai I disgree it's temperament and "nothing else". It's temperament plus the noise i made in the beginning. Both together.

Its temperament as most mothers of more than one baby will tell you. Making noise around them won’t magically make them undisturbed by noise.
Many younger siblings have very noisy houses, it doesn’t mean they all nap without rousing to noise.

Agree to disagree 🤷

And noone said magically undisturbed by noise either. At least i didnt.

Regardless, this isn't the point of the post is it. So rather than a chat about noise vs no noise and causation vs correlation etc etc, lets just... Leave it. I gave my advice. You disagree, that's fine. Let's hope others are able to help the op instead.

Have a nice day

Yes, my baby napped in his room from around 2 months. A 30 minute nap is not the same risk wise as a 10 hour night in my opinion.