Shift sleeping in baby's room with twin bed

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone, we are due in a few months and after the first few weeks all together (bassinet in master bedroom) are considering doing a shift sleeping schedule where each parent sleeps half the night in a twin bed in the baby's room, switching in the middle of the night. Our master bedroom is very small and we are both light sleepers, so we figure this is the best way to ensure we are both able to get a decent chunk of hours in a row each night while still practicing room sharing for baby's safety. I do not plan on EBF, so that is not a concern.

Did anyone else either do or try this? Are there any drawbacks we're not thinking of or any tips to make this work well?

[Anonymous]

After 6 weeks, your baby should start to sleep through the night. The only thing sleeping in the baby's room is going to do is wake the baby up. Get a sleep monitor and sleep peacefully in your room. It is common for the baby to wake up a bit at night and chat to his or herself - only rush in if the baby does not seem to be able to self soothe after 5 or 10 minutes.

***Time to you will seem to go very slowly. The baby will not feel abandoned if you let him or her try to self soothe for 10 minutes.

Make sure it is seriously dark in the baby's room - black out curtains are a must because babies are very tuned in to small changes in light and you don't want to be waking up at 5am every day this summer.

This advice will save you years of sleep problems. (Mom of 5 here - ask me how I know!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After 6 weeks, your baby should start to sleep through the night. The only thing sleeping in the baby's room is going to do is wake the baby up. Get a sleep monitor and sleep peacefully in your room. It is common for the baby to wake up a bit at night and chat to his or herself - only rush in if the baby does not seem to be able to self soothe after 5 or 10 minutes.

***Time to you will seem to go very slowly. The baby will not feel abandoned if you let him or her try to self soothe for 10 minutes.

Make sure it is seriously dark in the baby's room - black out curtains are a must because babies are very tuned in to small changes in light and you don't want to be waking up at 5am every day this summer.

This advice will save you years of sleep problems. (Mom of 5 here - ask me how I know!)

OP here - FTM but everything I have ever read about safe sleep practices indicates that room sharing is important for the first 6 months...

[Anonymous]

Many babies do not sleep through the night at 6 weeks! One of my kids was pretty loud as a baby. We ended up putting the monitor off as we kept getting woken when he was sleep! I would just take it as it goes. All babies are different and things change quickly too.

We did not use blackout curtains either ..they were great sleepers after the first couple months. They started daycare at 6 months and learned to sleep regardless of light noise etc

[Anonymous]

That recommendation is from the AAP - who also recommend still masking your 2 year old at preschool - but see here: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/room-sharing-with-your-baby-may-help-prevent-sids-but-it-means-everyone-gets-less-sleep-201706062525
If your baby does not have any risk factors for SIDS - you don't smoke, your baby wasn't a preemie, you swaddle your baby and lay him/her down to sleep on it's back., the odds of your baby getting SIDS are very small. You can always use a SIDS monitor.

Otherwise, I say your idea is great - although it does tend to have a very chilling effect on your marriage.

[Anonymous]

I actually would encourage the shift sleeping for right away when you get home. Those first few weeks when the baby is up a ton, much better to split that shift up so both of you get a solid stretch in.

[Anonymous]

We did shift sleeping like this for about the first 6-8 weeks. It was important to us that both of us got adequate sleep. It worked quite well. I wouldn’t say we were full of energy and super well rested but neither of us was delirious with sleep deprivation. Around 6-8 weeks, we dropped it as the baby started sleeping longer stretches.

We actually did not ever room share, in the formal sense— our baby was always in her own room/crib, with black out shades and low white noise going. We stopped sleeping in her room when we stopped sleeping in shifts and just used a baby monitor instead. I agree that the “room until 6 months” advice is just a rough guideline and doesn’t need to be followed to the point that you or your parent needs to literally sleep in the baby’s room until they are 6 months.

Btw, you’ll see a lot of advice and guidelines when you become a parent. Sometimes the advice makes sense for your family, sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes it’s well-supported by evidence, sometimes it’s not. And sometimes what is advised in the US is actually counter to other countries, etc. This is one of those guidelines that I think does not need to be followed to the letter as long as you practice other safe sleep things— nothing in the crib until a certain age, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That recommendation is from the AAP - who also recommend still masking your 2 year old at preschool - but see here: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/room-sharing-with-your-baby-may-help-prevent-sids-but-it-means-everyone-gets-less-sleep-201706062525
If your baby does not have any risk factors for SIDS - you don't smoke, your baby wasn't a preemie, you swaddle your baby and lay him/her down to sleep on it's back
., the odds of your baby getting SIDS are very small. You can always use a SIDS monitor.

