Neurotic new mom needs advice....

[tmahanes]

Okay so this is my first baby. He is 12 weeks old today. He is sleeping from about midnight to at least 6 am or so. I think that my husbands alarm is waking him up now.

So I am thinking about moving him to his room for the night but I am kind of neurotic about SIDS risk. If he is in my room and has an issue is he going to make any noise if something happens so I would wake up and realize that something was wrong??

What age did your LO sleep in his/her own room if they slept in your room at first?

Help please I am having trouble making this decision for myself!

[♥ms.pacman♥]

my son slept in his own room from 6 weeks on. we had planned to keep him in our room for longer (since at that age he was still nursing every 3 hrs at night) but he grew soo fast he got too big for the arm's reach cosleeper (we got the mini). also, my son didn't like to be swaddled and preferred sleeping outstretched, and he loved his crib because it gave him room to move around.

i used a monitor and figured it would be ok. and yes in the beginning (and i still do this sometimes) i go in and check on him and put my hand on his tummy to make sure he is still breathing (i think all new moms do this!) :)

sleeping in the same room as the mom does lower the SIDS risk for babies, but so does keeping the fan on, which we do. also i breastfeed, kept the room at 69 degrees and we place him on his back so i figured i was doing all that i realistically could to lower the SIDS risk. my son is 4 months old now and he is doing fine. moving him to his own room was actually a godsend because i could sleep better as a result (didn't have to worry if me getting out of bed to use the bathroom or watching TV or whatever would bother/wake him).

eta: another good reason to have him in his room was that sometimes the phone rings around 7am (DH works from home, all his coworkers are 1hr ahead) or his alarm goes off, which could wake him. so with in him in his own room we just let him wake up when he wants to. around 12 weeks my son was also sleeping through the night and would sometimes sleep in as late as 8 am. the later he woke up, the more sleep/rest i got, which was great for me.

[SM23Mama21]

Ugh, I had those exact same fears!! I still do! I'm not sure a baby would make any noise with SIDS. I would think that they wouldn't. DS started sleeping in his own room at about 8 months old (and only because DH forced me). The one thing that saved me was a video monitor! They also make motion monitors that have an alarm if baby stops breathing.

[LMPC]

DD slept in her own room from 4 mos on....DH's snoring was keeping her awake. I was a mess at first....in her room, checking on her quite a bit. We also left the fan on in her room. It got easier as she got older...she also nursed 4x a night, so I was up a lot in those days!

Quick question...if it's your DH's alarm that is waking your DS, could he use his cell on vibrate to wake himself? Just a though!

[DrSally]

We kept DS in our room for 5.5 months. At a certain point, I put the PNP in the huge walk in closet with the door slightly ajar. The noise of us walking around, adjusting the thermostat, any little thing, would wake him up. We kept DD in our room for a shorter amount of time, maybe only 3 months?

ETA: I found that even if my babes weren't in the room with me, I was hyper aware/attuned to them, and never really missed any distress (I think). I would have dreams that DS was sleeping in our bed (when he wasn't). In my mind, he was always "right there".

[Dr C]

I'm an odd one out here. DS was in his own room from day 1 (we had cats in our bedroom at the time and I was afraid one of them would snuggle up with him--talk about SIDS RISK! We also didn't have enough room for a bassinet in our room and I didn't feel it was very safe to keep him in bed with us). We are now in a bigger place, sans cats, and so with DD we had the option of keeping her in our room longer. I think she lasted in our room for about 2 weeks and then was punted up to her own room with an audio monitor. Everybody in our house sleeps better when the kids are in their own rooms. It's a calculated risk I took--I do lots of other things to reduce SIDS risk (breastfeed, not smoke, back to sleep, cool room, etc). In my mind the greatly improved sleep for all outweighed the possible slight increase in SIDS risk, for me. But you have to make that decision for yourself.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

ETA: I found that even if my babes weren't in the room with me, I was hyper aware/attuned to them, and never really missed any distress (I think). I would have dreams that DS was sleeping in our bed (when he wasn't). In my mind, he was always "right there".

omg it was totally the same for me. i would have dreams that DH had brought DS into our bed and that he was right there (when he wasnt). a couple times either we forgot to turn the monitor on or our old monitor malfunctioned and i was still able to hear DS's cries (DH was not). there was a news article posted a while back and said a baby's cry is one of the top 10 things that wakes a woman up, but doesn't even make the top ten for men (they are awakened by other sounds) so true, as my DS could be screaming right there in the same room and my DH wouldn't wake up and would go right on snoring. whrease i was felt i was very in tune to DS's needs even though i w asn't in the room with him. I have the Sony BabyCall monitor and if you put in voice activated mode, it almost sounds like he's right there in the room.

[WatchingThemGrow]

At 8-9 weeks, they always went into their own (or shared) room, per ped's advice. We never had an issue, and they always slept better.

[HIU8]

Ditto. DS slept in his own room from day 1. We were living with my parents while our house was being finished and there was no room for a crib/cradle in the room with us. DS slept in the room next door and we had a monitor.

DD slept with us for 2 weeks and we moved her to her own room b/c she was a LOUD sleeper and neither DH nor I was getting any sleep while she was asleep. I always had a monitor for her as well.

[tmahanes]

I would love for DH to get up with a cell phone alarm but it takes 3 alarms!!! If the noise is not coming from little man it takes a lot to wake me up too!

Thanks for the advice!! We are living with my ILs and our room is soooo tight with the pack n play in it. I think I am going to try it and see how it goes.