August 2006 Weddings
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
(@): Baby in Room vs. Sanity?
DH is freaked at the notion of having a bassinet or an arm's reach-type setup in our room. We are both really light sleepers and our room is small - so we'd both definitely wake up and stay up every time the baby did. I said that I would personally feel better not having to get up and go down the hall every hour or two just to feed - but I know that that's not the only reason baby's cry, and I know that sometimes baby's cry for no reason and you gotta let it go. PLUS, we told some friends last night that I was pg (they have a 10 month old) and they advised us to NOT sleep with the baby if you wanna stay sane.
thoughts?
Re: (@): Baby in Room vs. Sanity?
I think if the baby is not in the room, you're going to be sleeping lightly worrying if it would wake you if it needed you.
Personally, I find I can go back to sleep a lot easier if I don't get out of bed. ?Once I'm out of bed, I'm up for hours. ?So if I had the baby within arms reach, that would probably be better for my sleep. ?Of course, I've never had kids, so my 2 cents is probably worth even less than that.?
Babies are REALLY noisy when they sleep. My DD sounded like - I swear to God - an elephant. We shared a room with her when she was 4 weeks old and we were traveling; neither of us got a wink. It was awful.
Once you have a baby, you're going to develop what I call Mom-dar - you will wake up at every noise your baby makes, even if your baby is all the way at the other end of the hallway, as was/is our case. You also will learn pretty quickly which noises require attention and which can be ignored. I stopped using the monitor at night after about week two because (1) I just didn't need it; and (2) babies are REALLY noisy when they sleep. See the first paragraph.
With all of this said, many people enjoy having their baby in the same room and feel it's a bonding experience. There also is research that being in the same room helps a baby to learn to breathe in rhythm with the parents. Personally, I feel that because babies have learned to breathe on their own for a zillion years, this is an unnecessary lesson, sort of the equivalent to learning that eating involves putting food in your mouth (although on a more serious note, one purpose of the breathing "lesson" is that it might help reduce the likelihood of SIDS).
If you are not sure, your best option might be to borrow a bassinet or pack n' play and see how you like having the baby in your room. You can always move him/her after a test run. Remember you also will have 1-2 nights in the hospital where you can choose to have the baby with you. That's a preview of what it will be like, although in my case my DD was very quiet in her first couple of nights so I was misled, LOL.
Have I mentioned that babies are REALLY NOISY when they sleep?
To add - my boys slept so much better when they were next to us - we all slept better and they weren't that loud.
If you will be breast feeding (which I assume because it doesn't sound like your DH will be getting up at night at all?) it is less disruptive to your sleep to roll over, feed the baby and go back to bed.
I had an Arms Reach Co-Sleeper and the girls were in our bedroom for the first few months. Are you planning on breast feeding? If so, it will probably be much easier on you to have the baby in the room.
Why did your friend say it was difficult to have the baby in the room? IMO it just saves the parents from having to get up every single time the baby starts to fuss. It's not like you are going to hear the baby on the monitor and ignore him/her sometimes ya know?
I remember when my sister had my nephew and they set up his bassinet in the guest room. She would sleep in there sometimes so her H could sleep soundly when she had to nurse. Maybe you could do something like that?
I willl say that most things are very trial and error...you'll figure ot what works best for you and your baby.
Sophie slept in the room for the first few weeks at home in a pack n play. If you're having a shower, register for one. At the very least, you can use it when you travel. We still use ours pretty frequently - we take it with us when we go over to my IL's for dinner so she can go to bed at her normal time while we're there.
If it doesn't work out for you, no harm, no foul. But I agree with most of the pp's that it's not something you know for sure how you'll handle till you do it. Some babies are not noisy when they sleep. Sophie's damn near silent unless she wants something. As a newborn, she'd only be up twice per night.
thoughts?
I'd say having baby within arms reach is the only way to stay sane. Not having to get up, walk down the hall is way better, especially when all she needs is her pacifier back.
I don't understand what there is to be freaked out about. Not liking the idea or something, yeah, but what freaks him out?
If he is just against the idea, he can be the one to go get the baby and bring her to you. That is common responsibility-sharing arrangement anyway. Mom feeds, dad fetches & changes diaper.
LLL is a great sleeper and so am I. I don't necessarily wake at every noise - then again, how do I know? - but if you do wake up over a little noise, then you go right back to sleep. I could move her crib to the far corner of the room but I'm not even ready to do that, much less move her out of our room and she is 8 months (today!)
"but I know that that's not the only reason baby's cry, and I know that sometimes baby's cry for no reason and you gotta let it go."
That's not actually true. There is always a reason. You may not be able to figure it out, or you may not be able to make it better - or it may not seem you are making it better - but there is a reason.
And when baby is really young, you don't just let it go. Now, if baby cries a LOT and you need to ignore her for your own sanity, that is another story, but I'm not talking about that rare kind of baby.
When baby is first born, yes, she cries at a lot of things but that is her only way of communicating. She is used to being one entity with you and has a great need for comfort until she gets more accustomed to being on her own.
