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

When people are weighing up risk, they weigh up the benefits against the potential risk as well as the likelihood of it happening.

For example, when we consider letting our children play outside unsupervised, I think of the very tiny risk of abduction vs the benefits of independent child-led play and generally come to a decision about the circumstances we allow that.

When it comes to SIDS, the benefits of having an hour to myself when my child was a newborn, something which lasts for such a very short period of time, vs what is admittedly a very small risk of SIDS, just didn't tally up at all. I can't think of a more intolerable pain than losing your tiny baby to unexplained causes, knowing that you didn't do everything possible to reduce that risk.

It's not about the likelihood, it's about the severity, and the fact that the benefits are so small.

And my mental health would have suffered severely had I not had time to myself, and there was significantly more risk of that happening than cot death. 15% of mothers suffer from post partum depression, and those are only the reported figures.

That's your situation, not OPs, and your decision on risks vs benefits. It's also going to be different if you don't have a partner who can stay in the room with the baby whilst you shower or take some breathing space.

PND is just as likely in mothers who are not supported to keep their babies close as in mothers who are not supported to get time alone.

We don't know what OP's situation is. Hence people providing differing experiences and knowledge and talking about relative risks. The last thing we should do is placing an expectation on new mothers to be perfect in every regard, when people are only human and you don't become a different person overnight on becoming a parent.

How do you know that @MrsSunshine2b?
I am with @shearwater2 on this - my mental health would have been in shreds if I was not allowed a break from my babies at all, ever, for the first six months, and I can't see how anyone would be very different tbh.
The problem is young mums today are bombarded with this dogma of mum martyrdom and are made to feel guilty if they want a break from their babies at all and made to feel they are somehow not 'bonding' if they allow someone else to hold their baby or admit they don't want to be 'nap trapped' or 'enjoy milky cuddles' day-in, day-out.
As I said upthread, I am late 50s and my generation were not subject to this at all. The emphasis was very much on the mum's wellbeing because if she was struggling, the baby would suffer. Nowadays, I see on here young mums running themselves ragged and in a constant state of fear or guilt that they are not looking after their baby properly. In my opinion - and I will don my hard hat here - the baby-led way is ridiculous and not sustainable if you have more than one child anyway. Babies are unpredictable and for me at least, not having a basic framework of a routine would have done my head in. And that's what I think is happening now with parents really suffering. It will be interesting to revist this in years to come.
Sites like this don't help and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing in some cases, with some posters seemingly unable to risk assess themselves and following guidelines - which change all the time anyway - slavishly and not applying common sense.
Lastly, the extremism is not helpful either. Not following guidelines may mean your baby is less than half of one per cent more likely to suffer from SIDS, but it does not mean it's 'dangerous'. Not rear-facing your child in the car may mean there is a slightly heightened chance of a death in an accident, but it doesn't mean not doing so is 'dangerous'. Common sense and proportion.

However, OP was clear in her post and has been in further comments that she has no intention of leaving baby alone to sleep and does not want to increase that risk, and yet there are multiple comments telling her to ignore her gut and leave the baby alone to sleep. She doesn't want to. She wants to know how other parents have managed this situation whilst sticking to the advice.

It's pretty invalidating, and it puts her in a lose/lose situation.

She leaves the baby alone, going against what she planned to do, knowing she's increasing the risk, she feels more anxious, and in the unlikely but possible event that the worst happens, she will live with that guilt and grief for her whole life. Not the posters on Mumsnet who told her it would be fine- her.

She stays with the baby, and it's hard, and she feels exhausted and drained, and she can't seek support or say how she's feeling because she knows she'll just be told she's silly for staying in the room anyway and should just make life easier for herself by not bothering.

It's the "fed is best" argument being used to avoid supporting breastfeeding mums, it's the Mum who wants to RF losing the support of her in-laws because they insist on forward facing her toddler, and it's OP. Raising babies is hard. Telling people to cut corners when they don't want to doesn't make it easier.

Agree. Looking after a toddler and newborn by myself would have been impossible and dangerous for me to drag the newborn all over the house just so he was in the same room as me at any given moment. He was either asleep in cot upstairs or pram downstairs with me going in every few minutes.

