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 By Randy Dotinga 
 
 HealthDay Reporter 
 
 MONDAY, June 5, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- It's healthiest to evict infants from their parents' bedroom at 6 months of age, suggests new research that runs counter to national guidelines. 
 
 "The longer you leave a baby in the same room as a parent, the worse the outcomes are in terms of sleep," said study author Dr. Ian Paul. 
 
 There's also a higher risk that infants will migrate into bed with mom, putting them at greater risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), said Paul, a professor of pediatrics and public health sciences at Penn State College of Medicine. 
 
 Last fall, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated its recommendations about "room-sharing" between parents and babies. To lower the chances for SIDS, it advised at least 6 months, and ideally 12 months, in the same bedroom, but not the same bed. Prior guidelines had recommended moving infants to their own rooms by 6 months. 
 
 "The recommendation beyond 6 months was not based on real data but more on expert opinion," Paul said. "That led us to question that recommendation." 
 
 He said sleep experts have long advocated that after the first few months, "you should transition your baby into their own room to help how well and how long the baby sleeps." 
 
 For the new study, researchers reviewed questionnaires given to 230 first-time mothers when their babies were 4, 9, 12 and 30 months old. 
 
 At 9 months, babies who slept on their own got 40 minutes more sleep a night than those who shared a room with their mother. Also, those who slept on their own at 9 months slept 45 minutes more a night at the age of 30 months compared to other babies, the study found. 
 
 In addition, babies who shared rooms at 4 and 9 months had four times the odds of moving to the parental bed during the night. "That's a known and very established risk factor for SIDS," Paul said. 
 
 The study didn't look at how having a baby in the room affects sleep for parents. 
 
 Dr. Fern Hauck is a professor of family medicine and public health sciences at the University of Virginia. 
 
 She said the study raises questions about the safety of room-sharing, especially because of the evidence it can lead to the potentially dangerous habit of bed-sharing. 
 
 But the differences in sleep among the room-sharers at 4 months were small, said Hauck, co-author of a commentary accompanying the study. 
 
 "Among room sharers at 4 months, the longest sleep period was about 7 hours compared with 7 hours and 49 minutes among the solitary sleepers. Seven hours is still well above the normal range for sleep at this age," Hauck said. 
 
 Hauck, who helped draft the pediatrician association's guidelines, cited benefits of room-sharing: Research suggests it reduces the risk of SIDS, helps encourage breast-feeding, and provides "peace of mind for parents as they can keep a closer watch on their baby and be nearby to comfort the baby," she said. 
 
 However, study author Paul said as babies get older they don't need to eat overnight. And, the risk of SIDS declines significantly after 6 months, he said. 
 
 Paul acknowledged the study has limitations, however. For one, it doesn't represent the U.S. population at large. Participants were predominantly white, and half had family incomes of $75,000 or more. 
 
 What should parents do? 
 
 "Based on the data we've provided and from others about safety and effectiveness," Paul said, "6 months would seem to be a good time to transition a baby out of the parents' room." 
 
 But, Hauck urged parents to weigh the potential pros and cons of room-sharing. "My advice is to room-share for at least 6 months," she said. 
 
 "During that time, be mindful that bed-sharing is a greater possibility, so mothers should be aware of this and take steps to avoid it," she said. "After 6 months, since SIDS deaths are much less common, parents can have greater discretion in choosing what works best for them. Some may decide to keep their infants in their room longer, while others may choose to move them into their own rooms." 
 
 The study appears online June 5 in the journal Pediatrics. 
 
 More information 
 
 For more about room-sharing with your baby, visit the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

 (CNN) The sooner babies get their own rooms, the longer they'll sleep on average, according to a new study that breaks with the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics. 
 
 Analyzing surveys from 230 first-time mothers at Penn State, Dr. Ian Paul, a pediatrician, found that babies slept for longer stretches if they didn't sleep in the same bedroom as their parents. 
 
 At 4 months, babies who slept alone had the longest stretches of uninterrupted sleep -- by about 45 minutes, on average -- though they slept about the same amount of time as babies who slept in their parents' rooms. 
 
