Moving LO into their own room before six months??

[Needsleeeeepsendheeeelp]

Hi

I've posted a few times before about our struggles with 4mo DD sleeping. I'm aware that she's probably in the throes of the 4 month sleep regression and/or a mental leap, which isn't helping.

We've tried SO many things, but while she has improved in part, we are still having an ongoing struggle with sleep. So we're now considering moving her to her own room. She naps in there in the day (we have an Angelcare monitor with sensor pad) and generally naps really well - she stirs and often gets herself back off, occasionally we have to go up there but not every time. Whereas, in the crib in our room - where she sleeps at night - generally if she stirs she needs one of us to settle her. She can't nap in her crib in the day because DH's office is in our room, so her cot is the only feasible place for her to go in the day. Last night, I was up every 30 minutes with her. It's just unsustainable, we're beyond exhausted.

I know the advice is to keep them in the same room as you for at least 6 months, but given we have the sensor pad we are trying to understand what the risk is to moving her now - if (god forbid) she was to stop breathing then surely having the sensor pad there to alert us would be just as (if not more?) safe than us being asleep and potentially completely unaware next to her? In addition, she is napping in there already, with the sensor pad on, and we are putting her up to bed at about 7pm in the crib (with no sensor pad) in the evening while we stay up, before I go to bed at about 8.30/9pm. So we're not with her while she's sleeping all the time anyway. I tend to wake her when I go in, which obviously doesn't help - and also makes us wonder if we are disturbing her as much as she's disturbing us overnight.

So my questions are

• can anyone explain the risk in this context please
• what age did you move your baby to their own room - and did it help?
• any other sleep tips very welcome!

Thanks.

We moved DD out at 3 months. Re SIDS risk, if you are non smokers, putting baby to sleep on back, the risk is already minimal (like 1 in 100,000s of thousands). After 4 months the SIDS risk drops off even further. It is my understanding that baby in room with parents is based 1. On a theory of SIDS rather than large high quality studies & be cause risk of exhausted parents falling asleep with baby in a chair or something in baby room and dropping the baby is real, whereas in parents room they are more likely to put baby back in baby’s own bed.

My BFF is a pediatrician and she always says that with SIDS the only thing proven to make a difference is back to sleep.

There is a very real and much larger risk to you driving while exhausted. We have to balance risks in life and you shouldn’t make yourself ill. Look after yourself OP!

I would look up how to safely bed share, as without this I’d have been a zombie.

Hi OP

There is a paediatrician who posted about this recently but I can't find it. Basically it had something to do with the limitations of the sensor mats and she went into more detail about the issue of being in their own room too early (including for day time naps). From memory it had something to do with minimising time in a particular stage of the sleep cycle and background noise being preventative. If I was you I'd have a look on Google scholar and do some more thorough research on SIDS and sleep cycles from peer reviewed journals because it sounds like not knowing the science may sway you to make an uninformed decision you might come to regret. You don't want to be telling yourself Mumsnet said it was OK so I ignored the professional advice.

Driving any distance on 90 mins sleep the previous night is waaaaaaay more risky than having baby sleep in a separate room - guaranteed (not just for you and DD but also for any pedestrians and other drivers you might encounter). So if that's your reality, I would go ahead and move her asap. Or find a way to cut out driving.

I sometimes think that people get such tunnel vision with regard to the safe sleep guidelines they forget that risk does actually exist in other areas of life too.

Also, the rate of SIDS is incredibly low in this country since babies started being put to sleep on their backs. Of the remaining risk factors, I don't believe being in a room alone is the biggest. So we're talking about a really extremely tiny risk that your baby will stop breathing because they couldn't hear any adult breathing in the same room - of course that doesn't make it any easier for the tiny handful of parents this happens to every year, but you need to keep the real life risk level in mind when assessing what you're comfortable with. There are very few areas in life where we try to eliminate risk 100%.

You'll also find that many parents are breaking one or more of the guidelines - whatever works for them. Mumsnet is full of people who say you're a terrible parent for having baby sleep in a different room, but recommend napping in a bouncer (inclined sleep surface is a risk, you being in the same room doesn't change that). Or parents who put their baby in way more than the recommended amount of clothing/bedding because they sleep better when they're warmer. Not to mention those telling all and sundry to co-sleep to solve all their problems.

