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

@NoThanksymm have you read any of the thread or looked at and SIDS research?

7 is very early ( leaving aside the adult in room bit). Mine were never asleep before 8/9. I'd just conk out next to them( baby in bassinet next to bed). Tv on in a pathetic attempt to stay awake. Both of us snoring within minutes.

This! Totally impractical for busy multi child households.

I’m really glad you posted this OP as I’m expecting a baby later this year & have been wondering the same !! I think this thread has made my mind up to get a Moses basket so baby can stay downstairs with us until we are ready to go to bed… also thinking about getting a TV in our bedroom now too!

I think that’s a bit harsh. It depends how many years ago people had their children, as guidance changes so often.

Mine are adults now, but I wasn’t a selfish parent as I followed the advice at the time to the letter. Back to sleep, no quilts pillows or bumpers, new cot mattress, no smoking anywhere near the baby. My oldest slept better in his cot on his own from very early on. My youngest slept best in her Moses basket in the living room with us and then next to the bed when we went up. Obviously now that is seen as the best way, but back then it was just adapting to what she liked.

The Back to Sleep campaign had a huge impact on my generation of parents; the information was everywhere. Keeping your baby with you at all times to regulate their breathing and reduce the risk of SIDS is something I’ve only ever read about in passing on here. There hasn’t been the same publicity, so it’s hardly surprising people don’t know about it.

Just keep them downstairs until their first night feed then go up with them. We put both of ours down in the bassinet in the pram in a corner of the living room until they were about 7 months. Then started taking them up at "bedtime" once they were a bit older, likely to sleep for longer periods of time and at less risk of SIDS. It's such a short period of time in the grand scheme of things, I know you feel the need to get your evenings back, but actually they sleep through a bit of noise and if anything I think not having that perfectly quiet sleep environment makes them better sleepers in the long run.

Mine never slept through a bit of noise and it didn't matter how much they were exposed to it either.

So you keep saying. You got away with it, thankfully, but others aren't so lucky.

We would go to bed and watch a movie when our little one went to bed at that age. Shes in her own room now and most nights we will settle down in our room when she goes to bed. Its just become habit. Some will use a monitor at that age and stay downstairs but I felt she was too young. If we wanted to stay downstairs she would just go in the moses basket until we went to bed.

With our first he stayed with us in a Moses basket until we went to bed until about 7 months - our second stayed with us for about a month then we put him to bed at 7 and use a baby monitor. I generally go to bed about 9 to get some sleep in.

But unless you are awake all night there is no different between the baby sleeping alone or in the same room as you, as when you’re asleep you won’t hear everything or check on everything!

It’s not about you hearing anything! The baby uses the sound of your breathing to regulate their own. It’s a proven Sid’s reduction tool.

People just refuse to listen to or understand this, I’ve found.

It is proven that sleeping in the same room reduces the risk of SIDS. It is unknown why though, the regulating breathing is just a theory.

Ooh, this is interesting. Mine wouldn't go to sleep in the evenings when he was tiny and I was too lazy to work at it, so I just sat in the sitting room cuddling him every evening. At the time (and that was only 2017) I was ignoring all the advice I was getting that said you ought to try to get your babies to go to sleep. Now it feels like I'm vindicated :)

Well yes but that amounts to the same thing. It’s not a requirement to stay alert and awake your presence in the room is enough.

Also this isn’t by any stretch new advice or advice that is always changing. It’s been in place for over a decade.

It depends on you and the child. You don't have to get into a routine now, you can wait it out.

I personally hate getting babies into a strict routine til they are one as their sleep requirements are so variable at this age. Some babies wake up a lot and some don't. With deep sleepers an early routine is good but with a light sleeper it's awful having to keep getting up again and again.

I've just gotten them used to sleeping in the buggy with white noise. Me and DH would go out in the evening. Obviously it's different if you have school age kids but I'm thinking maybe not as you didn't consider a baby monitor??? X

You could always hold the baby and go up with them til they are about 6 months?

6 months is an easier age to get them into a routine too.

But it IS vanishingly unlikely. Just as it is unlikely you will be hit by a bus or win the lottery. It is not insensitive to say it is very very unlikely to happen. Because IT IS.
Im sorry you know someone who that happened to. I do, as well. In my family. But again... super super super rare!

It is not dismissive of babies dying. It is terrible that it happens, but the very very minute chance of it happening is not gonna have me paralysed by fear. (I have a 3 month old baby, and she sleeps on her own, in her next to me, for at least an hour every night, while I get things ready for bed, after putting her down)

Most people get away with it. Because it is very rare that it happens.
And also, sleeping in the same room doesnt stop SIDS 100%. So you could be following all the guidance, and it still happens.
Stop scaremongering.

Honestly, this is like the pregnancy advice, that pregnant women shouldnt eat raw meat, and this and that and the other, as if just the mere thought of eating those things would equate to instant death of their unborn child.
When the risk of toxo or listeria is, also, vanishingly small. Sure, there is a risk, but you take it, or not, by calculating the likelihood of it happening. The consequences could be bad if you take the risk, but the risk is really really small.

You are more at risk every time you enter the car, of having a car accident and your baby being seriously hurt or killed.

No one has adequately explained how a baby in a moses basket in the same room as you can "regulate their breathing through hearing yours" when it's very unlikely they'll be able to hear your breathing over all the background noise in the room. You'd literally have to be 6 inches away in a silent room for that to happen. Has this theory ever been proven? If it's true, you'd need to either hold your baby constantly day and night, or sit next to them in a silent room, day and night. The theory that background noise helps to stop baby falling into a deep sleep makes sense, but the hearing breathing theory seems totally unfeasible.

7pm! 🤣. OP, you'll be so shattered, you'll be lucky to make it till noon.

No, it hasn’t been proven.

It is proven that baby in the same room is a protective factor when it comes to SIDS but they don’t know why.

This is an odd topic. There are so many co-sleeping threads on MN, proven to increase SIDS risk.
While for always sleeping in the same room, the evidence for protective effect is much weaker, some large studies have not found any protective effect and others agree the effect is very minimal, and indeed they don't know why. So the recommendation is really more 'just in case it's that'.

But you rarely ever see the same level of outrage on co-sleeping threads, people basically telling the mum she clearly doesn't care about her child's life?

I agree and said as much earlier in the thread. I know it's not discouraged now, but even when it was, there were many posts about this, with posters basically advocating ignoring the rules because they knew best for their baby.
For some reason, there are some guidelines that provoke very strong reactions (FF car seats, routines and leaving babies alone for a short while spring to mind) and others - such as co-sleeping - which don't.
Apparently the risks are very low if the rules are followed according to the hive, so that's all right then.