Staying in the same room as a sleeping young baby

[AbuAlBanat]

Hi all,

I am a dad on MumsNet - I hope I’m welcome...!

We are proud parents to a baby girl who is circa 5 weeks. She’s super. In particular, at the moment (& we know this may not last!) she seems to have some idea of what is night and what is day, generally sleeping between 11.30pm & 7.00am, with one very long feed and nappy change somewhere in the middle. We know how lucky we are...!

We are not looking to bring in a bedtime yet, but, as is our wont, we are trying to get ourselves knowledged up for it.

Our little one will be sleeping in the crib beside us for at least 6 months. My confusion is, if we want to bring in a bedtime routine, and put her to bed at, say, 8pm, how does that work? If we put her to bed at 8pm, do we then stay in the room (our bedroom) with her? The alternative is to keep her with us downstairs, but I am struggling to see how we could then implement a bedtime routine which is sustainable going forward. The alternative is to put her to bed in our room, and leave her with a monitor: frankly, that does not sit easily with me.

Similarly, my wife has been wondering if she can leave the baby in the Moses basket in the living room whilst she, for example, unpacks the dishwasher and makes lunch in the kitchen for half an hour (I should add the I promise I don’t leave my wife to do the housework...!). Our Moses basket says it shouldn’t be moved with the baby in it. Our little one does things for a long time - she feeds for an hour or hour and a half at a time (& 5 or 6 hours more or less straight through in the evenings) and when she naps, she naps for two or three hours.

Any advice would be much appreciated - thank you!

Depends what works for you really at this early stage.
My first- kept her downstairs. She mostly cluster fed in the evenings and didn't go down for her longer night stint until about 11pm so it made sense. We dimmed the lights, kept telly quiet and took her up when we went to bed. Started implementing a bedtime routine when she was about 3 months and gradually it shifted earlier.
My second- seemed to sort his days and nights pretty quickly! Synchronised his bedtime with his big sister pretty quickly, so was ready for bed at about 7pm and would get increasingly fractious if we tried to keep him downstairs. So I started his bedtime routine much earlier. Once he was down we'd stay with him - take turns to shower, read, chat quietly. It was quite a nice time actually. He's always been a better sleeper.
I'd say it's fine to leave your daughter asleep in the living room while you're up and about downstairs - just check on her regularly.

Of course your wife can unpack the diswasher!

I started putting my little boy upstairs with a monitor at about 8/9pm at about 4 or 5 months but i kmow some people wouldn't.

Definitely settle in the bedroom and stay with her if you like but you can pop in and out. I use the time to relax/read, sometimes watch tv on the iPad. She might start waking more around 4 months and one of you might want to go to bed when she does

We kept our son downstairs in the same room as us until he was six months old, then we started putting him to bed in his cot (in our room) at 7pm. We use a video baby monitor so we can see and hear him in the evening when he's not with us.

His Moses basket was in the living room and there was always one of us in the room with him but it's fine to leave baby while you empty the dishwasher, make drinks etc.

You don't need to worry about establishing a bedtime routine until after six months.

I do 80% of naps upstairs and put 5m dd to bed at 8pm and come down once she's asleep. I have the monitor on constantly. You'll get into a Rhythm and relax a bit soon. I say this as super anxious person