We did very similar to you in terms of upstairs naps abs going to bed in their cot for the evening.

With my youngest we moved her into her room full time at around 4 months. She just slept better in there.

She's 2 now and all is well.

Our risk for SIDS was already low as I breastfed and we don't smoke.

@Needsleeeeepsendheeeelp

Turns out, the lullaby trust have addressed this issue:

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.lullabytrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Movement-Monitors-Fact-Sheet.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiq09nb0pjvAhUEXRUIHRpuB3MQFjAAegQIARAC&usg=AOvVaw0CZu_UP3Imc4HcbPJdUS-K" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.lullabytrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Movement-Monitors-Fact-Sheet.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiq09nb0pjvAhUEXRUIHRpuB3MQFjAAegQIARAC&usg=AOvVaw0CZu_UP3Imc4HcbPJdUS-K

Basically, babies can't always be resuscitated when they stop breathing and have died on the monitors- there's no evidence to suggest they're protective from SIDS. So, up to you but don't consider them safe because there's a monitor.

Ds had his own bedroom from birth. We had a big house then so it made sense to us.

Thanks everyone.

We can't fit a single bed in her room for one of us to sleep in with her, unfortunately, otherwise that would definitely be an option.

Unfortunately, not driving isn't an option for us - no shops in walking distance, DS school is a 15 minute drive, among many other reasons we have to drive.

During the night last night, I kept thinking that her being in her room would be just as, if not more, unsustainable then her being in with us if she's just as unsettled, because of having to go into her room constantly rather than settle from the warmth and comfort of my bed. But I suspect she would sleep better, as she does settle well in the cot for her naps - we've looked at moving her cot into our room but there just isn't the space. And as DH has said, if we move her and she doesn't sleep any better, we can just move her back in with us.

It does feel like we're getting to a point where we might have to bite the bullet, because of how detrimental the sleep deprivation is being to our health and the safety of every day life. I want to wait until a school holiday to transition DD to sleeping in her room at night, so as to disturb her brother less, so the earliest we will do it is the Easter hols now. By which point she'll be five months, and I might feel better about it.

Personally I think you should follow the guidance, including being in the same room when they are sleeping at all times. I just don't think it's worth the risk. The risk tails off at 6 months, which you are so close to...
There is something about you regulate eachother when you're close, so a monitor can't do that for you.
Is there nothing else you can do to help with the tiredness? Are you already tag teaming with your partner as best you can?
That being said you do what you have to do, only you are in your position and know how you feel.

@Needsleeeeepsendheeeelp

Thanks everyone.

We can't fit a single bed in her room for one of us to sleep in with her, unfortunately, otherwise that would definitely be an option.

Unfortunately, not driving isn't an option for us - no shops in walking distance, DS school is a 15 minute drive, among many other reasons we have to drive.

During the night last night, I kept thinking that her being in her room would be just as, if not more, unsustainable then her being in with us if she's just as unsettled, because of having to go into her room constantly rather than settle from the warmth and comfort of my bed. But I suspect she would sleep better, as she does settle well in the cot for her naps - we've looked at moving her cot into our room but there just isn't the space. And as DH has said, if we move her and she doesn't sleep any better, we can just move her back in with us.

It does feel like we're getting to a point where we might have to bite the bullet, because of how detrimental the sleep deprivation is being to our health and the safety of every day life. I want to wait until a school holiday to transition DD to sleeping in her room at night, so as to disturb her brother less, so the earliest we will do it is the Easter hols now. By which point she'll be five months, and I might feel better about it.

I believe the period of highest risk is 2-4 months so if you're not doing it until she's five months anyway then the risk really is infinitesimally small compared to the risks you run from being overtired.

No offence to all those who have said you HAVE to keep her in with you until six months but this thread could be used as a textbook study of how terrible human beings are at assessing risk....

@Perfect28 yes we're sharing the load as much as we can, although DH is working full time so it naturally falls to me a bit more. I honestly can't think of anything else we can do to improve her sleep or make it impact less on us - the sleep deprived brain probably isn't helping with that, though!