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April 2012 Moms
funkymonkeyohyeahhh
member
Moms of tummy sleepers
funkymonkeyohyeahhh
member
How do you not check on your kid 23042309482309 times while they're sleeping?
LO was a magic baby and STTN from birth (about 8-10 hours nightly) until 5 weeks. Then, his night sleeping got worse and worse. The past month, he's doing 4 hours and then waking up every 2 hours. I got spoiled before obviously because I'm freaking tired. His 4 hour stretch usually begins in the 8 o'clock hour so I'm not going to bed at that time, and miss out on that "long" stretch. Most nights I just have too much to get done to get in bed then.
I tried letting him nap on his belly one day to see if he'd be receptive to it, and the kid knocked out for 3 hours (super unusual for him). I let him nap on his belly all the time now and as I type he's been asleep for 2.5 hours. During the day I'm awake so I can watch the video monitor like a hawk (and um, go in to also check on him every 30 minutes or so because I'm neurotic).
At night I swaddle him and he sleeps in the Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper (our set up since birth). He loves the swaddle at night, and otherwise he wouldn't get any sleep on his back. I tried going without it to see if switching things up would help and he woke up every 20 minutes for an hour until I finally just swaddled him up.
Okay, this is long enough. Stopping now.
Basically, moms of tummy sleepers, what helps you be okay with it? I am just so freaking paranoid about him smothering himself :-/
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Re: Moms of tummy sleepers
He rolls from belly to back consistently with ease, but has only just the past two days expressed any interest in going back to belly. (Before he'd just lay there and wave his arms around like he was stuck, haha.) He can almost get all the way over to his belly and then flops back over. He's always had really great head control, but twice I've had to go turn his head while he was sleeping because it was a little too forward facing in to the mattress for my liking.
Does anyone have a Snuza monitor? We'd planned to get one while I was pregnant and then didn't feel like we needed it when he was here. Now I wish we had one, because I imagine I'd feel better about tummy sleeping at night if we had it. I really am too neurotic for my own good at times.
We've exclusively tummy slept since week 2. I started it because those first 2 weeks, I was doing it unintentionally. He'd fall asleep on my chest when I was sitting upright-ish in bed, so I'd try to keep him in the same position when I moved him to the bed to finish sleeping. I didn't want to leave him against my chest because I was trying to BF and had major supply issues and needed to pump all.the.freaking.time.
When I gave up trying to BF, we transitioned to the crib and he just did so much better on his tummy, so I let him.
The reasons I don't check on him (and never have) are:
-SIDS is incredibly rare. Like less than 1/20th of 1%.
-SIDS has no symptoms. If he's going to die from SIDS, me checking on him doesn't really make a difference - I'd just discover it earlier if I checked on him.
-Since week 2, he's been able to pick his head up and change sides, Not a deterrant for SIDS, but reduces likelihood that he'll suffocate.
-It feels right to do. I do think the benefits of tummy sleeping way outweight the costs, but at the end of the day, it feels right. Gotta go with my gut.
Some stats:
The risk of an individual baby dying from SIDS is unknown, so we can't really say "Baby X's risk of SIDS goes up/down if they sleep on their tummy/back." They do know that:
-Before 1992's"Back to Sleep" campaign, 5,000ish babies died of SIDS each year.
-Since then, about 3,000ish babies died of SIDS each year.
So we could say that the overall SIDS rate went down about 40%, but that doesn't mean that an individual baby's chances goes down 40% if they back sleep. In fact:
-In 1992, there were 4,084,000 births. If 5,000 died of SIDS, that's .122% of babies that died of SIDS.
-In 2009, there were 4,131,019 births. If 3,000 died of SIDS, that's .0726% of babies that died of SIDS.
Either way, your odds aren't significantly different. They aren't even 1/20 of 1%! You COULD say that a babies odds of SIDS went down .0494% if they slept on their back. But that assumes that every baby's odds are the same, which they aren't. Boy babies are more likely. African American babies are more likely. Babies of smokers are more likely.
According to the government, there aren't even any symptoms of SIDS. No signs of suffering, so being in the same room as your LO as they tummy sleep isn't likely to help. Might make you feel better, but isn't likely affecting the outcome.
I'm not saying ignore the literature or anything - definitely do what you can to prevent SIDS. I wouldn't back sleep an African American boy baby covered in blankets in a smoke filled room. It's all about weighing the risks and deciding for yourself.
https://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005067.html
https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sids/upload/PART_II.pdf
Good stats!
This is what I thought too.
DD has been tummy sleeping for about a month now, but she has been able to turn her head from side to side since about 2 weeks old. We started with naps so I could be more aware of what's going on in her crib. After about a week of her not having any problems with naps, it gave me the confidence to let her (and me) sleep through the night too. I don't swaddle though. Also, like PP said, I worry much more about tripping while carrying her or getting into a car accident.