Move 2-month old to her own room?

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

We have a lovely two-month old who seems to have her sleep disturbed by sleeping in the same room as us.

Is it okay to move her cot to another room this early?

We would have the monitor on to hear her and the room is right next to us, but all the books and guidance seem to suggest six months of sharing the same room.

Must admit that a little part of us is thinking that we'd also get more sleep if she was in the other room! But she does seem to sleep better by herself and at the moment is even waking up from the sound of someone turning in the bed, even though she is in a cot.

Advise gratefully received!

3DataModem

Hitchhiker's Guide to... wrote: »

We have a lovely two-month old who seems to have her sleep disturbed by sleeping in the same room as us.

Is it okay to move her cot to another room this early?

We would have the monitor on to hear her and the room is right next to us, but all the books and guidance seem to suggest six months of sharing the same room.

Must admit that a little part of us is thinking that we'd also get more sleep if she was in the other room! But she does seem to sleep better by herself and at the moment is even waking up from the sound of someone turning in the bed, even though she is in a cot.

Advise gratefully received!

Whatever works!

Boy twin moved out at 12 weeks. Girl twin at 6 months.

Each kid different... If she sleeps better on her own I say go for it.

sillysocks

We also moved our baby to her own room about 12 weeks, she was a great little sleeper but all her grunting and groaning in her sleep was keeping us awake.
We had the Angelcare mat in her cot which gave me a bit more reassurance but we never looked back. Everyone slept better!

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

sillysocks wrote: »

We also moved our baby to her own room about 12 weeks, she was a great little sleeper but all her grunting and groaning in her sleep was keeping us awake.
We had the Angelcare mat in her cot which gave me a bit more reassurance but we never looked back. Everyone slept better!

Thanks. Must get that Angelcare mat!

Moonbeam

All kids are different and all parents are different.
Only you know when the right time is.
My big girl was 1 but that was due to circumstances rather then anything else and my baby is 9 months and still in my room but the other room isn't ready yet so at christmas I will have my room back:)

czrewor

I'd honestly wait until the 6 months old stage, I know nobody will agree, but the risk of cotdeath is higher within the first year, I know for us personally we always wanted glimpse at our son if we woke up during the night, I dont trust those moniters fully. Thats just my opinion though, I think for security and stuff, the baby needs reassurance and not to wake up in a room alone at night. I'd say just go by your instincts, as only you know your own baby Best of luck

sillysocks

Hitchhiker's Guide to... wrote: »

Thanks. Must get that Angelcare mat!

If you already have a monitor and just need the movement mat they're half price in Argos at the moment.

January

Both my girls were in their own rooms between 8-12 weeks... this one will be in with us a bit longer, but that's because I don't want to put the baby in with the two smallies and have them waking each other up, will wait til one of them at least is sleeping through!

jeepers101

czrewor wrote: »

the risk of cotdeath is higher within the first year

I don't think there's a connection between cot death and letting a baby sleep in another room.

We moved our first at six weeks and our second at four weeks.

LegacyUser

Hitchhiker's Guide to... wrote: »

Must admit that a little part of us is thinking that we'd also get more sleep if she was in the other room!

This is the real reason you ask.

It's much safer for the baby to be with their parents so that you can react quicker if they fall ill.

Also, if they are in the same room they do not have to reach a stage of crying to attract your attention and you can respond in a normal, natural way.

There are a million and one reasons why they should not be left to sleep alone, but you don't want to hear this, you just want people to say it's ok to get rid of him.

I won't be saying it's ok, but I'm sure others will.

jeepers101

Columos wrote: »

This is the real reason you ask.

It's much safer for the baby to be with their parents so that you can react quicker if they fall ill.

Also, if they are in the same room they do not have to reach a stage of crying to attract your attention and you can respond in a normal, natural way.

There are a million and one reasons why they should not be left to sleep alone, but you don't want to hear this, you just want people to say it's ok to get rid of him.

I won't be saying it's ok, but I'm sure others will.

This is ridiculous. React quicker if they fall ill? Seriously? Comments like this will only cause the op undue guilt. Yes, the reason they want to move their baby is to get some sleep but they've already said their baby is a light sleeper so keeping him/her in the room is causing unnecessary stress on both parts.

