Baby sleeps in the room you are in.

[Thistledew]

How literally do you take the advice that a small baby should only sleep in the room you are in?

DD is 10 weeks old. I've discovered over the past week or so that she is happier having a proper bedtime at around 8pm. If we try to get her to sleep in her bouncy chair or cradle or even in our arms at that time in the evening she just seems to get herself worked up and ends up screaming rather than sleeping. But if I take her upstairs, change her into a sleep suit and put her in the bedside cot in the swaddle that I use at nighttime she will generally sleep from about 8.30pm to around 3/4am when she needs a feed.

Obviously, we have a monitor on her, so would immediately go to her if she stirred, but we will then spend a few hours downstairs before our own bedtime.

Also, during the day, if she is sleeping in her cradle in the living room, I'm not necessarily in the same room as I will be playing with DS, and we may be in the kitchen or up stairs.

Is this what most people do or do you literally ensure that you are in the same room as your sleeping baby at all times?

DD was never left unattended - she'd sleep in her Moses basket for naps during the day and then her Next2Me overnight. However, the reason we never left her unattended is because we have two massive cats, and we don't have an older sibling to keep amused.

If we didn't have the cats and we had another child to look after during the day, I think I probably would be quite relaxed about short periods of sleeping alone (with a monitor as you describe). I have read that the risk of SIDS can be higher when babies sleep overnight alone, but I'm not sure if this applies if it's just naps or the period of time between the baby's bedtime and your own.

I think every parent has to weigh up the risk and set that against necessity and quality of life for the family, and make a decision accordingly. Maybe do some research into SIDS, which might help you make up your mind about what you're comfortable with?

My DD is 21 weeks, maybe at 14 weeks or so, we put her up to bed in her next to me when she wanted to go to sleep at bedtime, say between 1900-2000, she would be alone (video monitor in place) until me or my husband went to bed, maybe an hour later after we had showered, washed and sterilised bottles ect.
If she will go down for a nap during the day, then she is up in our room in her bed or in the Pram, it would be completely impractical to be in the room with her and she won’t nap in the living room unless she is on us.
I check her frequently during her day naps

With DD1 I would leave her asleep in the bouncer and pop in and out doing jobs from the age of about 16 weeks? She only ever did short naps, rather than long ones where she would be going into a deep sleep so the risk seemed minimal given we didn't have any other risk factors (smoking, prematurity, etc). I'm not sure how I'd have felt about bedtime (she came to bed with us at 9/10ish till she was about 8months old). It's hard when they're actually ready for bed but won't sleep down with you.

How long would she be up there before you'd go up? That would be a factor for me. The thing to remember is that the risk comes from them going into too deep a sleep: a monitor DOES NOT mitigate that risk. The issue isn't whether or not you hear them stirring, it's that your absence means they're less likely to stir/rouse slightly, and go into too deep a sleep. I weighed up the risks and decided that, for a short nap, I was comfortable with popping in and out. I'm not sure if I would have been happy being out of the for room for several hours with her going into a long/deeper sleep. But that's just me.

I used to go to bed with the baby, I was really tired. In fact I did this til 8 months and 17 months now he is still with us in our room but from 9 months we used to monitor.

I know some people say they need an evening, but - and this is just me - I've had 36 years worth of alone time at that point I was happy to go to bed !

With DS2, I just wasn't able to do the things we did with our first - go to bed when they did, have them nap in the daytime downstais etc. They had to nap upstairs otherwise they were woken by rambunctious DS1, and at night I had to do DS1s bedtime routine after DS was in bed , and then get the house titdies up and organised for the next day. What you can do for your first doesn't neccessarily translate to seconds and subsequents !

With both DC1 and DC2, aside from popping to another room for a wee or a cuppa etc one parent would be in the room for all sleeps until 6 months. But neither wanted a proper bedtime until at least 10 pm during that time and would happily sleep in the Moses basket, bouncer or on me in the living room. I also got into the habit early on of just moving them while asleep if I wanted to be in a different part of the house.

10 weeks old is too young to start taking SIDS advice with a pinch of salt in my opinion. While some parents may view the risks worth taking at 5 months or after, at less than 3 months old your baby is still in the peak risk time for SIDS deaths.

While, personally speaking, I might have nipped to the toilet or into the kitchen for a few minutes as baby slept in the living room at this age. I would not have considered putting baby down to sleep upstairs, alone at this age.

I would be the same as pp. Would largely be in the same room unless need to get a drink/ toilet/ bring washing in etc. I think around 6 months I felt better about them sleeping in a room by themselves.

All four stayed with me until 6 months unless I nipped for a drink, to the toilet etc.