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Naturally baby is usually in your room at first anyways... but I would say that around 3mths or so baby should have their own sleeping space. Alot of times baby might wake/rouse for a short period and then go right back to sleep, but when they're in your room you're more likely to prematurely get up & get them OR they see you and then want you.
We had DS in our room for... well he was in my room till I got married recently, and there were definitely times that him being in his own room would've been MUCH better for him and easier on me since it took alot of discipline to teach him to be/stay in his own bed when I was RIGHT there. lol
I think it might work. My daughter's 3-1/2 months and sleeps in our room, she has her own bed but our room isn't that big and she doesn't seem to mind. She sleeps pretty well through light/talking/moving around, I don't know if it's because we got her used to it from an early age or that's just her personality. She usually sleeps between 11 pm - 6 or 7 am and has since she was just a few weeks old, which again I think a lot of is just her personality. I like it because I'm much more likely to be able to fall asleep if I hear her moving about if I can just open an eye and see that she's just settling herself and nothing's wrong without having to get up, which I do if she's away from me. So for us I don't think I'd mind sharing a room for the first year.
I see nothing wrong with having the baby in the bedroom for the first year. I think if it comes down to a space issue then your options are limited. Honestly think about what couples have been doing for years. It might kill the sex life, but that is were improvisation comes in ;)
We kept our daughter in a cosleeper next to our bed for the first three months. At three months we switched her to exclusively sleeping in her own room in her crib. At that point, I pretty much moved myself in to her nursery to ease MY separation anxiety, lol. I then gradually eased myself into sleeping in our room. I think it would be better for you to make the transition to nursery as soon as safely possible. The longer you wait, the more stressful it is for your child. I would personally invest in an air mattress and move into the nursery after three months. My daughter now 10 months old, loves her crib and her room, is happy, well adjusted, and for the past 6 months has slept 12 solid hours every night.
I think around 3 months is a good time for the baby to have his/her own space. When we moved out son we found all of us slept much better. And it happened when he didn't really know much better - if we moved him now (at 1 year) it would probably be much harder on him!
And you can always arrange the nursery so there is a bed in there too, and bring the baby into your room in a pack n play when you have guests for the weekend...
Both my boys slept in the room with me until about 4-5 months. They were in their bassinet until they outgrew it basically. By that age they started to scoot around a bit and definitely needed a bigger space. They were also sleeping most of the night by then so it worked out really well to have them in the crib in their own rooms. Their rooms were right across the hallway so they were still really close. I'm not sure I would have been comfortable having them downstairs if my room was upstairs.
I did end up letting my younger son start sleeping with me when he was about 1 1/2 until he was about 5 and I would NOT recommend letting your children get used to sleeping with you!! It is very hard to break them of that habit! My advice would be to start off with baby in your room and move them out when they are sleeping most of the night and when you guys feel comfortable with it!
Personally I wouldn't due to my SIL/BIL have a very small house. They had their now 2 year old, in fact I believe she still sleeps in the same room with them. They have had issues since she was born of her not sleeping and a lot of times BIL has ended up sleeping on the couch downstairs.
Our plan is to have munckin in his own room right off the bat. And the room we are using was a storage/extra guest bedroom but turned it into a nursery.
I was living in a single bedroom up until my son was about 18months, so naturally we shared the space. In my opinion? It SUCKED. Sure for the first 3 months of co-sleeping it worked well enough, and even up to 6months was 'ok' considering the circumstances (he had his crib next to my bed) but in all honesty? I would never ever ever do it that way again. If I chose to co-sleep with future children it would likely be in a 'spare' bed in their room, and they would have their own crib etc.
Simply having your own space to relax with your partner sans baby (you know without baby gear EVERYWHERE) is so so precious. I value[d] it like GOLD. Yes it IS nice to have a spare room for guests etc, but at the same time, it is also nice to have your OWN space you know?
Everyone is different and what works for some may not work for all.
@cvbee: Lots of people do it. One of my friends just stopped cosleeping with her daughter and she's one or so. I would not do this personally but I know that it works for lots of people.
@amnystik: isn't your son 7 or something?