There is really no need to over complicate this. If parents and baby will both be happier in different rooms then so be it. If waking the baby is your main concern put him/her in their own room and buy a baby monitor.

LegacyUser

jeepers101 wrote: »

This is ridiculous. React quicker if they fall ill? Seriously? Comments like this will only cause the op undue guilt. Yes, the reason they want to move their baby is to get some sleep but they've already said their baby is a light sleeper so keeping him/her in the room is causing unnecessary stress on both parts.

There is really no need to over complicate this. If parents and baby will both be happier in different rooms then so be it. If waking the baby is your main concern put him/her in their own room and buy a baby monitor.

To me, it is not the correct thing to do at all. A baby belongs with his/her mother, not sleeping alone in a different room.

This is the natural state, for a baby to sleep with it's mother.

It is our society that has deemed it ok to separate them. I don't think it's right and I'm not alone in this thinking. The OP does not want the baby to wake her up, but that's what babies do and as a parent you should do what's best for baby.

After all, baby does not have a say here.

LegacyUser

jeepers101 wrote: »

I don't think there's a connection between cot death and letting a baby sleep in another room.

We moved our first at six weeks and our second at four weeks.

There is a connection. If you're not going to do any reading or research on this whatsoever, then you really shouldn't pass dangerous, ill-informed opinions on it.

Best practice says you shouldn't have moved them out that early.

Parent now or parent later.

implausible

columos wrote: »

To me, it is not the correct thing to do at all. A baby belongs with his/her mother, not sleeping alone in a different room.

This is the natural state, for a baby to sleep with it's mother.

It is our society that has deemed it ok to separate them. I don't think it's right and I'm not alone in this thinking. The OP does not want the baby to wake her up, but that's what babies do and as a parent you should do what's best for baby.

Do you have a time limit on how long "baby belongs with mother"? 18 months, 5 years? Society has nothing to do with it, every parent and child is different. The OP has said that she is waking the baby up and is not complaining about vice-versa. It is good for baby to have a good night's sleep and a mammy who has had some rest!

OP, I waited until 5 months before I moved his highness out, and on reflection, I should've done it much sooner as he was sleeping through and not needing feeds way before that. My husband was working mad early shifts and the shuffling and tip-toeing around the room was ridiculous.

Every baby and parent is different. If she and you will sleep better, if she's not waking for feeds and if you have a good monitor, go ahead and don't be making life unnecessarily awkward out of guilt.

As for the cot-death issue, I found that the breathing and any noise my fella made was way louder on the monitor than if he was in the room with me, making me quicker to notice any changes.

LegacyUser

implausible wrote: »

The OP has said that she is waking the baby up and is not complaining about vice-versa.

It's pretty obvious the OP wants to move the baby out so that SHE can sleep, not the baby.

implausible wrote: »

Every baby and parent is different. If she and you will sleep better, if she's not waking for feeds and if you have a good monitor, go ahead and don't be making life unnecessarily awkward out of guilt.

Why would there be any guilt if it was the right thing to do? Because it's not the right thing to do and we all know it.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

implausible

Columos wrote: »

It's pretty obvious the OP wants to move the baby out so that SHE can sleep, not the baby.

Why would there be any guilt if it was the right thing to do? Because it's not the right thing to do and we all know it.

Did you read her post? The baby's sleep is being interrupted. And even if she was only doing it for the sole purpose of getting a night's sleep, what exactly is the problem with that?! How DARE a mother try to get a night's sleep when she should be sitting up all night (preferably nailed to a cross) watching her baby sleep for the first few years of the baby's life?

Are you a parent? If you are, you would know that guilt comes with the territory, regardless of whether it is justified or not. You feel guilty about the way you give birth, the way you feed your child, how you wean your child, going back to work, not going back to work, the list is endless.

To be honest, it's hard not to believe that your only purpose in posting here is to try to guilt-trip a parent who is looking for advice, when you offer no research to back up your view and choose to post anonymously.

Zambia

Columos wrote: »

It's pretty obvious the OP wants to move the baby out so that SHE can sleep, not the baby.

So what the mothers health is very important.

