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

This post is spot on. Scaremongering is really unhelpful and not good for maternal mental health.

Exactly.

It's not really scaremongering though is it?

Its like saying its fine not to have a seat belt in the back I was fine... Yes most are! But in case of an accident it's there.

Safe sleep guidelines (back to sleep, no cot "bumpers" and sleep in same room as you etc) HAVE reduced death from sids so it's really important people know the guidelines and don't, as many people on this thread are still posting, think a monitor is the same thing.

It’s hardly scaremongering to follow guidelines.

It’s a tiny sacrifice to make to lessen the risk. My cousin’s new baby died from SIDs. They took every single precaution and bit of advice with their next 2.

It is scaremongering. As parents we take calculated risks from the moment of conception. Everything in life is a balancing act of what is ideal and what is realistic. There's an awful lot of hyperbole in these types of threads, and it seems very people actually understand what the risk level is for their baby.

Will our singleton and our twins, moses basket in the living room, main lights off and telly quieter and then they went up to bed with us at bedtime. From six months their own bedroom

I agree.

It isn’t always so black and white. Some guidelines are also more protective and researched than others such as not smoking and baby sleeping on back.

we decided early on that we’d prefer to have her in the next to me crib for her night sleep so I’ve been having early nights! It hasn’t always been 7pm though. Started at 9pm at 6 weeks then gradually moved to 7:15 ish now she’s 4 months. At 6 months I’ll start using the monitor.

I agree, I think it's so odd how so many mumsnetters insist on (say) extended rear facing car seats, or putting their toddlers on reins. Both on the cautious end of the spectrum in my opinion.

But then so many mumsnetters are quite blasé about safe sleep.

I suppose they're probably not the same mumsnetters.

Yes I googled and harvard say it's halves the chance of Sids. If you think about all the other safety things we do this seems fairly straightforwards! Maybe in a few years people will look back on those types of mumsnetters as we do on those that don't think kids need car seats...

I was terrified by the NHS advice so kept her downstairs with us until 6 months. Most people I know put them upstairs with a monitor from about 4 months. Don't beat yourself up, the advice feeds our paranoia. Surely if there is so much risk then there should be someone awake watching them 24/7?! Yes there is risk, but the advice is just impossible to follow as they wake up from tv etc when in the lounge with you.

That's pretty much the whole point. The noise of someone else, plus sleeping on their back which babies don't really like doing, keeps them from sleeping too deeply and so helps prevent sids.

baby monitor isn’t going to alert you if your baby has stopped breathing. We had a breathing monitor (angel care) for cot and Snuza halo for naps in Moses basket during day or in pram. The angel care monitor worked for us : it went off once and I went running in and dd was starting to go grey. Gave her a nudge and she started breathing again. A video feed on a baby monitor wouldn’t have alerted me.

the gold standard is of course to have them sleeping with someone in the room at all times but that’s not always practical.

I should add DD was ex prem and had spent a month in nicu so we were both used to breathing monitors and also had been warned she was at higher risk of SIDS and “forgetting” to breathe. Realise my story might be alarming to new parents. And despite being anti dummies the neonatologist advised we give her one as that reduced sids risk slightly. This was 10 years ago though, there may be more recent research.

My daughter didn’t start going down for the night at 7ish until about 4 months anyway, so from that age she would be in the cot in our room with monitor till we came up to bed with regular checks.
I find the safe sleep advice on this a little confusing. Surely everyone doesn’t go to bed the same time as their babies for the first six months?
What about naps? You would stay in the room with them for those too? Surely folk get on with other things when baby naps?

I always let her fall asleep on my lap while we watched tv in the living room then took her upstairs with us when we were ready

Depends if you want to follow the guidelines. With my first I followed them rigidly, with my second (who has just turned 10 months) I put her in her own room at 10 weeks on an angelcare mat. She was so noisy in the crib next to me I couldn’t sleep even when she did. Plus hubbys farting and snoring I was like a zombie trying to get my older one to school and activities etc so had to do it for my sanity. If baby was a healthy birth weight and has no issues I’d put them down with a monitor on them and check every 30 mins or so. Mines sleeping through 11 hrs now , the days are long but the years are short!

This sounds like one of the sleep deprived things I said when I had a new baby. Like they ought to make socks for hands to keep babies hands warm.
No you don’t. Theres no reason you need to be in the room while your baby sleeps. Put the baby down at 7 then go to bed when you go to bed quietly. It’s good for babies to get used to sleeping through some movement and noise, you don’t want a baby who will only sleep when it’s pin drop quiet.
i fought really hard to get mine into a bedtime routine early. They are still in it now at 9 and 11 years old. They both go to bed at 8:30 and sleep through. However I do regret fighting quite so hard when they were tiny, I sometimes spent 4 hours trying to get them to sleep. I wish now I’d just sat downstairs watching tv with them in the bouncer or my arms, would’ve saved a lot of stress!

There is no reason for bed time at 7. Do what works for your baby. My baby went to sleep for the night about 11-12 and I did want to make it earlier so we did it half an hour at a time.

She is now 20 months and she is up at 8 asleep by about 9-10 depending on how she has napped.

we didn’t get a good routine until she was older and her naps more regular. I never forced anything just what she needed.

Yes I think that is also key. They don't need to be in bed at 7 as a baby anyway. I didn't force a routine as a baby and was quite happy to have her fall asleep on me in the evenings etc.

One child had sleep issues but turned out to be to do with sleep apnea which was enlarged adneoids and tonsils. Nothing a routine would have fixed.

Happy sleepers now much older! Had earlier bedtimes for preschool and school fine!

We kept ours in living room either on our lap or in Moses basket until we went to bed about 10pm but we had lights down low and volume down etc. 6 months onwards we tried to get them into bedtime routine.

Seriously? This is nuts. A baby will be fine on a room on its own for a few hours with regular checks.

My DS was in his own room at 8wks old and we all slept so much better for it. When he he was in our room my husband's snoring would disturb DS who would fuss and grumble which would disturb me so I'd be getting about 4-6 hrs sleep from 9pm -9am but when DS went in his own room he would sleep from last feed (any where between 9pm and 10pm) straight through to 10am. He's 7yrs now and still sleeps 10-11hrs a night.

My baby is 6 months, he’s my second, he’s only just getting into a sleep routine, and 7 is about the time he settles to sleep, I pop the monitor on and then go and enjoy a bit of Netflix or whatever it is I need to do. Don’t worry, you don’t need to go to sleep then too, you might fall asleep at that time by accident though 🤣x

Well yes, baby should sleep in the sane room as you but obviously not everyone does this.

At 3 months we just kept them downstairs with us until one of us wanted to go to bed.