my baby wont sleep on his back...?

Question

im worried because ive always been told to put my baby on his back to sleep which was fine untill now he is 4 months old and can role, he now prefers to sleep on his side or front so i cant sleep at night as im up every five minutes checking he hasnt roled on his face which has happened a couple of times and it dosent bother him, is there any thing i can do it may seem like a silly question but it worries me.

Answer 1

my baby always sleeps on his side. its OK. but when he sleeps on his front i always put him on his back again without waking him up . don't ever put pillow or anything like that inside the cot!sleep in his bedroom you'll be less worried

Answer 2

Try not to worry as you need sleep to survive and enjoy him during the day!!

All babies will roll over - all at different ages, so there is no textbook that can be followed to the letter for advice. Have had 3 children who all rolled pretty quickly and all survived to tell the tale. Matresses are now designed with good air vents,etc, so really the chances of suffocation are very very small. He is probably strong enough to lift his head by this age and I am 100% sure that his body would kick start him into shifting his head if he felt difficulty with breathing. I think most accidents happen when babies are 'trapped' and can't free themselves, eg, wrapped up in blankets or pressed up against something. If you are really worried then see if a health care visitor can't get hold of a baby alarm mat that can sense if a baby has stopped breathing. If you'd be able to borrow that for a few months then you'd have peace of mind until the baby is fully mobile and past the stage that you feel he might still be at risk.

Something I did for my first baby was use a bag bath towel, rolled from either long end till just enough room to let the baby lie in snugly and then sewed the ends to secure. He then lay on the flat bit in the middle with his head above the top edge and it stopped him rolling - we're all scared to begin with! Obviously adjust his upper blankets since he'll feel cosier with this beside him.
Experiment through the day time with it when you are up and about and able to watch then if it works you will be able to relax
at night and sleep more!

Answer 3

don't worry too much (pls note I have 4 children)

what bugs me here is that there seems to be a fashion, coming back and going. 20 years ago it was everyone on their backs, then 10 years ago everyone on their bellies, now again on their backs.

of course everyone worries about SID (sudden infant death) and wants to avoid it. And many studies have been undertaken. Only problem, this is not an exact science, because you cannot take identical babies, have them sleep one on the belly one on the back, and compare. So none of the studies have reached any good conclusions, from a scientific point of view.

now let's look at what animals do. Pretty much none of them sleep on their backs. Reason is that this is uncomfortable (spine makes contact), and it exposes the soft / tender / unprotected bits.

now let's look at the way professionals handle people with not life-threatening wounds, or unconscious (but breathing). They put them on their side, if possible the right side because this leaves the heart free from any compression. The nice thing is that if they vomit, for example, it will flow naturally out of the mouth and leave the breathing ways free (whereas, if one vomits while lying on one's back, one is almost certain to choke on one's vomit). Incidentally this is a position that many animals prefer to sleep in (cats, dogs, lions, tigers, bears, etc).

personally I have never liked it too much if my kids insisted on sleeping on their belly, face buried into the mattress. But I've always felt fine with them sleeping on their side, or three quarters (between on the side, and facing the mattress).

But of course kids move. I have two takes on this:
- first, by the time they can move so much and so freely that they are able to adopt their favourite position, the odds are that they cannot really die of some unknown cause
- second, what you can do is use those special pillows. They're made of two parts, a larger one and a smaller one, linked by a piece of cloth. The baby goes in the middle, with the smaller pillow front and the larger part at his back. This helps to keep him on his / her side, rather than going face down.

hope this helps

a

Answer 4

I don't have any first hand experience with this but I do remember my mom doing this with my younger sister when she was a baby (this was 16 years ago so things may have changed, you may want to call your pediatrician). She would roll up a blanket or something and put it on either side of her (it acted like a speed bump) and she couldn't roll over it. You may just want to make a phone call to the doc anyways, they should be able to give you some advise or at least tell you it's fine and give you peace of mind so you can sleep. A sleep deprived mommy can't be a good mommy.

Answer 5

I always put my eldest son (now 5) to sleep on his back. He always turned on to his tummy and put his bum up in the air. He is fine. I read somewhere recently that it is safer to sleep on your side. Less pressure on the lungs. Sleeping on your back increases the chances of vomitting and therefore blocked airway. Don't worry, and try not to check all the time, it will disturb your baby. I woudn't get anything to put into the cot either. Your baby could become trapped under a pillow etc and suffocate. Good luck

Answer 6

My daughter is nearly 5 months old...she has been able to roll onto her tummy since she was 11 weeks old but is too daft to roll back yet! Every night I put her to sleep at the foot of her cot on her back, the instant I leave her room she rolls onto her tummy then wakes me in the morning whinging because she has shuffled on her tummy all the way to the top of her very large cot and is wedged at the top and cant move, or has squidged herself to the side!!! The health visitor has told me to keep turning her over but I have given up! We both get a good nights sleep and like people say, we were put to sleep on our front years ago and we are ok. The theory and understanding makes sense about putting them on their front but in practice unless you sit by the side of the cot all night or pin them down (believe me I have tried velcro on the back of her grobag, and tying the bottom to the side of the cot!) the baby will sleep in the most comfortable position.

Answer 7

my baby does that to, he is 6 months old but i try not to worry to much, i do wake up maybe twice-three times a night to check on him too but he is always okay, long as he can move his head good he should be okay, (what my grandma and step grandma told me) usually he is in the bed with me and he sleeps better the doesnt roll or anything just sleeps how i put him most of the time (but all babys are different) just do what you feel is right and good luck!

Answer 8

I have to agree with what the parent of 4 kids said up there.
It made no sense to me to keep an infant on its back, when if it threw up, it wouldn't be able to move if you block it in with anything, therefore it would choke itself. Face-down, obviously it could very easily smother itself. I made sure I had the infant blocks to posistion my son on his side until he got old enough to move himself around. Once he rolled around on his own, it wasn't such a worry, and he was happy to sleep on his stomach. He still does now, with his butt in the air.
There were times when he started this that I got up to check on him, and he was face down, and it looked to me as though his face was buried. It wasn't. His airway was clear, and god forbid I should move the child - he is the crankiest thing I have ever seen if he is woken up before he is ready lol.
Keep doing what you are doing, checking on him. Soon you will feel more comfortable with what your baby is doing, and your baby will be happy and more comfortable since he can sleep in the posistion he is most comfortable with.
And its definatly not a silly question, considering the risks involved in allowing your child to sleep incorrectly while they don't have the ability to posistion themselves.

Answer 9

Don't worry that much!!!
These rule change all the time: when I was a baby my mom was told that sleeping on the stomach was better and now it's the opposite.
You're baby will be just fine.

Answer 10

I was exactly the same. My son did the same at 4 months and I asked the same question on here as you. It's normal to worry but I now put him to bed on his tummy, otherwise he wakes up trying to get himself comfy.
I had loads of advice given to me, to try to stop him but in the end I just let him sleep on his belly. Somebody did say to me that imagine sleeping on your back all night, it would hurt like hell!
Don't panic about it, if he is clever enough to roll, he will be clever enough to sleep with his head to the side

Answer 11

It is fine for your baby to sleep the way in which he feels comfortable, don't worry if he was uncomfortable he would move. You will be surprised at how resilient babies are and it is only natural for you to worry it isn't a silly question.