Otherwise, I say your idea is great - although it does tend to have a very chilling effect on your marriage.

Yes masking your preschooler would prevent the dailh posts about sick kids. And yes most babies don't sleep through the night at 6 weeks. Mine took 7 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After 6 weeks, your baby should start to sleep through the night. The only thing sleeping in the baby's room is going to do is wake the baby up. Get a sleep monitor and sleep peacefully in your room. It is common for the baby to wake up a bit at night and chat to his or herself - only rush in if the baby does not seem to be able to self soothe after 5 or 10 minutes.

***Time to you will seem to go very slowly. The baby will not feel abandoned if you let him or her try to self soothe for 10 minutes.

Make sure it is seriously dark in the baby's room - black out curtains are a must because babies are very tuned in to small changes in light and you don't want to be waking up at 5am every day this summer.

This advice will save you years of sleep problems. (Mom of 5 here - ask me how I know!)

LOL! Almost zero babies sleep through the night by 6 weeks. Wake ups aside, they should still be eating at night at that age! Please, OP, and everyone else ignore this nuts advice setting parents up for disappointment.

[Anonymous]

One was a wiggle worm, kept DC #1 in a bassinets until we were ready for them to sleep in their room

#2 was a cuddler, co-slept in our bed

Both were in their crib overnight by 3-4 months (older teens now).

Co-sleeping for a year will do you in. Feel like you are setting yourselves up for failure, as you and spouse need more sleep, and, as most new parents forget, need more time together

[Anonymous]

I've never understood how sleeping in the same room helps to prevent SIDS. If you are asleep, how would you know if your baby stops breathing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One was a wiggle worm, kept DC #1 in a bassinets until we were ready for them to sleep in their room

#2 was a cuddler, co-slept in our bed

Both were in their crib overnight by 3-4 months (older teens now).

Co-sleeping for a year will do you in. Feel like you are setting yourselves up for failure, as you and spouse need more sleep, and, as most new parents forget, need more time together

Having the baby in our room together with both of us will mean less sleep, not more. And we only plan to do 6 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After 6 weeks, your baby should start to sleep through the night. The only thing sleeping in the baby's room is going to do is wake the baby up. Get a sleep monitor and sleep peacefully in your room. It is common for the baby to wake up a bit at night and chat to his or herself - only rush in if the baby does not seem to be able to self soothe after 5 or 10 minutes.

***Time to you will seem to go very slowly. The baby will not feel abandoned if you let him or her try to self soothe for 10 minutes.

Make sure it is seriously dark in the baby's room - black out curtains are a must because babies are very tuned in to small changes in light and you don't want to be waking up at 5am every day this summer.

This advice will save you years of sleep problems. (Mom of 5 here - ask me how I know!)

LOL! Almost zero babies sleep through the night by 6 weeks. Wake ups aside, they should still be eating at night at that age! Please, OP, and everyone else ignore this nuts advice setting parents up for disappointment.

Seriously this is absolutely nuts advice. Op your plan sounds like a good one with the caveat that it is impossible to know what will end up working best for you. During our hardest sleep times shifts worked for us but it worked for us to still have bassinet in main room and husband took first half and just stayed up with baby downstairs then I took second half. Lots of scenarios and will depend on so many things after delivery. So I love your idea and just go in flexible that you may have preferences you don’t expect!

And yes you don’t have to follow aap to a t, most people don’t room share as long as they recommend but in those early weeks the data is pretty solid and it typically is better for mom and baby generally

[Anonymous]

I meant the original pp who said most babies are sleeping through the night at 6 weeks is unreasonable, not the pp saying don’t set yourself up for failure with that idea. I know one baby that slept through the night at that age and he is still a unicorn sleeper to this day. The rest of my friends babies (and we all have 2-3 now so I’ve heard about a lot) 100% weren’t close to doing that at that age.

[Anonymous]

Sleeping in the same room as the baby makes sense for the first few months, and it makes sense to instead move into the baby’s room if you prioritize sleep (which we did). I don’t think it’s necessary to do it after that. Some people never room share, and some people co-sleep! After like four months, whoever is in the room with the baby will be disturbed/start disturbing the baby. I think Emily Oster actually wrote an article on this, you may try looking this up.