Columos wrote: »

Why would there be any guilt if it was the right thing to do? Because it's not the right thing to do and we all know it.

B*ll*x What qualification do you have to preach this drivel?

Hannibal Smith

Do whatever works for you. We moved our eldest fella into his own room after the 6 week check because he was so noisy. I don't give a monkeys who thinks that was so we could sleep...damn right I wanted some shut eye! They use sleep deprivation as a form of torture in some parts of the world:D You can't look after a baby if you're not in the full of your health.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Thanks for so many replies!

After reading about the Angelcare thing here we went out and got it and I didn't get a chance to check back on the thread until now.

Actually Angelcare is a cool monitor - nice light, reassuring level of monitoring!

She seems to be sleeping fine now by herself and its a small enough apartment so we're definitely not missing out on any sounds.

Actually Columos I'm not sure how useful your comments are. Of course we would appreciate a bit more sleep (I'm the father rather than the mother by the way), but that desire is minuscule compared to her well-being. It isn't that she was disturbing us, but that we seemed to be disturbing her. Having said that, there is doubt about whether we might be driven in these thoughts by a desire for more sleep, and I wanted to mention that in OP although hopefully it isn't actually the case!

Before moving her I looked up some of the research that has been published in paediatric journals on SIDS being lower when sharing a room with your baby and the research seemed to be primarily longitudinal studies, which would mean that a huge amount of confounding factors not present in our case (e.g. long distance from baby with no monitor) are probably causing the very small differences found in SIDS.

Did you have other research on the subject in mind when you made the comments?

mariaf24

I think it is very worrying that the majority of people here think that it is ok to put a 2 month old baby into their own room at night. It is recommended that all babies between 0-6 months sleep in the same room as their parents every night, although i would go along with 9-12 months myself. There is evidence which shows an increase in sids/cot death when a baby is sleeping in a different room to that of their parents when they are younger than 6 months. This is the type of thing that the midwives should tell you when they discharge you, your public healthnurse at every visit, your GP at your 6 week check up... what is wrong with this country that parents are not even aware of these risks when the studies have been done? Because the research is there for anyone who is unsure. In fact i recently read a study from England where it stated that small babies in their own room are 10 times more likely to be victims of sids (I don't have a link or reference unfortunately)

OP, Small babies have underdeveloped cardiovascular and nervous systems and cannot regulate their temperature, heart rate and breathing on their own. Babies who are sleeping on their own are more likely to fall into a deep sleep from which they cannot wake to restart breathing after a pause. Babies actually learn from their own parents breathing during sleep in order to regulate their own breathing. With regard to your 2 month old stirring during the night, this is actually a safety measure in preventing sids/cot death as it shows she is not in a dangerous deep sleep. It is simply part of the natural sleep cycle. My baby is 4 months old and i do hear her stirring, especially when im going to bed myself in the room.

I hope i havent offended anyone etc but this is just a risk not worth taking op.
There is a Dr Sears who has done research and experiments around this area and also around monitors/breathing etc so maybe you could have a look at that website.

Congrats on your new baby by the way

Zambia

mariaf24 wrote: »

OP, Small babies have underdeveloped cardiovascular and nervous systems and cannot regulate their temperature, heart rate and breathing on their own. Babies who are sleeping on their own are more likely to fall into a deep sleep from which they cannot wake to restart breathing after a pause.

MariaF I am assuming you are not a doctor

Here in Australia these are the guidelines drilled into parents. One can only assume with some confidence they are taken from studies of past cases.

http://www.sidsandkids.org/safe-sleeping/

The reason I follow them is that I work with doctors and nurses and paramedics. They tell me the same thing as the guidelines.

I am quite frankly not qualified as a new parent to disregard their advice.

Ayla

Zambia wrote: »

MariaF I am assuming you are not a doctor

Here in Australia these are the guidelines drilled into parents. One can only assume with some confidence they are taken from studies of past cases.

http://www.sidsandkids.org/safe-sleeping/

The reason I follow them is that I work with doctors and nurses and paramedics. They tell me the same thing as the guidelines.

I am quite frankly not qualified as a new parent to disregard their advice.