 At 9 months, babies in their own rooms slept 40 minutes longer at night and over 20 minutes longer overall, compared with those who were still sharing a room with their parents. Those differences disappeared at 12 months but reappeared later. When the researchers followed up at 2½ years, toddlers who began sleeping alone by 9 months slept 45 minutes longer per night, though total sleep time was roughly the same. 
 
 The findings counter the latest guidance from the pediatrics group , which recommends that parents share a room -- but not a bed -- with their infants for at least six months and preferably until they reach their first birthday. The guidelines are meant to lower the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, which may occur while an infant is sleeping. 
 
 But while there's evidence to recommend room-sharing with infants for 3 to 6 months, data simply don't support continuing the practice beyond that age, Paul said. Research has shown that nine out of 10 of SIDS deaths happen before the age of 6 months, with the majority happening between 1 and 4 months. 
 
 Research has shown that babies who sleep poorly can have a big impact on parents' stress and mental health. Poor infant sleep has also been linked to problems down the line, such as behavioral issues and childhood obesity 
 
 Some experts also believe that moving an infant out of the parents' bedroom sooner could help babies sleep better before they develop separation anxiety, said Paul, chief of academic general pediatrics at Penn State College of Medicine. 
 
 A year of room-sharing also seems excessive to Paul and other parents, who may be unsure of when to transition an infant to his or her own bedroom, he added. Indeed, Paul said he was "baffled" when the academy released its recommendation last year. 
 
 "Most parents don't want their baby sleeping in their room until 1 year," Paul said. "I've got three of them myself." 
 
 Sleep like a baby 
 
 alone were also more likely to have a consistent bedtime routine, and they were more likely to go to bed by 8 p.m. Infants 4 to 12 months should sleep The differences between the groups went beyond how long babies slept: Infants who slept in a roomalone were also more likely to have a consistent bedtime routine, and they were more likely to go to bed by 8 p.m. Infants 4 to 12 months should sleep 12 to 16 hours per day , including naps, while newborns may sleep much longer, the American Academy of Pediatrics says. 
 
 Those babies who shared a room were more likely to be brought into the parents' bed overnight. They were also more likely to sleep with objects like pillows, blankets and stuffed animals. Both practices have been linked to sudden infant death, including by suffocation. 
 
 "This is important information," said Dr. Rachel Moon , a professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia who co-authored the American Academy of Pediatrics' latest recommendation. "We don't have enough info about downstream effects about what we've recommended." 
 
 About 3,700 babies died from sudden, unexpected causes in 2015, according to the CDC , accounting for about 92 deaths per 100,000 live births. Risks for SIDS include loose bedding, sleeping in the same bed as parents, sleeping face-down and living at home with a smoker. 
 
 But Moon, a SIDS researcher, cautioned in response to Paul's study that just because sleep is uninterrupted doesn't mean it's better. 
 
 "We think that a lot of the problems with SIDS is that babies don't arouse," she said, adding that if babies sleep too deeply or for too long, some experts believe this could put them at risk. 
 
 Room-sharing has been estimated to lower the risk of SIDS by as much as to 50%, according to the report Moon co-authored. 
 
 "People don't know quite why the risk is lowered," Dr. Ari Brown, an Austin, Texas-based pediatrician and author of the Baby411 book series, previously told CNN. "I might chalk it up to a parent's sixth sense when a baby is nearby and making erratic noises or not that helps save these babies." 
 
 Breastfeeding has also been linked to a lower risk of SIDS. 
 
 The Penn State sample was also "not terribly diverse in terms of socioeconomic or racial diversity," which could cast doubts upon how much this research speaks for the general population, Moon said. The mothers in the study were overwhelmingly white and wealthier than the average American. 
 
 And because the current study was a survey, parents' perception of sleep might also be different from the number of hours actually slept, Moon said. 
 
 It's also possible that parents simply noticed their babies were awake because they shared a room, Paul said. 
 
 "But that's the point," he said. "If parents are in the room, they're responding unnecessarily." 
 
 The wrong side of the bed? 
 
 The American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendations -- which Paul says run counter to the advice of many pediatricians and sleep specialists -- may leave some parents unsure of when to cut the proverbial cord to their bedroom. 
 
 "It's common that they start out sharing a room. Then parents often ask me when it's time to take them out of the room," Dr. Jennifer Shu , medical editor-in-chief of the academy's website HealthyChildren.org , previously told CNN. 
 
