Study suggests babies may sleep better in their own rooms
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
More fodder for the debate on when babies should be sleeping in their own rooms: A new study in Pediatrics suggests 6 months of age is a good target, which generally contradicts advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The AAP says babies should sleep in the same room as mom for a minimum of six months, with a year being preferable, but the new study suggests that's too long.
"The longer you leave a baby in the same room as a parent, the worse the outcomes are in terms of sleep," says the study author, per HealthDay News.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
In this case, he's referring to babies' sleep—the study didn't examine parents' sleep. For the research, Penn State researchers surveyed 230 first-time moms over two and a half years about the amount of sleep their babies were getting, either in a room with parents or in a room of their own.
At 4 months of age, the longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep for room-sharing babies was seven hours, compared to nearly eight hours for babies sleeping on their own, though both groups got the same amount of sleep overall.
At 9 months, babies in their own rooms slept 40 minutes longer at night than room-sharing babies. But perhaps most surprising is that the trend continued past 2 years of age.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
By that time, babies who'd slept in a room of their own at 9 months were sleeping 45 minutes more per night than toddlers who'd shared a room with their parents at 9 months old, reports CNN.
Room-sharing babies didn't just sleep in shorter stretches: They also had a less consistent bedtime routine and were four times more likely to be moved to the parents' bed at night.
(This case highlights the dangers of bed-sharing.)
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
This article originally appeared on Newser: New Theory on When Babies Should Be in Own Room