This is the worst post I’ve read in a while, the numbers for the back to sleep campaign speak for themselves all over the world

Excellent post

This! And it’s not just about Sid’s, babies can fall ill in the night rapidly and need adult assistance, bronchiolitis is extremely common. Aged 8 weeks my son began making a very faint grunting with each breath about an hour after he went to bed. I would never have heard this from another room, I immediately took him to a and e as I knew something was wrong. 20 mins after we arrived he crashed and needed the full team rhesus. He had Sepsis and meningitis and made an almost full recovery. If I hadn’t been in the room he would most likely have died that night

My son also fell ill during the night as a baby. He was in his own room and we still noticed because we checked on him.

Parents who have their babies in their own rooms don’t just ignore them all night.

I think you need to take the “in the same room” with a pinch of salt. Check on them for sure, have a monitor, but realistically when you are then asleep (in the same room) you’re not checking them regularly in the night are you - I’m sure if you wake you check them but otherwise you’re not setting 30 minute alarms to check the baby through the night…

I did a bit of a deep dive on this when my twins were 3.5 months old - my DH and I had developed a hacking cough which was not only waking the twins but also inducing hysterical crying as it seemed to coincide with their startle reflex being very sensitive.

I read the Lullaby Trust's underlying policy document and was not overly compelled by the research they cited - they indicate that being with your baby is an additional protective factor rather than sleeping alone being a risk factor and the advice seemed to be based on quite a small study of families who otherwise did not adhere to safe sleep advice (eg co sleeping/sleeping on their front/lots of blankets/ very overheated rooms) but had no incidence of SIDS. I weighed it up against the frankly extreme sleep deprivation I was under (both twins were very noisy sleepers on the rare occasions they slept) and my emotional wellbeing (I was bumping along at the lower end of PND on the Edinburgh scale) and the consequent impact on the boys and we decided to move them into their own rooms overnight.

It was transformative for us as a family - after a horrendous pregnancy, three weeks in hospital and 14 weeks of extreme crying (one or both babies for around 8-10 hours a day) suddenly everyone was sleeping better and having those two hours a night where the babies weren't being disturbed by us eating dinner or having the tv on (or one of us was sitting in a dark room) was enormously healing after nine months where my nerves were completely shot.

So in short I think you have to weigh up the guidance/recommendations against the reality of your situation and the personality of your baby and decide, but I'm not sure this hysteria of "if your baby isn't in the room with you they'll die of SIDS" is either correct or even that helpful.

No no. Baby in bed, baby monitor on, pop up and check every 90 mins or so. Don’t listen too much to the ‘guidelines’ as they are just that ‘guidelines’ and you are mam- you know best.

I'm sorry what now!? Who in Gods name has said you have to be in the same bedroom as a sleeping baby at all times? I've never heard anything so daft in all my life. Get a baby monitor, or just go in and check on them periodically.

@Strictlymad looks like someone came along to prove my point exactly.

No one has. The NHS guidance is that the baby should sleep in the same room as you (I.e. bedroom) for the first 6 months. It doesn’t say it should never leave your sight, but that’s how guilt-ridden mums have interpreted it because they have been conditioned to be TERRIFIED.

This hysteria reminds me of when they told pregnant women not to eat peanuts and hey presto, loads of kids got nut allergies.

This thread is b.o.n.k.e.r.s

Absolutely. Well done for taking the common sense approach.

Surely there’s a difference between napping and sleeping too. Naps are likely to be less deep sleeps anyway with household noise in the background - and often the only opportunity to grab a quick shower, eat etc. especially when baby out of the newborn stage I presumed this was ok as you’ll be in and out of the room constantly. Night sleep I understand remaining in the same room.

But, by and large, people do sleep in the same room as their babies until 6 months. It just doesnt mean that you have to spend every single minute of the night sleep in the room with them!

Like I said up thread, I put my baby to bed about an hour before I manage to go to bed myself, because things need to be done once shes asleep. And I found it was better to put her to bed, in her bed, straight away, after her bottle, than having her in the living room and then transferring her to her next to me once I was ready to go to bed.

She sleeps better, and it just works for is. Also, there is still background noise. I dont stop making noise just because baby is asleep, and it is the "night" sleep.

I also dont have an upstairs, so shes quite close to me, even in the room.

Currently there is a concert happening right outside my door. June street parties are a thing in my neighbourhood, every weekend of the month. The music goes on until 2am. It can definitely be heard in the bedroom, even with the wndow closed! Baby is sound asleep, with the music lulling her! LOL
I will just finish putting her nappies in the wash and will joing her in bed, while still leaving her clothes to put away tomorrow!