Do i have to go to bed at 7pm??

[Blu3Bell]

Baby is turning 3 months soon, so I want to get in a good sleep routine. I know this means an earlier bedtime rather than 10/11pm which is what we do now.

My question is, if im putting baby to bed at 7pm ish and NHS guidelines state baby has to be in the same room as an adult for all day and nighttime sleep, does that mean I'm expected to be tucked up in bed at 7pm too for the foreseeable future? I can't see any wayy around it but surely not everyone is doing this?

Any advice/ideas appreciated x

Nope... if you know anything about child development and psychology you wouldn't be making these statements.

I'm glad we live in a time where our children's needs are being seen as important. We've seen the result of parent eccentric approaches that rely on behaviourism and it isn't great.

Thankfully we don't live in your times anymore.

Yeah none of the information I recieved told me why, I went looking for why on my own.

I stayed up until around 10/10.30 until DS was around 6/7 months old, then he went in a separate room and we gradually put him down earlier with the monitor. Whatever works best I suppose but I’d follow guidelines and wait until 6 months. Xx

Sorry I mean DS was with us until that time xx

And a routine isn't actually behaviourism, behaviourism approaches is training something that goes against a biological need by basically not meeting that need. So forcing them to not feed to sleep is going against what they need. It's sleep training bull culture that isn't even evidence based and if you look into the history of this sort advice you will find it's actually quite disturbing

Routines are a helpful sequence of cues, but they can be flexible for the babies needs.

I don't see that children's needs are seen as remotely important, judging by the huge number of early years children in childcare 8-6 5 days a week because their parents have to work, or the shockingly high rates of poor mental health in children associated with school.

Yes I do wonder, how many cases of SIDS on sofas (just as an example) are a direct result of a parent so exhausted from trying to achieve perfection. I suppose that's something that can not be easily studied.

oh I agree there's definitely still a lot of childism in our society, children's needs are often seen as secondary compared to an adult, we see it all the time, heck these comments show we still have a way to go.

This! We took a gradual approach based on what felt right.

Baby in the same room at all times until about 4 months. She’d just nap on me for the evening and get moved to the next to me when we went to bed (this would wake her so I’d do a feed at that point to get her back to sleep).

Moved her to her cot for one nap a day from about 4 months to get her used to it (usually a 30 min nap, me popping in every 5 mins in between laundry, unloading the dishwasher etc.)

From about 5 months all naps in cot with monitor (or on the go) and she’d be in her cot from her bedtime at about 7:30pm until I went to bed about 10:30ish (when I’d join her in her room, so she stayed nicely asleep in her cot rather than being disturbed by moving to our room).

It had reached the point she refused to contact nap and was happier in her cot.

Might be against the guidelines but having an evening back was so so beneficial and those 3 hours in the evening felt pretty safe with us popping in regularly, plus the monitor.

It was the only break I’d really get and nice to be able to just hang out with DH without worrying about waking the baby. (Yes, when they’re newborns they’ll sleep through anything, but our 5 month old would definitely be disturbed by us having a conversation over her).

It also meant we have a good routine in place - I can put her down in the cot awake and she’ll happily nod off.

I honestly couldn’t cope much longer with the crying that came with no real bedtime routine and she sleeps so much better now.

I’ll start leaving her overnight once she’s well over 6 months.

No. If it's a small baby havd a Moses basket in the lounge. Or get a baby monitor. Don't start this rocking to sleep.,that would be my advice.

@TakeMeToTheDarkSideOfTheMoon Do you work in child development or are you one of those people who has read up extensively on theory and regards themselves as an expert? Genuine question.
So far you seem be be saying you are an expert in risk, science, child development and psychology - or at least more of an expert than I am. Are you?

Nooo!!! Just put them to sleep next to you downstairs in a Moses basket then take them upstairs later. By the time you're going to bed they will probably be ready for a feed so you can re-settle them upstairs.

2 out of 3 of my kids would not have slept downstairs. They needed dark and quiet.

It's actually none of your business but yes I'm qualified in those areas.

But even if I wasn't, this information is available to everyone.

You're right, it is none of my business but as you are shoving your opinions at me in somewhat official language at times, I assumed as much.
So will your opinions change when evidence changes then?

I kept mine in the living room with me until I did a feed at about 10.45 and then put them in their cot/moses basket/crib.
All three sleep 8 hours straight through at 8 weeks and 12 hours at 12 weeks.

Don't take any notice of these morons who are saying "I happily chucked mine in bed every night for 7pm and just left them so I could (selfishly) have the evening to myself". Keep your newborn close, for the first few Months they don't even know they are a separate person to you so it's so heartless to leave them alone. Some people just don't give a shit though as long as they can catch up on EastEnders 😖

No, just put a baby monitor in the room . I did this with all mine , put them to bed and then had a camera baby monitor

How exactly would you suggest that I do that when my newborn would only settle in a dark, quiet room in her cot and not on me or in a moses basket downstairs, when I also have two other young children to feed, put to bed and generally keep alive, on my own?

Facts aren't attacks and they aren't opinions either. No need to be defensive. I look at all available information and the evidence behind it. This guidance hasn't changed for a lonnnnnnng time, which tells us there hasn't been an adequate amount of evidence to change it. Just like smoking and babies advice hasn't changed for years either, if anything they find more evidence to support why smoking is dangerous around babies/in pregnancy, so I highly doubt that they'll find evidence to suggest that room-sharing doesn't help reduce SIDS, it will probably be the opposite. But we'll see!

Some things change, some things don't... that's the great thing about evolving.

i had my kids 10 years ago, but i had my last sleeping in her own room from about 3 months old - she didn’t fit in the Moses basket and there simply wasn’t the room in our bedroom for a cot - not without knocking the wall down into next doors flat.

SIDS is one of those things where the individual risk is small, but the consequences so disastrous that we all panic about it.

in reality you have to do the best you can - and for our family that meant DD in her own room with a baby monitor and everyone else carrying on as normal. No it wasn’t perfect but the I don’t think I was able to follow a single guideline 100-% with either of mine. We did our best.

Oh yes, I knew it wouldn't be too long before someone said in effect "We love our babies much more then you did".
What a completely unintelligent and insulting post.

It is frustrating, especially when I've personally known a few babies dying because safe sleep guidance wasn't being followed.

I think a lot have survivors bias and cognitive dissonance.

Yeah it can be an inconvenience but man it's for such a small time.

Mine is 6 years old now, it goes blooming fast.

Yet again, how do you do it when you have more than one child to care for and baby will not sleep unless in a quiet, dark room?

I'd do what I needed to do, babies learn to sleep through noise and they are learning about dark and light, they get use to sleeping in different environments, not a lot need complete darkness after a while because they adjust... there's loads of multi child families, they just do the best they can. No one is saying it isn't hard, but it is doable.