Umm, perhaps I'm missing something here, but it appears to me that MariaF and you are actually agreeing on the advise to leave babies in the parent's room until at least age 6 months? According to the link you provided, it seems fairly in line w/ what MariaF was supporting ... not sure what you're disagreeing with here?

implausible

mariaf24 wrote: »

There is evidence which shows an increase in sids/cot death when a baby is sleeping in a different room to that of their parents when they are younger than 6 months. This is the type of thing that the midwives should tell you when they discharge you, your public healthnurse at every visit, your GP at your 6 week check up... what is wrong with this country that parents are not even aware of these risks when the studies have been done? Because the research is there for anyone who is unsure. In fact i recently read a study from England where it stated that small babies in their own room are 10 times more likely to be victims of sids (I don't have a link or reference unfortunately)

There is a Dr Sears who has done research and experiments around this area and also around monitors/breathing etc so maybe you could have a look at that website.

It would be easier to take this on board if you actually posted links to the research that directly links sleeping in a different room (when all other risk factors are removed) to SIDS.

There is a huge amount of risk factors with SIDS and baby being put in his own room is just one of them. Most of the risks are common sense i.e. overheating baby. Now, if everything else is ok e.g. position of baby in cot, temperature, not too many blankets, no smoking and an excellent monitor, that risk is an absolutely tiny one.

Ayla

OP - I'm assuming this is your first child (apologies if I'm incorrect) but thought I'd share my experience w/ our second child...

She was a "challenge" from day one and we had a really hard time for the first year or so. She slept in a cot about a foot away from my side of the bed and I breastfed her until she was about 9 months. She never slept well, and like you I started thinking that we were keeping her awake.

Imagine our surprise then when we discovered (around the time she was 12 months) that she slept through the night when she was in a room with her older (3-yr old) sister. We immediately moved her cot into her sister's room & none of us looked back.

It seems (in hindsight) that I was somehow disturbing her - she would settle & cuddle w/ dad but never me - and perhaps it was possible that me being a foot away from her did bother her.

I have also heard of studies (can look for them if required) in which the argument was made that young babies do rely on the sound & rhythm of breathing/etc to help them regulate their own bodily functions.

My point with this being that (if you have an older child) maybe a good option B would be to put the baby in with him/her, and use a monitor in the room? If your baby is anything like what mine was then maybe some distance from parent (while still maintaining the breathing sounds of a sibling) would be helpful.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Ayla wrote: »

OP - I'm assuming this is your first child (apologies if I'm incorrect) but thought I'd share my experience w/ our second child...

She was a "challenge" from day one and we had a really hard time for the first year or so. She slept in a cot about a foot away from my side of the bed and I breastfed her until she was about 9 months. She never slept well, and like you I started thinking that we were keeping her awake.

Imagine our surprise then when we discovered (around the time she was 12 months) that she slept through the night when she was in a room with her older (3-yr old) sister. We immediately moved her cot into her sister's room & none of us looked back.

It seems (in hindsight) that I was somehow disturbing her - she would settle & cuddle w/ dad but never me - and perhaps it was possible that me being a foot away from her did bother her.

I have also heard of studies (can look for them if required) in which the argument was made that young babies do rely on the sound & rhythm of breathing/etc to help them regulate their own bodily functions.

My point with this being that (if you have an older child) maybe a good option B would be to put the baby in with him/her, and use a monitor in the room? If your baby is anything like what mine was then maybe some distance from parent (while still maintaining the breathing sounds of a sibling) would be helpful.

Thats really interesting! Thanks.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Ayla wrote: »

Zambia wrote: »

MariaF I am assuming you are not a doctor

Here in Australia these are the guidelines drilled into parents. One can only assume with some confidence they are taken from studies of past cases.

http://www.sidsandkids.org/safe-sleeping/

The reason I follow them is that I work with doctors and nurses and paramedics. They tell me the same thing as the guidelines.

I am quite frankly not qualified as a new parent to disregard their advice.

Umm, perhaps I'm missing something here, but it appears to me that MariaF and you are actually agreeing on the advise to leave babies in the parent's room until at least age 6 months? According to the link you provided, it seems fairly in line w/ what MariaF was supporting ... not sure what you're disagreeing with here?

lol, was thinking that aswell!