 Instead of changing the guidelines, Moon said, doctors can use the new study to give better guidance to room-sharing parents who may be more likely to bring their baby into bed overnight, putting them at risk. 
 
 Join the conversation See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. 
 
 "If we know that this is happening, then we can do a better job of providing proactive guidance for families," she said. 
 
 But Paul knows firsthand the lengths to which parents will go to get as much shut-eye as they can. 
 
 "They're going to do whatever they can to get the child back to sleep," he said. 

 RESULTS: At 4 months, reported overnight sleep duration was similar between groups, but compared with room-sharers, early independent sleepers had better sleep consolidation (longest stretch: 46 more minutes, P = .02). At 9 months, early independent sleepers slept 40 more minutes nightly than room-sharers and 26 more minutes than later independent sleepers (P = .008). The longest stretch for early independent sleepers was 100 and 45 minutes more than room-sharers and later independent sleepers, respectively (P = .01). At 30 months, infants sleeping independently by 9 months slept >45 more minutes nightly than those room-sharing at 9 months (P = .004). Room-sharers had 4 times the odds of transitioning to bed-sharing overnight at both 4 and 9 months (P < .01 for both). 
 
 METHODS: The Intervention Nurses Start Infants Growing on Healthy Trajectories study is an obesity prevention trial comparing a responsive parenting intervention with a safety control among primiparous mother-infant dyads. Mothers completed the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire at 4, 9, 12, and 30 months. Reported sleep duration and overnight behaviors, adjusted for intervention group, were compared among early independent sleepers (own room <4 months), later independent sleepers (own room between 4 and 9 months), and room-sharers at 9 months. 
 
 The importance of getting an adequate night’s sleep has been increasingly recognized by professional societies including the American Academy of Pediatrics1 (AAP) and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.2 Inadequate sleep has been associated with poorer cognitive, psychomotor, physical, and socioemotional development, which includes emotion regulation, mood, and behavior in infancy and childhood.3–6 Insufficient sleep is generally accepted as an important risk factor for obesity,7,8 with links between sleep and weight beginning in infancy.9–14 Short sleep duration during infancy is also associated with inadequate sleep later in childhood,15 emphasizing the importance of developing healthy sleep-related behaviors during the first months after birth. Also, infant sleep has a bidirectional relationship with parent outcomes as demonstrated by associations between infant sleep and parental sleep, maternal sensitivity, relationship quality, parental emotional health, and parenting practices.16–18 
 
 The desire to optimize infant sleep duration and consolidation, however, must be balanced with safe infant sleep, a fact reinforced by the 3500 infants who tragically die of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) or other sleep-related deaths annually.19 According to the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s “Safe to Sleep” campaign, most SIDS deaths occur when infants are 1 to 4 months old, 90% occurring before the age of 6 months.20 Despite these figures, the recently published AAP Policy Statement, SIDS and Other Sleep-Related Infant Deaths, recommended that infants sleep in their parents’ room on a separate surface, ideally for the entire first year but at least for the first 6 months.21 The 1-year recommendation has questionable congruence with the epidemiology of SIDS (as risk is far lower after 6 months), and it runs counter to the common clinical advice parents receive. Based on evidence of improved infant sleep,22–24 clinicians may encourage parents to establish independent sleep environments (ie, in a separate room from parents) during the middle of the first year to promote healthy and sustainable sleep patterns before the typical onset of separation anxiety later in the first year.25 Therefore, in this secondary data analysis, we sought to evaluate the associations between room-sharing on a separate sleep surface and sleep-related outcomes from the cohort participating in the Intervention Nurses Start Infants Growing on Healthy Trajectories (INSIGHT) study. We hypothesized that room-sharing would be associated with shorter nighttime sleep duration and problematic sleep-related behaviors during infancy when compared with independent sleeping in a separate room. We also sought to examine risk factors for SIDS among infants who were and were not independent sleepers. 
 
