Can you room share and sleep train?
Let’s start off by talking a little about what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends. As recently as 2019, they’ve stated to “room share for the first 6 months, or ideally, for the first year.” The reasoning for this is in order to prevent the risk of SIDs; however, there is not much substantial evidence to support that it actually does prevent SIDs in older babies.
What does this mean for you as a parent?
Obviously, room sharing has its benefits in the first couple months. You’re close to baby and will easily be able to access them for night feeds, comfort, and just overall monitoring. It can also foster an increased connection to baby, which leads to the release of healthy hormones in the body, which then leads to decreased stress.
However, there are also some cons. Babies (and newborns in particular) make A LOT of noise while sleeping and that can be super disruptive to the parents sleep, especially moms sleep if she’s frequently listening out for any noise baby makes. And let’s be real here… having a baby in the room won’t necessarily put you in the mood either – if you get what I mean ;) Another point to consider is that sometimes, room sharing can lead unsafe sleep practices, such as mom/dad falling asleep with baby in their bed after a feed (putting baby at risk).
So all in all, whether you choose to room share or not is ultimately up to you. I know, for some parents (myself included), there is just no other option. And for others, they prefer it, even if they have the space. At the end of the day, it’s about what you and your partner want to do.
Now, let’s talk about room sharing and sleep training. It is 100% possible to sleep train your baby while being in the same room as them (my son is all the proof I need!). Is it ideal? Not necessarily. Will it be easy? Not necessarily. But it’s definitely possible.
Some tips to make it easier:
Have as much distance as you can between your bed and the crib
Have a divider in the room; whether it’s a simple curtain hanging from the ceiling, or actual room dividers
Utilize a white noise machine to mask sounds
My experience with room sharing:
I’ll start by saying that if it were up to me (and if I had the space), I would’ve moved my son (Asher) out of my room around 4/5 months when he was sleeping through the night and no longer needing night feeds. But alas, I had no such choice and so, here we are, still sharing our room with a 1 year old.
My sons crib is pretty far from us; there is at least 10 feet between us. But I’ll be honest, I actually do not have a room divider of any sort. So he is able to see us. And that does present difficulties at times (which is why I recommend a room divider, but here I am, not good about following my own advice lol).
For me, personally, the time we sleep trained Asher wasn’t an issue at all. My difficulty with room sharing is simply not having my own space. I can’t freely enter my room whenever I want if he’s sleeping. I can’t turn on the light. I can’t read before bed. I’ve bumped into the same piece of furniture way too frequently. Don’t get me wrong, I do go in if I have to, but I have to be careful about it, as I run the risk of disrupting his sleep (as I have several times).
Just the other night, I came into my room to go to bed and it must’ve been during a time he was transitioning between sleep cycles because when I looked at him, he was sitting up! So he saw me and started crying. I reassured him and went to bed. He didn’t fall asleep right away. He must’ve been up for at least another 10 minutes or so. He did continue to cry, but the type of cry that’s more like a whine and clear to me that it was a self-soothing mechanism. And eventually, he fell back asleep.
I did love it in the beginning though. We didn’t have it totally dark so it was much easier to get around. Mostly, I loved having him right next to me. It was convenient for night feeds, but more so for the early morning feeds when we’d spend his first wake window in bed together before we’d both go back to our own spaces for sleep. In those early days, when he was awake, I really just wanted him to be sleeping so I could get things done. But when he was sleeping, and looking peaceful and calm, all I wanted was for him to be awake. I’m sure many others can relate!
Overall, at this point, we’ve gotten used to it. We know to take out whatever we need from the room before he goes to sleep (for example, if I’m going out, I’ll just take my clothing out of there and get dressed in another room). We’ve also gotten used to falling asleep in the dark and waking up in the dark (I actually think I sleep better now because of the darkness, so thank you Asher for that). We’ve also gotten used to navigating our room in the dark; however I do still bump into that one piece of furniture!
So that’s been my experience with room sharing. But that’s not to say that it can’t be a positive experience for you!!
I’ll end off with what I said before – at the end of the day, you do you.