Baby's room V sleeping together

[cat709]

Hi ladies

I'm posting it in the 'pregnancy' section as hoping to hear from second time mums or mums pregnant with 2nd where they might do things differently.

My baby is 5 months. She is ready to go into her own room in terms of size/sleeping full night etc. But when you google it, every site says wait at the very least 6 months. But any experienced mum I talk to put their baby in their own room way earlier - some a couple months.

She sleeps in my room for 5 hours before I even go up for the night. We have a video cam and breathing monitor. So she spends half the time away from me anyway.

Just don't know what to do. Have any mums done it way earlier and not let their anxiety take over?

Cat x

And that's fine, @aliasgrape. That's my point in fact - we none of us live in an ideal world and it's often not possible to do absolutely everything. That's what I'm saying - that "why wouldn't you do absolutely everything" is an intellectually unsustainable position. And also a cowbag thing to say.

I'm sorry that breastfeeding was hard and upsetting for you.

@VanillaSpiceCandle

So glad I read this as I’m due my first in January. Maybe I’m misunderstanding but do most people go to bed with their baby at 6/7/8pm? I can’t imagine the baby going to sleep in the living room with us - even if the TV is quiet it would surely disturb them?

Babies often drift in and out of sleep at this age, so the tv isn't really an issue. When they're older they're harder to get back to sleep. Very young babies will probably want to be held all evening, so it's snooze, feed, snooze, feed etc, until you want to go up to bed. (I usually went a 9 or 10). That's when the fun begins, because you need to put them down and they don't like that

I moved DD at 2.5 years, when she's started sleeping well, she's happy with her room and big bed. No way was I getting up four million times a night for the sake of putting her in a room on her own. She "slept through" at 4.5 months and then not again for 2 more years

She slept in our bed for a long time then between hers and ours (still gets in with me in the early hours). She can sleep through all sorts of noise and light and being manhandled so keeping her with us wasn't hard.

I realised at 2 that's there's something not right about her breathing so kinda glad she was with us and woke a lot, despite how frigging hard it's been. 9/10 months was awful for sleep btw, huge sleep regression and bedsharing was the only way we survived it.

I think what @AliasGrape meant was why wouldn't you do all that you could?

We also didn't manage to breastfeed and I was well aware of the protection it offers from SIDS so I made sure that anything I could do to reduce the risk was done. Including sharing a room.

why wouldn't you do all that you could?

Quite likely for reasons as personal, important, complex, and difficult as the reasons why people didn't EBF or struggled to breastfeed at all.

Ultimately, if you didn't EBF for 6 months - and 99% of people don't - you didn't "do everything". And that's fine with me. More than fine. If people enjoy and find tolerable having their baby in with them for the first 3 years, go to it. But it gives you no grounds to ask other people why they didn't "do everything". They had their reasons, just like you had yours.

I’ve had 4 breastfed babies and they’ve all been in their own rooms by 4 months old! By the time you get to the fourth they need to have naps in a room away from everyone else and they wouldn’t have had any sleep so made sense one they’re in their own room for naps to have them sleep in a room. 3 out of my 4 were tummy sleepers and once of them slept on my chest in bed for the first 6 weeks as she wouldn’t sleep anywhere else.

I’m not recommending what I’ve done as it is against guidelines but you have to do what you feel is best!

I’ve always said midwives should actually re do the sids study on real life families as I would think that a high majority don’t stick to the guidelines and babies have been ok!

It’s only in the last 10 years that babies in the UAE would be put in car seats. Prior to that they were put on dashboards. Yes really.

But most were okay so that’s fine and dandy. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I breastfed my first, but we moved her to her own room before 6 months. At around 12 weeks, she became too distracted by the lights/tv to sleep in the evening downstairs. That would've been fine, but she was really grotty and unhappy because of it, so we started to put her upstairs with a monitor and regular checks for the evening. She would then sleep with us for the majority of the night. At around 4.5 months, she was sleeping through and outgrowing her basket, so we moved her into her room, again, with regular checks and a monitor.
She slept much better away from us to be honest... but I think a lot of it depends on how your baby sleeps. If she was still feeding multiple times a night, she would've stayed in with us.