If the master is big enough for that, and the second room would be better off staying that way, then sure, why not. Can you screen off the nursery area with a room divider so that the master is still your space, and baby sort of has his/her own space and wont see you at night when he/she gets older in case of waking up in the middle of the night.
Personally, I would never do it, no matter the circumstance. I believe that babies (and parents) need and deserve their own personal space.
You have a second bedroom. It honestly doesn't make any sense to me to not use it for the baby.
I read this article on offbeat momma recently:
http://offbeatmama.com/2011/07/toddler-bed-floor-mattress
I think it is an awesome solution if you have a large closet. That way there is a seperation between you and your baby, but at the same time they are on the same floor and reasonable distance away.
You can always also see how things go and make a final decision later.
We had DS in a cosleeper in our room till about 3 months, when we moved him to a crib in his room. I sleep WAY better if DS isn't right there- if he's in the room, I wake up every time he shifts or snorts.
I do think that if you plan to move them eventually, it's best that once they get old enough to have real memory (like 4 months or so) you are working on getting them to be able to sleep without you right there. And if you keep the baby in the room with you past about 4 months, I'd try to keep his/her space and setting as similar as it would be to having his/her own room as possible (i.e. I wouldn't want to hang out in bed and talk to DH while DS was still awake and trying to get to sleep, so that DS wouldn't get used to going to sleep to our voices). But if you want to keep your kid in the room with you, you could also always just put up a privacy screen or something so that your baby can't see you all the time. If the master bedroom is that big, sounds like you could be creative and kind of cordon off a section or a corner for the baby and try to make it as separate as possible.
I really feel your pain. I have a 2 bedroom house and my family and long time friends live 3+ hours away, so I like having a guest room too. We're lucky in that we have a "loft" area which can be used as a 3rd bedroom, although it's not that convenient because it's only accessible from the master. But I don't want to give up our guest room either.
How big is your 2nd bedroom? Would it be possible to fit in a day bed and use it mainly as a nursery, but when guests come have the baby stay in a crib in your room, and guests use the day bed?
Wow! Loving all this advice. Thanks bees! This is why I love the hive.
It would be great for the nursery also be able to serve a guest (and bring the kid into our room for those times). Trouble is, the guest room/nursery is sooooo tiny. We have a double bed, a dresser and a bedside table in there now. Even doing a wall bed, which I hear is expensive, I don't think would fit in the same room with a crib. Hmmm.
Looks like maybe we should invest in a pull-out couch....or maybe just a blow-up bed. Sorry grandma/grandpa-to-be; that's the best we can do.
but I'm going to try rearranging the double bed to go the other way and think about if it could still fit. As a day-bed, I'm sure we'd use it a lot when reading the baby books and stuff like that.
This thread is making me nervous. We aren't TTC for a couple more months, but we live in a one bedroom apt and will lilely do so for the next 2 years because going up to 2 bedrooms in NYC is gonna run us 4k and isn't really feasible with daycare costs in the picture. Gosh, I'm extremely anxious now.
I think it's doable for at least the first year of the baby's life. We co-slept with our daughter until 11 months, or so, and it worked great for us. I think kids are always more difficult to keep in their own beds once they move out of a crib, and I am so not looking forward to that transition, lol.
If you have a really big master, have you considered putting up a couple walls for a little built-in nursery? I don't think it would be super expensive, and after the baby gets big and moves into his/her own bedroom, you could change it into a sitting room or private office space.
NYC is psycho. Our one bedroom apt runs us 2,400 and we live in Brooklyn. Once you go up to 2 bedrooms it gets silly and 3 bedrooms is not even an option. I really need to move away from the city, rents are completely out of control.
In your situation, since you don't want to be running up & down the stairs too much in the middle of the night, I'd say once the baby is able to sleep through the night, then move them to their own room.
(That said, our baby will be rooming with us until at least 8 months-- that's when we're hoping to move to a 2 bedroom. Until then, there's really nowhere else for baby's co-sleeper/crib to go in our 700sq ft apt.)
I moved the bed to face the other way (not an easy task, since the room is so small I couldn't just turn it...had to take it apart).
Now, I think it is possible to have the double bed and a small crib in the room, but it might look ridiculous. Like, the room would be 80 percent big bed, 15 percent crib, and no room for anything else. Not cute.