 Data were analyzed by using SAS version 9.4 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC). Descriptive statistics were generated for sleep duration and behaviors on the basis of the timing of our 2 sleep assessments during infancy at 4 and 9 months of age, which created 3 groups: early independent sleepers (own room <4 months), later independent sleepers (own room between 4 and 9 months), and room-sharers at 9 months. For continuous outcomes, differences by sleep location were assessed by using analysis of variance (ANOVA) at each of the 4 times, adjusting for study group assignment. Categorical outcomes were assessed by using logistic regression, adjusting for study group. Analyses including socioeconomic covariates (eg, income, living in a single-family home) did not result in major differences in results, and thus results from models that included only study group are presented. Statistical significance was defined as P ≤ .05. 
 
 The validated Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire was used to assess sleep at 4 and 9 months of age with an abbreviated version administered at 12 and 30 months. 30 This survey assesses infant sleep location, before-bedtime activities, and sleep patterns. Sleep duration is divided into nighttime (7 pm–7 am) and daytime (7 am–7 pm) and is reported in hours and minutes. Additional questions regarding sleep location, night waking, night feedings, bedtime routine components and duration, infant sleep behaviors and environment, and parenting responses to night wakings were asked at 4 and 9 months. Instructions for the infant sleep survey guided mothers to think about her child’s sleep during the past week when answering the questions and base responses on a “typical night.” Maternal sleep quality was measured at 4 months of infant age by using the PROMIS Sleep Disturbance instrument (PROMIS Network, American Institutes for Research, Chapel Hill, NC). 31 
 
 Research nurses conducted home visits at infant ages of 3 to 4 weeks and 4, 6, and 9 months. Research center visits occurred at 1 and 2 years of age. Intervention components have been previously described. 27 Among other sleep-related topics discussed at the 3- to 4-week home visit, the RP group received guidance encouraging parents to consider moving their child’s sleep location at the age of 3 months to the room they would prefer the infant to sleep in at 1 year of age, with the advice that such a move would be more difficult if the family waited much beyond that point. 25 This point was reinforced at the 4-month home visit. The safety control group received education regarding prevention of SIDS, which included direct observation of the sleep environment by the visiting nurses with individual feedback to improve safety at the first 3 home visits. This study was approved by the Penn State College of Medicine’s Human Subjects Protection Office and registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov . 
 
 As previously described, 26 – 28 mothers and their newborns were recruited after delivery from one maternity ward (Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA) for participation in the INSIGHT study from January 2012 to March 2014. The study design and inclusion and exclusion criteria have been previously published. 26 Major eligibility criteria specified that the subjects be term singletons weighing ≥2500 g delivered to English-speaking, primiparous mothers ≥20 years old. Dyads were randomly assigned 2 weeks after delivery to a responsive parenting (RP) intervention or a safety control group. 279 mother-infant dyads completed the first home visit and are considered the study cohort for outcomes as specified before study initiation in the protocol. For the current analyses, those parents who reported bed-sharing with their newborn were excluded because the goal was to compare those who were sleeping independently in a separate room from parents with those still room-sharing but not bed-sharing (as recommended by the AAP). 
 
 At 4 months of age, room-sharing infants had greater odds of having an unapproved object (blankets, pillows, positioners, etc) on their sleep surface than those who were sleeping independently (aOR 2.04, 95% CI 1.17–3.57). Additionally, room-sharing parents with infants at 4 months of age had over 4 times the odds of bringing their infant into their bed overnight than those parenting early independent sleepers (aOR 4.24, 95% CI 1.64–10.95). Similarly, at 9 months of age, room-sharing parents had 4 times the odds than those who were sleeping independently of bringing their infant into their bed after waking overnight (aOR 3.97, 95% CI 1.59–9.90). 
 
 Significant differences existed for bedtime routines at 4 months of age. Early independent sleepers had increased odds of having a consistent bedtime routine (aOR 1.93, 95% CI 1.05–3.53) and being put to bed by 8 pm (aOR 1.93, 95% CI 1.06–3.53) relative to room-sharers. At 9 months of age, room-sharing was associated with greater odds of having a bedtime after 8 pm; room-sharers also had lower odds than independent sleepers of being put to sleep drowsy but awake (P ≤ .05 for both). 
 
 At 12 months of age, no differences existed between groups for nighttime or total daily sleep duration. However, the 30-month assessment revealed that both early and later independent sleepers slept on average more than 45 minutes longer at night than those who were room-sharing at 9 months (614 ± 51 vs 617 ± 70 vs 569 ± 79; P = .004). Total daily sleep duration was similar among groups at 30 months of age. 
 
