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

The absolute risk of a baby dying from SIDS in the USA (only place I could find the stats for) is 0.00038%, this is reduced by about 4/5ths with back sleeping and again by about 1/2 if you are in the same room all the time.
For me, back sleeping was enough. Never leaving the baby, never having a break would be too much for my mental health and we're looking at incredibly small stats. That 3 hours of grown up time was very important.

@Kinshipug I agree, it should be an informed decision. Yet you have posters on here saying oh its absolutely fine to leave them (without looking at any of that stuff).

And when it comes to my baby, if I can half even a 0.01% chance, I'll do it.

I had mine downstairs with me then took went up with them when they had their dream feed at around 10:30/11pm.

Also important to note, it doesn't have to be the same person in the room with baby all the time. So quite possible for mum to have a break.

@HcbSS "Yeah great fun it is speaking in whispers, worrying about clattering plates/pans, having to have the TV/radio turned right down, not being able to laugh out loud at a joke your OH tells, thinking about lighting."

Personally, we never did any of those things. Most babies learn very quickly to sleep through normal family noise. As I said, it's one of the most useful things they can learn.

My dts slept 6-6 from 5 months in the same cot but a different room to me. I assumed that they could hear each other breathing etc and I really needed a break by then. I was a lone parent so did it all with no help.

My little ones 5 months and she's been in her own room since 8 weeks, going to bed at 7pm, baby monitor on and she sleeps through.
My first who's now 5 stayed in the living room with us in a moses basket until we went to bed, and it took years for him to sleep through.
Just do what your comfortable with and what works for you.

Your own post didn't sound particularly informed. As though needing to resuscitate your baby is inevitable, rather than staggeringly unlikely.
If that is the risk assessment you choose to make for yourself, great. But let's keep judgement of others choices out of it.

My favourite part of having a baby is having a good excuse to be in bed early 🤣
Mine is now 9 months and I still go to bed with him.

For the first 6 months both of mine had a moses basket in the lounge to sleep in in the evenings and a crib in our room for overnight. They were small but we could have got a second crib or put the travel cot up if they'd outgrown the basket. DD1 never slept in the moses basket and just cluster fed all evening before co-sleeping with me in bed. DD2 slept in it lovely and could be transferred still asleep to her crib.

The advice that babies shouldn't sleep in a room alone for the first six months is not new. It was well established ten years ago when I had DD1. It it up to individuals if they want to take the risk of ignoring it, if you don't smoke and follow other safe sleep advice the risk of cot death is low. But it is even lower if your baby can regulate their breathing to an adults in the same room. I'm a stickler for rules and big on safety so I followed the guidance. There is still a very small risk of cot death between 6 and 12 months so it is even safer to sleep in the same room till 12 months. In America the AAP suggests this. This was a step to far for me as we could not comfortably fit a cot in our room and wanted them to start bekng in their rooms at 6 months.

@Kinshipug you obviously missed this post then.

Why is going to sleep at 7pm a good sleep routine?

I find this safe sleep guidelines quite interesting. They vary in different countries and a lot of them don't have the 6 months in the same room thing. Also I'm not sure what it actually means? Like if the baby is napping and you're going to cook dinner for you have to move the baby everytime you change rooms?

Why are people whispering or not doing anything when their baby is asleep?

Literally the day we brought her home DH had the washing machine and tumble dryer going while she was asleep. We speak at normal volume, the TV stays on at normal volume.

We just carry on as normal, with a baby in tow!

We had a snooze pod until they were 6 months old. Not for use in their cots (I don't think they're recommended) but we laid it on one of the sofas in the living room for DDs to have daytime naps and put down to sleep around 7pm once getting them into a sleep routine. It meant that they were in the same room and we could keep an eye on them but we could also watch a bit of TV, read, chat etc and unwind. Then all upstairs together around 10pm.

From 6 months they started sleeping in their own bedrooms and we used a video monitor during the evenings when DH and I were downstairs.

This is all news to me. Mine are teens now and this definitely wasn’t the advice when mine were babies.

But I don’t really understand it to be honest. Having the baby in the same room as you so you can monitor if they are sleeping too deeply? What about when you are also asleep?

I co-slept with both of mine until they were wriggly toddlers. I followed the very sage advice of my wonderful midwife who told me to sleep when my baby sleeps to ensure I was well rested. So whilst my baby was always with me, I wasn’t monitoring their sleeping.

@Pookerrod the presence of another person in the room provides enough stimulation to baby not to fall into such a deep sleep as to stop breathing. Even when asleep, adults make noises and movements.

Mine either snoozed on my lap or in the sling. All 4 of them weren't sound off at that age till about 11pm anyway! My eldest was the worst but was a great sleeper by 2. My boys i never took up to be full 11pm until they were 5 months and they are also great sleepers. DC4 has a 9pm bedtime now (7 months) and sleeps like the dead most nights, waking for one feed.

It is safest to keep them with you. It will NOT stop them having healthy sleep and a good routine later down the road.

I did not miss that post. Anecdote does not trump statistics.
I coslept with mine, so my personal risk assessment took me to the opposite end of the spectrum. Parents are not robots, real life can't always be ideal.

Exactly.

Fearmongering does no one good. Mothers or babies.

dont worry if bedtime is later to start with. Like everyone has said it’s the being in the same room that helps regulate breathing, piping in every 30mins won’t help that and everyone who did that and was fine will says so to validate what they did.

Lucky you.
None of my babies would have accepted to be put to sleep in a room with light/noise around.
Nor to be moved to another room afterwards.

You just put your baby to sleep in your room and spend the evening normally.

Im sure there are other times during the day when he has a nap and you aren’t lying next to him.
Its not different.

I’m shattered by the time I put my baby to bed at 7.30 and we’re still up 2 or 3 times during the night so I go to bed at 7.30 and get as much sleep as I can!

I leave my husband with a list of jobs to do after he’s put my 4-year old to sleep. House isn’t the tidiest, but who cares really 😂

Kept my DD in the living room til I went to bed, in her Moses. She sleeps through everything now, one of the best things we did was not get her used to silence for sleep!

At that age they’d just sleep downstairs with me, (either on me or in Moses basket), take them up when I got to bed at 10ish, give them a feed then back to sleep,