Please don’t judge; experiences and opinions welcome: baby in own room from first night at home.

[Paraketamol]

So, let me start with I’m not very, very pregnant yet and things may change, and I suffer from anxiety and I am aware that I benefit from being able to hear others experiences.

Has anyone put baby in it’s own room from the off?

My baby is due in Early February. Between my partner and I, one of us has night terrors - shouting and yelling and very unpredictable. This has recently gotten worse. We are hoping it imwill improve before baby arrives.
My plan had been to have baby in a Moses basket in our room but now I worry baby will suffer because of the night terrors. I am now considering putting baby in their own room from coming home; and having a monitor that monitors breathing and movement. Baby will be across the hall - 7 big strides - I’ve just measured - but away from the sudden shouting.

I will be following all othe guidance, sleeping on their back, using a dummy is baby takes to it etc. My midwife is obviously non-commital and said she’d prefer not to say her opinion.
From talking to the in-laws etc, I think baby in own room used to be more the norm when I was born in the early 80s but SIDS awareness has grown so much now...

My partner has night terrors and they calmed a lot when out most recent child was born. I have him on my side (we co-sleep) and always have to avoid any issues. I'd have the Moses basket your side and see how it goes. If not, could you sleep in the baby's room for a bit with the baby? - or do you suffer too? I wasn't sure.

I’m happy to be corrected but I think that study doesn’t determine between planned ‘safe’ co-sleeping and bed sharing, so includes where parents woke up and baby was in bed with them.

Yes, it is true that the study does not differentiate between intended and non-intended bedsharing. It was meant to eliminate most of the known risk factors (smoking/drinking, sleeping on a sofa, BF/FF, etc) but it could never cover everything. It is true no research is ever perfect and, of course, it can be argued that the initial intent to co-sleep is a statistically significant factor that can swing the result. However, there are two data points worth considering:

1. Co-sleeping with younger babies increases the SIDS risk by a factor of 5. It may be difficult to argue intention to co-sleep would swing results that significantly.

1. Carpenter gives the example of Netherlands where anti-bedsharing campaign reduced planned co-sleeping. This correlated to the statistically significant reduction in SIDS deaths (25%). Correlation does not always mean causation but I find this argument quite convincing. It is worth remembering Netherlands has some of the lowest SIDS rates in the Western world.

Surely baby in separate room at 3 Months is more risk of SIDS than bed sharing if all above factors are considered.

It may or may not be true. I would be interested in seeing research on room sharing post newborn phase but so far I have not been able to find anything reliable. There is a theory that environmental factors (tummy sleeping, room sharing, co-sleeping, etc) matter the most when the baby is very young (under 12-14 weeks) but as he/she gets older, the occurrence of SIDS is largely driven by genetic predisposition or other risk factors (e,g. smoking or unsafe sleeping environment).

What I also found interesting that UK SIDS rates are not materially different from France and France does not seem to recommend room sharing (at least, to the best of my knowledge). If room sharing had been a significant factor, French SIDS rates would have been meaningfully higher than those in the UK.

I can’t tell you whether anything’s helped for any individual baby with whatever ita circumstances were, but I can say that the research shows using home monitors for otherwise healthy babies doesn’t reduce SIDS rates.

e.g.: www.isisonline.org.uk/hcp/sleep_and_health/sleep_aids/tech/

Clearly I’m the odd one out here but I breastfed both of mine and they were both in their own room from night 1. Horses for courses!

No advice beyond what’s been said so far, but my heart goes out to you, you sound very kind. I’m sure your baby will be very loved. The probability of everything being just fine is very very high.

I hope the night terrors resolve themselves soon. Babies are miracles, in so so many ways.

Good luck.

To be honest, I find isisonline website quite biased. The reality is there has been no research on correlation between use of breathing monitors and SIDS incidents. We do not have sufficient data to draw these conclusions. Credible studies usually look at 20-25 year time horizons and breathing monitors are a relatively new development.

Isisonline seems to make a blanket statement monitors do not decrease SIDS risk. It is quite different from saying "we do not know".

Another idea is a small sofa bed for the nursery at first and the non night terror sleeper could sleep on that until baby is a bit bigger.
If you are planning to breastfeed you may become very tired if the baby cluster feeds at first.
Try not to stress too much OP, you won't find the perfect routine until the little one get here.

Isisonline seems to make a blanket statement monitors do not decrease SIDS risk.

No, they say “They are not associated with any demonstrable prevention of SIDS”. Which is indeed the case.

Look, use monitors if you find them reassuring, Lullaby Trust will even lend them out to parents who’ve experienced SIDS before (with the caveat that they provide reassurance, not protection against SIDS deaths), but there isn’t evidence that using them reduces SIDS. It is entirely reasonable for the
poster who said this above to do this, because people don’t know and are therefore at risk of using monitors to compensate for other SIDS risk factors.

I suffer from night terrors but strangely didn't get any when I was nursing a newborn, however I did get sleep paralysis very often so I could never co sleep or fall asleep with the baby. Not saying it will be the same in your situation but part of me thinks due to lots of broken sleep i was never actually asleep long enough to have them!

zzzzzz, I linked to IsisOnline because it’s written for a more general audience and isn’t paywalled, plus does link directly to the studies: it’s referencing. But yes funny name ha ha.

If it would help convince you I’m not just making this up:
pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/111/4/914.long

“Epidemiologic studies have failed to document any impact of home cardiorespiratory monitoring for apnea and/or bradycardia on the incidence of SIDS. There is no evidence that the presence of apnea and/or bradycardia identifies a group at increased risk of SIDS, that home cardiorespiratory monitoring can provide warning in time for intervention to prevent sudden death, or that intervention would be successful in preventing unexpected death. Given the lack of evidence that home cardiorespiratory monitoring has any impact on SIDS, prevention of SIDS is not an acceptable indication for home cardiorespiratory monitoring.”