 By 9 months of age, significant differences in nighttime sleep duration emerged between groups ( Table 3 ). The early independent sleepers slept on average 627 ± 67 minutes per night compared with 601 ± 73 minutes for later independent sleepers and 587 ± 83 minutes for those who were room-sharing at 9 months of age (P = .008). Those who were early independent sleepers had the best sleep consolidation with the longest sleep stretches, averaging 542 ± 162 minutes versus 497 ± 166 minutes for later independent sleepers and 442 ± 158 minutes for room-sharers (P = .01). Although night wakings, night feedings, and odds of being fed back to sleep overnight did not differ among groups at 9 months of age, total daily sleep duration was longest among early independent sleepers (796 ± 86 vs 760 ± 94 vs 773 ± 96 minutes, P = .04). 
 
 At 4 months, no significant differences in nighttime or total sleep duration were observed between those who were early independent sleepers and those who room-shared at 4 and/or 9 months ( Fig 1 ). However, the early independent sleepers had better sleep consolidation at 4 months of age with a longest (mean ± SD) sleep stretch averaging 469 ± 139 minutes compared with 423 ± 158 minutes for those who were room-sharing ( Table 2 ) (P = .02). While the mean number of night wakings was similar between early independent and nonindependent sleeping infants at 4 months of age, those sleeping independently had fewer night feedings (1.1 vs 1.4; P = .02). Nonindependent sleepers also had twice the odds of being fed back to sleep overnight compared with independent sleepers (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.95, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.09–3.50). 
 
 Among 279 participants, 27 , 28 259 (93%) remained in the study through 9 months of age. Among this group, 20 were bed-sharing at 4 and/or 9 months and 9 had missing data on sleep. These participants were excluded from further analyses, leaving a sample of 230 mother-infant pairs as the sample for this manuscript. The majority of infants, 142 (62%), were “early independent sleepers,” sleeping independently without room-sharing by 4 months ( Table 1 ). Another 62 (27%) were “later independent sleepers” who began sleeping independently between 4 and 9 months of age, whereas 26 (11%) were room-sharing at 9 months. There were no differences between intervention groups in terms of frequency of bed-sharing or room-sharing at 4 or 9 months. Room-sharing was associated with demographic variables including race/ethnicity, lower income and education, unmarried and/or not cohabiting with partner, fewer bedrooms in the home, and extended family and/or other people living in the home. 
 
 Discussion 
 
 These secondary analyses from the INSIGHT study demonstrate that infant-parent room-sharing at 4 and 9 months of age is associated with less reported nighttime sleep in both the short- and long-term, worse sleep consolidation, and unsafe sleep practices previously associated with sleep-related death. The findings raise questions about the well-intended AAP recommendation that room-sharing should ideally occur for all infants until their first birthday.21 
 
 The recommendation to room-share until the age of 1 year is not evidence-based for the prevention of SIDS, given that 90% of these tragedies occur before the age of 6 months.20 The data presented by the AAP Task Force on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome to support the recommendation21 came from 3 European case-control reports.33–35 In the first by Blair et al,33 infants who died of SIDS at over 4 months of age were more likely than controls to be room-sharing without bed-sharing (46% vs 41%) and less likely to be sleeping independently in their own rooms (43% vs 53%; statistical comparison not performed), yet the age stratification presented in this paper was not acknowledged in a recently published letter by the Task Force.36 The second report involved mostly infants <6 months old and used data from the early- to mid-1990s, when prone sleeping was still common.34 The third study involved only 123 cases of SIDS with a mean age of 13.6 ± 9.5 weeks, indicating that most cases included infants <6 months old.35 This small study included only 15 infants who slept in their own room and died of SIDS. Therefore, it is unlikely that any conclusions can be made about those who were 6 to 12 months old on the basis of this small sample size and the epidemiology of the condition. Importantly, the biggest risk factor for SIDS in this third report was “sharing the same sleep surface as the last sleep location,” something that more commonly occurred among infants who initially shared their mother’s room in our study. 
 