The whole concept of self-soothing - who on earth does that? Certainly not adults. We reach out for others when we're upset. If we were crying and our spouse heard us, but did nothing, how would that make us feel? We ALL look for comfort when we're upset.
I didn't have DS sleep in the room with us. I did have a bassinet for him and put it in his room next to his crib. I liked having the bassinet for when he was first born since it was smaller and created a cozier environment.
Now I didn't breastfeed and ex-H & I had a plan on the feeding or crying in the middle of the night. Up to 3:00am he was on duty. After 3:00am I was.
I loved being in the nursery with DS in the middle of the night rocking him with just the little night light on. I could sing to him and not worry about waking ex-H up. And vice versa when he was feeding or changing the diaper or whatever I was getting my sleep in our bedroom.
I can see the sanity of it. I could be in my own room resting or showering or whatever while DS was sleeping in his own room.
Yeah, ditto that. For the first three or four months (aka the "fourth trimester") baby is getting used to life on earth without being connected to you and having every need met automatically. The baby will probably dictate sleeping arrangements at first.?
After 2 days at home, we learned that +1 does not even like to be put down in the cosleeper. Sometimes not even the 'snuggle nest' which is right freakin' between us IN our bed. Sometimes she'll only sleep while being held or snuggled right up to me. +1 also has plenty of nights when she like to nurse constantly. For us, sanity is having her right there. She does sound like ET when waking up and fussing, but mr. sleeps through it all.
fwiw, I believe AAP recommends that babies sleep in the same room as their parent(s) for the first 6 months.
thanks all.
I think DH is just concerned about being woken up all the time when he might not have to be. Honestly - I think this is the type of thing that I need his mom to just set him straight on. Sometimes I can give him every reasoning in the world and he just doesn't take it and I need someone else to say the exact same thing and then he'll actually listen. Maybe i'll look up where his book covers this topic, lol.
I want a Pack N Play or travelable Arm's Reach either way for travel and to be out in the living room with me possibly (although that's another question since our house is so small already) so I agree that as long as I have it and we both actually see how things work out we can better both decide how things will actually work best for us. I guess I was just taken aback by how against doing it he and our friend was, like I had missed some big obvious issue in newborns, lol.
HAHAHA
Your H is in for a RUDE awakening!! He's not going to sleep right for some time after that baby comes!!
He'll get used to the lack of sleep though. Coffee will be his BFF!
yeah, big ditto to that. if you wake up, he wakes up. period. he does NOT get to sleep while you are up keeping your child alive, thankyouverymuch. I don't care if you are a SAHM. Being at the office is WAY easier than being home with a baby (okay, some exceptions for brain surgeons and others.)
You need to get this set up as an equal partnership forom the get go. Not a Senior Parent & Asst Parent type of thing. Just read some of the posts on MM of women in a pickle years later because they do everything.
I'm sorry but this made me laugh. They can be little buggers, can't they? :-)
Ditto pretty much all of this. We did have her in our room for about 2 weeks, but I moved everytime she moved--no one was getting any sleep (and 5 minutes of sleep can seem like a lifetime with a newborn
). I slept on the floor the first couple of nights she was in her crib, though. I was too nervous. I slooooowly worked my way back to my bed over about a week long period. My angelcare monitor was also my best friend.
I used her bassinet tons during the day though, so I could have her in whatever room I was in. Maybe that's why she didn't nap for almost 9 months?
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He's worried about sleeping? He realizes you will be having a baby, not a church mouse, right?
I pretty much take it as a given that no matter where the baby sleeps, the parents will be lacking in the nightly snooze fest for at least the first few months.
And if he's such a light sleeper, he will wake up regardless of the baby being in the same room or the next room over.
Good luck!
Hi, have you met my husband? He could sleep through a war, LOL. I nursed both children and he didn't wake up once unless I purposefully shook him awake for an illness or other problem. However, that was my preference because, despite my complete aversion to getting anything less than 8 hours of sleep (ha!), I found that I actually enjoyed being alone with my kids in the middle of the night.
I agree with Meganne and Kate Aggie that I found that time to be quite enjoyable and snuggly, and because we were in a separate room, I could talk, play, change a diaper, turn the light on when necessary (think cleaning up projectile pee/poop and clothing/cribsheets after spit-ups), etc., without worrying about whether anyone else was being disturbed. But that's just me.
You've gotten some great thoughts here from other posters. I think they all would agree with me that many assumptions you and your DH make before having a baby probably will be turned on their heads. Experiment, see what works best for you and your DH (who may turn out to be a great ally in the middle of the night, despite his current protestations), and keep an open mind. There is no need to make a definitive decision now. Parenting is much easier if you go with the flow.
Just keep an open mind and see what works best for you and your husband. But remind him that whatever you decide it is because it is best for BOTH of you, not just his sleeping habits (i.e. he also has to be willing to walk down the hall in the middle of the night 3-5 times in the beginning just as much as you will).
A pack n play with a bassinett function will work well as it has dual purposes. If you find you have a great sleeper and can move them into their room right away it won't be a waste of money because you can use it for travel, naps, etc.