Zambia

Ayla wrote: »

Umm, perhaps I'm missing something here, but it appears to me that MariaF and you are actually agreeing on the advise to leave babies in the parent's room until at least age 6 months? According to the link you provided, it seems fairly in line w/ what MariaF was supporting ... not sure what you're disagreeing with here?

Yes I quoted a section of that post that indicated towards co-sleeping and some sort of dependence of a baby to be close to the mother at night. It all sounded a bit too much like a medical opinion for my liking.

The guidelines for baby being in the room for 6 months are geared toward keeping an eye on a newborn. However if your 3-6 month old baby is in a room 1 door down with a monitor and/or a mat its not like to have given him a lioncloth and a penknife sent him out to fend for himself till morning. We moved our son out at three months after a consultation with the Maternal health nurse.

The welfare of the mother/parent is really important any plan that involves having
to forego sleep for extended periods of time has it own implications.

If in doubt ring your Maternal health nurse talk to your doctor.

Ayla

Zambia wrote: »

Yes I quoted a section of that post that indicated towards co-sleeping and some sort of dependence of a baby to be close to the mother at night. It all sounded a bit too much like a medical opinion for my liking.

I think you're just picking a fight here, b/c at no point was MariaF24 saying anything about co-sleeping. S/he was arguing for keeping the baby in the same room, just like the link you provided in your earlier post.

So now I'm really confused...the link you provided stated very clearly that the child should remain in the parent's room until at least 6 months, and you said in your original post that you follow those guidelines b/c they are recommended by all sorts of medical professionals. But now you state that you moved your child out at 3 months and see nothing wrong w/ putting them in another room (with monitor, etc?). What side of the fence are you sitting on?

Rasmus

To the OP:
I put my baby in the next room at around 11 weeks - leaving both doors open. In a smallish house, it meant that he was about 10 feet away. I had the monitor on too.
He was still in the next room, had a sense of calm and slept well - never had a problem with sleeping since (he's grown now).
I think the longer you keep a baby in your room, the more dependant they become which is not good for the baby (parents not in the equation here).

So that is the reason I would/have moved a baby. I think no matter where the baby is, a new parent is going to sleep a little fitfully unless someone is watching him/her.

If the baby sleeps better in the next room, they deserve to get that space of their own. If you think you'll get better sleep, I don't think that's going to work!

Zambia

Ayla wrote: »

I think you're just picking a fight here, b/c at no point was MariaF24 saying anything about co-sleeping. S/he was arguing for keeping the baby in the same room, just like the link you provided in your earlier post.

So now I'm really confused...the link you provided stated very clearly that the child should remain in the parent's room until at least 6 months, and you said in your original post that you follow those guidelines b/c they are recommended by all sorts of medical professionals. But now you state that you moved your child out at 3 months and see nothing wrong w/ putting them in another room (with monitor, etc?). What side of the fence are you sitting on?

I am not picking a fight my last post stated my position.

Rosy Posy

The hardest thing about the first year is finding out what works best for YOUR family. Whatever decisions you make there will be someone out there to make you feel guilty about it. If moving baby into her own room is going to allow you all to get a better nights sleep then best do it and don't waste your energy with feeling guilty about it.

For the record we kept our babies in our room at night up until they were sleeping through (about 9mths) as I found it easier to pick them up and breastfeed them in the bed. Sometimes they slept in the cot, sometimes in the bed, whatever let us all get the most rest.

The scaremongering that is going on in this thread is unbelievable. To all those posters who believe there is some kind of danger in baby sleeping in a room alone... a two month old baby sleeps around fourteen hours a day between naps and night sleeps. An adult will spend an optimistic eight hours in the scratcher. So for those other six hours that my baby is sleeping am I honestly supposed to tip toe around the bedroom counting my baby's breaths? Am I what? I'm a new mother- every moment that that child is sleeping and I am not is filled with doing laundry, making dinner, entertaining/preventing the outbreak of unholy war between the other kids, keeping the house vaguely together. Its unrealistic to expect a parent to constantly attend their sleeping child, not to mention unhealthy- a chilled out parent makes a chilled out baby.

jeepers101

Well said