 In addition to the lack of data supporting the recommendation to room-share until 1 year of age, the Policy Statement authored by the Task Force did not describe a mechanism by which room-sharing would prevent SIDS or how parents should apply this recommendation to achieve better outcomes than those parents choosing to have their infants sleep independently. Although the Task Force’s recent letter cited more frequent arousals among room-sharers as the potential protective mechanism,36 the 2 studies referenced do not support that conclusion. The first is a case-control study of 18 infants.37 Among 9 room-sharers, 5 were bed-sharers, making conclusions about arousals among those who are room-sharing but not bed-sharing (versus independent sleepers) problematic. The second study, which also included bed-sharers in the room-sharing group, states that parental presence in the room at bedtime (eg, holding, rocking, feeding to sleep) explained much of the variance in night wakings and that night-long room-sharing had a “negligible (<1%) independent contribution to the explained variance.”22 
 
 The AAP recommendation to room-share until the age of 1 year conflicts with sleep expert guidance,25 which recognizes developmental changes that occur over the first year. The suggestion that parents wait to move the infant out of their bedroom until the end of the first year, when separation anxiety is normative and increasing, is likely to result in frustrated parents and unhappy infants. It also conflicts with other data that room-sharing is associated with more sleep disruption for mothers.24,38 
 
 Our data showing shorter night sleep and shorter sleep bouts for infants who are room-sharing has potentially important consequences. Inadequate sleep affects nearly every health domain, including emotional regulation, mood, and behavior in infancy and childhood.3–6 As demonstrated in our analyses, room-sharing and short sleep duration during infancy are also associated with inadequate sleep later in childhood,15 which emphasizes the importance of developing healthy sleep-related behaviors during the first months of life. Infant sleep also affects parental sleep, which can affect other outcomes, including maternal sensitivity, relationship quality, parental emotional health, and parenting practices.16,17 Fatigue is related to somatic complaints, anxiety, depression, paranoia, and crashes or unintentional injuries involving motor vehicles among healthy adults39,40 and has been associated with postpartum depression,41 abusive head trauma, and child abuse.42 At a time when family-centered guidance is strongly encouraged, parent fatigue should be considered in any guideline related to infant sleep. 
 
 Perhaps our most troubling finding was that room-sharing was associated with overnight transitions to bed-sharing, which is strongly discouraged by the AAP.21 Bed-sharing overnight was more common in our sample among 4- and 9-month-olds who began the night on a separate surface in their parents’ room. This finding is consistent with those from another recently described cohort.43 
 
 There are limitations to our analyses. The data come from a randomized controlled trial with 2 interventions. The control group received information aimed at reducing the risk of SIDS, although no recommendation was made regarding sleep location. The RP intervention included guidance to improve sleep duration and sleep-related behaviors, including recommending independent infant sleep by 4 months of age. However, sleep location did not vary significantly by intervention group (data not shown), and all analyses were adjusted for study group. Next, the findings we report are correlational, and causal effects cannot be inferred. It is possible that parents of infants with poorer sleep prefer that infants sleep more closely to them. The relatively homogeneous INSIGHT sample is another potential limitation, as are the self-reported data, although the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire has been validated against objective measures of sleep.30 Some previous studies have shown discrepancies between subjective and objective measures of sleep,24,38 and the lack of an objective measure may have resulted in unreported night wakings in which the infant self-soothed back to sleep. This possibility would particularly influence the sleep consolidation data, especially for independent sleepers. However, this possibility, if true, would only reinforce the concept that room-sharing may result in either unnecessary parental responses to infant night wakings or, alternatively, the infant’s expectation of caretaking behaviors from parents, both of which can be expected to lead to decreased sleep for infant and parent. In addition, parental perceptions of their infant’s sleep are the basis for whether they report sleep problems and request guidance from health care providers. 
 
 Our data showing that room-sharing families had lower education, income, and less likelihood of living in a single-family residence emphasize that not all parents have a choice regarding their infant’s sleep location and may not have the option to have the infant sleep independently, a factor we could not fully address although demographics and home characteristics were assessed in data analyses. Cultural norms may also lead to preferences for room-sharing in some patient populations, as described by Mileva-Seitz et al.44 Lastly, we did not assess room-sharing beyond 9 months of age.
– 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. 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. 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.)