This is against the current SIDS guidelines, but I think you have to trust your instincts and do what works for your baby :-)

There's a book you might find useful called 'Crib Sheet' by Emily Oster. She's an economist who spends her day job breaking down data, and has done the same with studies and data on pregnancy and parenting. There's a section of sleep and location, including SIDS risk from having your baby in their own room. There are different recommendations regarding the time you should have the baby sleeping in your room depending on where in the world you live as different countries take different attitudes.

The data suggests that the vast majority of SIDS deaths occur in the first 4 months and that after this point there is very little benefit, statistically speaking, to having the baby in your own room. However, many people will want to continue to room share for peace of mind. The benefits of room sharing are also much greater if you allow your baby to sleep on their stomach during those first 4 months (not sure who would do that these days with all we know about the risks but hey?!)

There are also benefits to children sleeping on their own - more consolidated sleep apparently.

Anyway, it's really up to you but you might find that book interesting. It gives you the hard data and then you can decide what's right for you.

@Floryella thanks for sharing, I'll take a look at the book xx

@Livingintheclouds

My kids slept in their own rooms from first day. There wasn't this six months recommendation then. As you say she already is sleeping half the night on her own. I always wondered if the advocates of this six months thing just sit there staring at their baby from 7pm? It's a recommendation, not a law. If you think she is ready, move her.

Mine too. Nothing magical happens at six months to make it suddenly safer.

The incidence of SIDS is highest before 6 months. That's what "happens".
Can still happen after that though.

Right but since it peaks at 2-3 months and then continues to fall, you could draw a line at any arbitrary point after 3 months and say "SIDS levels are higher before this time/highest before this age". It could be 4 months, 6 months, 19 weeks, 11.3 months or 274 days. It doesn't matter. It would still be a true statement that SIDS deaths are higher before that point than after. You could technically even say that SIDS risk disappears at 12 months. It doesn't. It's just that the definition of SIDS includes that it happens before 12 months old. If it happens to an older child it is called SADS or "unexplained death". It's not counted in SIDS numbers.

6 months is a convenient, easy to remember milestone and if people say "Ah well she's nearly six months" they are probably still clear of that highest risk period of 2-3 months old, unlike a baby that is "nearly 4 months". That's it - that's why the guideline is 6 months. If you look at an actual graph of when SIDS happens the numbers drop most sharply at 4 months. I've definitely seen this but I can no longer find one to link. It could be that I'm outdated but I do remember seeing it.

90% of deaths occur before 6 months, so it seems a handy line to draw. Not sure what the debate is in particular?

The point being that people seem to like the idea that there are "safe" behaviours and "unsafe" behaviours and you can draw a nice neat line. 90% is a nice round number, but again you could draw a line at say 4 months and say "80% occur before this time" or 9 months and say "95% occur before this time" (I have made those numbers up to illustrate the point). Nothing magic changes at 6 months that doesn't also change at 5 months or 7 months or any other age. Risk is very subjective. Every single day/night is a reduction in risk compared to the night before (once you've passed a peak). A guideline is just that. It's the same for pretty much any safety advice.

@BertieBotts

The point being that people seem to like the idea that there are "safe" behaviours and "unsafe" behaviours and you can draw a nice neat line. 90% is a nice round number, but again you could draw a line at say 4 months and say "80% occur before this time" or 9 months and say "95% occur before this time" (I have made those numbers up to illustrate the point). Nothing magic changes at 6 months that doesn't also change at 5 months or 7 months or any other age. Risk is very subjective. Every single day/night is a reduction in risk compared to the night before (once you've passed a peak). A guideline is just that. It's the same for pretty much any safety advice.

👆🏼 This

@BertieBotts

The point being that people seem to like the idea that there are "safe" behaviours and "unsafe" behaviours and you can draw a nice neat line. 90% is a nice round number, but again you could draw a line at say 4 months and say "80% occur before this time" or 9 months and say "95% occur before this time" (I have made those numbers up to illustrate the point). Nothing magic changes at 6 months that doesn't also change at 5 months or 7 months or any other age. Risk is very subjective. Every single day/night is a reduction in risk compared to the night before (once you've passed a peak). A guideline is just that. It's the same for pretty much any safety advice.

Yes I agree, 90% from 0-6 months, but that's not a good structured fact, as there will be a difference in percentage from 0-4months V's 5-6 months.
Obviously I'm not saying that 'oh well I'll risk it as it's 5 months', but I just think it's not as clear cut as appears. Xx