Has anyone moved their baby to their own room before six months?

[Lilbonbon]

My little one is 6.5 weeks old and currently sleeps in our bedroom in his crib. He's a 98th percentile baby - for reference he is already wearing size 6-9month clothes.
In the night he keeps hitting his arms on the side of the crib and waking himself up, he is also an incredibly loud sleeper and I think I keep getting him out of his crib too soon because I think he is stirring when he isn't.

He is a good sleeper and has a very chilled personality, he doesn't like to be fussed or held too much, he just likes to be involved and is incredibly nosy and watchful. He is so good at going to sleep, and will often just fall asleep if you out him down drowsy.

I am struggling though because his sleep noises are keeping me awake - last night was especially hard and felt like the last straw, he slept 4 hours which is amazing but was so noisy that I just couldn't sleep at all. This often ends up with me cuddling him in my bed because it makes him quieter for a while, but I don't want to cosleep, it's not the right decision for us.

I want to put him in his own room, I feel desperate to do it just to get some sleep. We have a good monitor and he likes his room for naps. But I know the guidance for refucing SIDS risk Is not to move them until 6 months. I don't feel that his risk is particularly high with being such a big baby, but I dont want to be a bad mother moving him too soon.

Sorry for the rambling, I'm just so sleep deprived and wondering id this would be a solution for me, baby and husband - has anyone else moved their baby to their own room early?

You’ll likely have many many posters coming on to tell you absolutely not to do this, based on the advice.

But yes, we did, with both our DD, and for us it was absolutely the best decision and meant we all got a bit more sleep, which was good for all of us. We were disturbing them too!! Own room for us meant the next door room, in a house where the rooms are all close together anyway, doors open, & monitor on. I EBF with both, so just used to get up in the night, go to a chair I had already set up with a blanket etc, keep the lights super dim and feed in a good position, rather than trying to prop myself up in bed and disturb DH. Then if DD’s woke early in the morning, he could get up early with them and give me an extra hour of sleep.

Having said all that, I think we did at least wait until the 10/12 week point, not quite as soon as 6 weeks.
oh, and congratulations on your little one 😊

Mine were in their own rooms from week one as similarly they were very noisy sleepers and I woke up at the slightest. I came to the conclusion that the risks to them from a massively sleep deprived mother were higher than those of SIDs as they were full term, strong and healthy. I think its a decision that everyone needs to male for themselves given their own specific circumstances

If you can I’d get past 4 months. Could you use a travel cot instead? As cant hit the sides. And use earplugs / headphones; I always have

What age did you do this?

We live in a small bungalow so his room is opposite ours and set up with a high back chair for feeding, if DH is in agreement then I may try moving DS tonight.

Our 2nd one was in his own room at about 6 to 8 weeks. He was a complete fidget and neither of us were getting any sleep.

Ideally I want to wait until at least 4 months, I'm trying to assess the risk of him being in his own room vs my anxiety and fatigue from not sleeping. The hyper vigilance is no joke.

We don't have much space for a travel cot since we are in a small bungalow, but could possibly squeeze it in.

It sounds like if you’re in a small bungalow, and kept the bedroom doors open, you’re not far off being in the same ‘space’ anyway. Sleep deprivation is no joke; whatever you decide, I promise this phase will pass, even though every day can feel like a million hours right now. 🤗

How would you feel if something unfortunate happened knowing you could wait to put the baby in his own room?

His size is irrelevant - a big baby doesn’t mean he is at less risk for SIDS.

It also doesn’t matter if the room is right next door or three floors down. Doesn’t matter if you have a baby monitor or an owl type sock.

He needs to be in the same room as you because he bases his heart rate, breathing etc on yours - that’s what keeps him safe. That’s why all sleep should be supervised until 6 months minimum.

If you put him in his own room you remove the ability to keep him safe.

I put mine in their own room the night we came out of hospital

Yep. One night together in hospital, one night at home then she went in her own room. I was breastfeeding and she was so noisy, I’d never been near a baby before. She’s 16 though and I can’t remember it being a thing staying in the same room although having said that my midwife was in a really rough and deprived area so the fact that I wasn’t on methadone made me potential mother of the year material as it was such a low bar.

No, I wouldn't do this. I did everything I could to minimise the risk of SIDS after knowing someone whose baby tragically passed away from this very cruelly.

That's the hypothesis for why room sharing is protective (or one of the reasons), but at no one actually knows what causes SIDS, no one knows why protective factors are protective!

Eg second hand mattress from someone else = risk factor; second hand mattress from a sibling= not a risk factor. So it's probably not the age or storage of the mattress that's a risk itself - but having a low income that means you can't afford a new mattress might be what actually matters (or correlates with something that does...).

It's complicated.

FWIW I got a white noise generator and kept the baby in my room till 5.5 months.

Yes within a couple of weeks as he was a right little chatterbox. He’s 13.5 now and fine.

I think this is a tricky one, because if you put him in his own room to sleep, he almost certainly will be fine. And hence you'll be able to find many, many people who did this, and it was fine. A bad outcome is genuinely unlikely, but it's not impossible, and that bad outcome is catastrophic – death.

What's you and your husband's tolerance for that risk, unlikely, but horrific if it does occur?

Also, being a big baby doesn't make him any safer than being an average sized one. His ability to regulate his breathing is still that of a 6-7 week old baby, in the same way that his ability to sit up or crawl or grasp an object is that of a 6-7 week old baby.

I personally wouldn’t.
you’re biologically wired not to be sleeping well at the time as you need to respond to baby’s needs.
its shit. Do you have support?

It wasn't even an option when I had my babies. They went into their nursery as soon as they slept through the night . I think my DS went earlier as he grunted a lot . But I understand how loathe you are to go against very rigid guidelines.

Us too. I don’t think my babies were 6 weeks old before they went in their own room. I’d go in to feed them in the night. No monitors or cameras. Oh, they slept on their stomachs too and were weaned at 3 months because they were hungry. Different times.

The headboard of our bed was against the same wall as the cot so DDs room was closer than the other side of our bedroom in practice
We put her in there about 4 months I think and DS (that was his room by then) around 6 weeks

This, it’s not about his size, if something happens you will never ever forgive yourself, just try to tough it out, it feels like this is less about his sleep and more your hyper vigilance,

Yes and more deaths.

Hypervigilance is not going to disappear just because he's in a different room. It's just one of those consequences of having a baby I think. You'll be just the same but your brain will be listening out for the monitor and every single noise and fidget.

Your brain will start to differentiate between noises it needs to alert you to and just your baby being fidgety, so you're tolerance to sleeping next to fidgety baby is likely to improve in time.

As a PP says there is also considerable risk in you being exhausted from not sleeping. You need to balance this risk against any increase in SIDS risk. It is not as simple as baby in with you = safer.

I say this as someone who nearly fell down the stairs holding baby DC because I was so tired I couldn’t focus. We sleep trained and put DC in own room after that.

SIDS risk is not the only risk.

Safer sleep reliably finds it’s safer for them to be near you. I’d really read the research op please