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Sleep

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Original poster

confused about where baby should sleep.

17 replies

Harrysmum15 · 12/01/2016 23:22

I have a 3 month old son and I'm not sure if I have got myself confused about the safe sleeping advice. According to the lullaby trust, babies should sleep in the same room as you until they are 6 mounts, this includes day time naps. so my lo is with me till I get in to bed. I'm blessed that he will sleep through from after his last feed at about 11pm till between 7 and 8 am, but I worry about him not getting enough sleep. When you read the sleep advise on mumsnet it says about putting baby in their cot/ moses basket upstairs? I just wondered what other people do? Do you put babies under 6 months to sleep in a different room or keep them with you?

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Gunting · 12/01/2016 23:32

My son is almost 3 months and he will sleep through the night too.

I'm not sure if he notices yet but I make a point of upstairs in our room only for night time and in the day he just naps on his padded playmat in our living room.

SkiptonLass2 · 13/01/2016 09:17

Night time, in his cot in our room with a baby monitor so we can see him
XY time , well, he rarely naps, the little monster, but if he does its in his basket down here. Once he's too big for that I'll get a travel cot or a playpen or something.
I don't think you have to be in the same room 24/7. The key is to be aware and accessible, so if they're asleep in front of the washing machine in the laundry and I'm in the living room that's fine - I can wander through and look at them every so often.

sophiaslullaby · 13/01/2016 11:31

My LO is 9weeks and daytime naps has been upstairs in his room from 6 weeks but in our room at night in moses basket next to our bed.
We use a video monitor for when he naps upstairs.
In the day he'll have roughly 2 naps (I can't get the 3rd nap in!) and I'm constantly checking on him. I figure that he is a post-term, healthy, breastfed baby. He sleeps in a baby sleep bag and the room temp is around 18'c (not that I'm obsessive over it but I don't have it too warm - I read that baby will wake and cry if cold but will be more dosy if hot...)
The first 6 weeks he did sleep in the basket in the lounge but being able to see & hear us walk past was a distraction and he wouldn't fall asleep. He can now self-soothe so I don't regret putting him upstairs.

At our 6 week doctors check up the doctor actually said she put her children in their own room overnight from 6 weeks. She asked me why I was surprised at this, I said because of all the NHS leaflets we're thrown when pregnant, she just advised me to use my instinct and only I know my child and what I'm comfortable with. So I'm not waiting 6months before moving DS to his own room. Just need to build confidence to leave him overnight in another room.

Nocta176 · 13/01/2016 11:31

I've been wondering this too. DD is also nearly 3 months and I've been reading things about starting a bedtime routine, but there doesn't seem any point to me until she sleeps on her own at 6 months ish. At the moment she just naps with us where ever we are until one of us goes to bed sometime around 11 and it is at that point she will do her longest stretch of sleep (between 5 and 8 hours). I'm wondering if we're creating some kind of future problem for ourselves by not encouraging her to sleep earlier?

Original poster

Harrysmum15 · 13/01/2016 13:46

Thank you all for your answers. I'm glad I posted it now~! It's so hard to know what to do for the best. Its good to know that I'm not the only one and that people do different things. I think I'll feel more comfortable keeping him with me for the moment and then start to move him upstairs when he is closer to 6 months old and we start to get into a routine before I go back to work.

OP posts:

NickyEds · 13/01/2016 15:41

We started putting dd to bed (crib in our room but us downstairs until 10.30 ish) at around 5 months. That was a month ago and she still doesn't really settle until we join her. She naps either on me, in the buggy or,if I'm very lucky, in the bouncy chair. If she falls asleep in the chair I move it into our room as my toddler just wakes her up. I think in an ideal world she'd be with me at all times but she just wakes up when ds is about and tbh by 7.30 I'm desperate for a little time without a baby or toddler on me!!

shiteforbrains · 13/01/2016 15:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WorldsBiggestGrotbag · 13/01/2016 15:50

I started putting mine upstairs for naps and for the first stretch of the night until we joined her at about 4.5 months. She's still awake every 2 hours in the night though, if she fell asleep at 11 then slept through the night I wouldn't change anything to rock the boat!