I think I have to decide to either keep it a guest bedroom or make it the nursery. No in-between.
I'm going to now head upstairs and think about walls, as Mrs. Spring suggested. Room dividers we could do for sure, no problem, but walls might not be where we want to go....love the space as it is.
In conclusion, there is no conclusion and maybe we won't have one for a while. But I'm glad to have started the wheels turning.
We're in a similar situation, so I can share what we'll be doing. We will be turning the guest bedroom into a nursery, which the baby will probably start sleeping in after 3-6 months, depending on how things are going. We are going to keep a daybed in that room, which I'm sure I'll use plenty while I'm nursing. For out-of-town guests that leaves us with a couple of options. (1) DH and I will sleep on the daybed in baby's room (it folds out into a full bed) when we have guests in town, and our guests can sleep in our room. (2) Guests can sleep on our very comfortable fouton downstairs in the living room. Neither are perfect options, but we're not ready to upgrade to a 3 bedroom quite yet.
@skibobrown: The daybed folds out eh? Hmmm, maybe that could work because then it wouldn't look like it's taking up the whole room.
Thanks for all the advice everyone. I'm going to talk it all over with DH tonight. I'm super duper early in 1st trimester, but I like to be organized in my head.
I don't see the problem. One of my good friends was raised in two bedroom apt here in nyc and they are a family of 7. So yeah with a house you can make it work.
@cvbee: Here it is. http://www.cb2.com/sofas/furniture/lubi-olive-daybed/f5937 Our taste is pretty modern, so you might not like it, but maybe something similar?
@skibobrown: That is so exactly something we would love. Le sigh!
I'll say that even without talking to my husband, due to the stairs, I'm leaning towards having the nursery in the masterbedroom, and using either room dividers or curtains (could be pretty!) to give the baby privacy.
Then we'll change the guest bedroom to the baby's room only once the need arises...maybe at 3 months, maybe at 1 year, whatever feels right. Should be easy enough to do. I'm planning on using wall decals either way, so even those can move.
This is the daybed that we have in our guest bedroom - http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30080316
When collapsed it's twin size, fully open it's king size. Only problem with our guest room is that once it's open to king size, there's barely room to walk around it, so no room for baby furniture in addition. But if you have the same problem, maybe you could move stuff in and out if it's not that heavy. I could see us moving the crib back and forth, but probably other stuff would need to stay. Just some thoughts!
I think baby should have their own room, just my opinion. My son, now 3.5 has been in his own room since the day he came home from the hospital. It worked great for us, and I never have had a problem getting him to take a nap or go to bed. Sometimes he will even tell me that it is his bedtime and will put himself to bed. Good luck to you and whatever you decide!
Our master bedroom is large so we were planning to have the bassinet in our bedroom. When the baby out grows the bassinet, the baby will go into the nursery. The nursery will be one of the guest rooms. The guest room will be transformed into a nursery/ guest room. There will be a full sized bed, crib, and baby furniture (my parents are the ones who sleep there when they visit).
@elibas: Our daughter is 15 months old and just started doing this. It's the cutest darn thing! She'll start heading for her room and say "Night night" and wave. I'm not sure how she expects to get into her crib without our help, lol, but it's really cute to see.
@MaiFuture: that offbeatmama post was exactly what I was thinking! If you have a walk-in closet, you can totally make it into a small nursery. Then you can buy some clothes racks, Ikea stand-alone closets or dressers and keep your clothes in the bedroom. Walk-ins are small enclosed spaces so you could keep it nice and cozy at all times.
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What do you guys think of this?
We live in a very small 2 bedroom house. It has been the perfect size for us. We live hours away from each of our families, so it has been super great to have a guest bedroom for the parents to use when they visit.
So now I started thinking about how things will be when the baby comes. Our 2nd bedroom is downstairs, and our masterbedroom is giant. So it makes sense for us to have the crib in the masterbedroom at first. But maybe for longer than just at first?
How long do you think this could be practical for? Pros and cons?
FYI: we already use the guest bedroom as our alternative bedroom for nights when we can't sleep and don't want to bother eachother, or sometimes just for a change....so if we needed some distance from the baby for whatever reason, we'd have no trouble sleeping in the guest room.