Anonymous wrote:Why does the baby have to stay in your room? Serious question. If out of necessity I would prob get a small crib like from ikea. If it’s just because you read it in a book, then put the baby in its own room in the crib you have already. There is no reason the baby” needs” to stay in your room. You do what works for your family.
I agree people should just do what works for your family, but sometimes you don't know what is going to work until you are in the middle, and it's useful to be prepared.
For instance, we kept the baby in our room at first for convenience (newborns wake up a lot, and I wanted the comfort of my own bed and the convenience of the baby nearby during that period). And then we didn't move her to her own room until about 8 months simply because the set up we had was working. Everyone was getting enough sleep, I still liked the convenience of having the baby nearby for dream feeds and early morning feeds, even once she was STTN, it was nice to be able to change her in the morning and then just bring her into the bed with us once we were awake but before we were really ready to be up. It wasn't some kind of principled stance, it just unfolded that way.
But if you'd asked me before the baby was born, I would have told you that our plan was to move her to her own room early on because I value my own sleep a lot and I thought it would be more disruptive than it turned out to be.
OP, we used a pack and play, but got a mattress insert so it would be a bit more comfortable than that cardboard mattress it comes with. We used the bassinet insert initially but then removed it once our baby was rolling over and no longer in a swaddle. It wasn't perfect but worked well enough. I started using the crib in her room for naps very early on (basically as soon as naps started to organize themselves, around 4 months), so her transition to her room at night was pretty uneventful because she'd been sleeping in there during the day for many months.