NorthernRosie · 14/01/2016 08:45

The NHS rules are unworkable if you want a happy settled baby with an evening routine. After a few months they need to go to bed around 7 to be happy and settled so unless you want to sit in the bedroom all evening in the silent dark I'm not sure what you're meant to do! Friends of mine who kept baby with them downstairs in evening now have a lot of sleep problems with the baby refusing to go down to sleep and waking lots.

When we introduced the evening bedtime routine we put her alone upstairs and she also naps in day up there. It made me really anxious at first but we have a monitor with breathing sensor which gave more reassurance.

Those guidelines really annoy me as they make no sense in the real world!

NorthernRosie · 14/01/2016 08:50

Also we started routine very early about 6-8 weeks. At first we did sit in the bedroom in the evenings with her eating dinner and just reading quietly which was boring as hell. Although it didn't always work we persevered and eventually had a baby that went to bed about 7:30pm and stayed asleep till 7am, at first with a couple of night feeds which gradually reduced and now at 6 months she's been sleeping through 7-7 for a few weeks.

As I said friends that kept their babies up with them in the living room are now having major night settling issues as they just don't understand when bedtime is

futureme · 14/01/2016 08:55

Good lord I'm jealous of these early sleeping babies!

Nr - be careful, many parents assume it's their routine/parenting that has encouraged their child to sleep...until tey do the same with a second and it doesn't! You'll find on mn parents that all try the same things and some sleep...and some don't.

randomsabreuse · 14/01/2016 08:57

We've always done the with us until we go to bed thing. She sleeps 7 hours at 5 months. There's a difference between downstairs sleep and upstairs sleep and the first upstairs sleep is the long one.

RainOhJoy · 14/01/2016 09:09

The same room thing is so they can hear you/feel you breathe and it reminds them to do the same. I would only have them in a different room with a breathing sensor mat. But that's just me

NorthernRosie · 14/01/2016 09:14

Futureme I hear you and I know we're lucky to have a good sleeper and it's not just down to being supreme parents (!) but I do think things such as bedtime routines must make a positive difference whether you have a good or bad sleeper. Those I know who haven't had a routine and kept babies up with them/ taken them out in evenings universally have poor sleeping babies at 6 months and they're now tearing their hair out trying to sleep train them which obviously involves controlled crying...

randomsabreuse · 14/01/2016 10:56

We have a "good" sleeper and no routine. The only difference between day naps (which she's rubbish at but will do not in a bed) and night sleep is the sleeping bag and it being dark plus slumber bug plus stars on ceiling. Goes down drowsy but awake. If tired will nap in the evening but still gives 7.5 hours straight from the start of night sleep. This is more pleasant for us overnight rather than 7 pm - 2.30am.

Having spotted this pattern we discovered that the start of night sleep gave us this long stretch and are going with it - the long stretch is growing slowly so we're starting slightly earlier - 10.30 ish.

This works for us/her but we don't want a fixed routine because our life does not fit one!

NorthernRosie · 14/01/2016 12:33

When we originally put her down at 7 she would wake for a night feed about 4ish but now goes through till 7am.

randomsabreuse do you mean in total she's only getting 7 hours sleep a night then?

randomsabreuse · 14/01/2016 13:09

No. She will mostly go back to sleep for a couple of hours after a night feed, possibly after second morning feed but depends on her mood/how hungry she is. She will also sleep on us in the evening between feeds but a semi dream feed after putting her in the sleeping bag resets the clock. She did go through a phase of always waking up with a poo at 4am but now it's hunger rather than nappy.

On a bad night it's at least 9 hours but she naps better to make up for it. Naps are unpredictable and usually on a play mat or in the sling on a walk but more likely after a less sleepy night.

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