to think that back sleeping guidelines are taking the piss

[extrastrongnosugar]

on my third baby here, just got him fresh from the hospital and its day four. and night four with 1-2hr sleep totals for me. its 3am now and i had 45min so far. hes fast asleep after nursing on me but once i lay him to bed, nicely swaddled with rolled up tetras on the side for a lovely huggy feeling, he inevitably wakes up and starts crying. i am now rembembering that with number 2 i didnt even try. am just reading up on the guidelines again and tgey basically admit the reason back sleeping prevents infant death sybdrome is because it prevents deep sleep and that most babys prefer to sleep on their belly. i love it that they recommend back sleeping until year one, completely oblivious to the fact that a baby that wont sleep on its back will sleep on the mother - which is much riskier and also nice for pretending a person can go a year without sleep and not become homicidal. AIBU to think back sleeping is completely impractical advice that doesnt take into account other risk factors and follow a kind of stupid circular logic? i have another suggestion: if deep sleep is so dangerous lets just all wake up our babies every hour - at least that way well get a full hours sleep now and then!

The back to sleep campaign did NOT result in an overnight reduction of 81% sids. That happened over a 25 year period. Many many other environmental factors improved over that timescale too. The biggest one being the law in smoking in public places, alongside the massive reduction in smoking in the general population, and in pregnant women in particular.
In fact, there has been a slight increase in sids since 2016, approx 20 deaths. The number of sids in girls has increased massively in that time, 60+%.
You can do many things with statistics, however, it has not been absolutely proven that sleeping on your back is the major cause of sids. Actually, the biggest risk is being a mum under the age of 20! As the age of new mums has risen, so the sids rate has fallen.
By all means, follow the advice on safe sleeping. No one wants to purposely put their baby at risk.

and to actually answer the OP I think YABU and maybe expecting a bit much at 4 days old?

Would co sleeping work for you? When it was clear DC2 would not settle alone we co-slept (planned and therefore much safer than baby falling asleep in your arms), I had a bed guard on babies side, no pillows/duvets but did enable us to get a few hours extra sleep.

I'm ancient enough that my babies were born at the time when the advice was to put them to sleep on their front, with all sorts of dire consequences threatened for back sleeping. However, they were born in a hospital that advocated side sleeping, so that was what I aimed for. I used to get seriously worried that it didn't work because they would just roll onto their backs. I could have been saved an awful lot of worry if only I'd known what we know now.

OP, my baby was exactly like this and it was absolute torture xx for the first six weeks I pretty much didnt sleep at all at night and then I bought the Chico next to me I absolutely hated the look of the thing but it was a lifesaver .
I would feed baby to sleep, then give it 10mins then slowly lower her down into the next to me keeping my arm under her and then very very slowly take out my arm, I then left my hand on her chest for another few mins until she was settled and she would sleep 4/5 hours this way - she didn’t seem to realise she had been put down xxx

We tried everything, but it never occurred to me to put him down on his front. DH ran out on Xmas Eve to buy a Moses basket as the swing crib wasn't working! We had swaddle blankets, sleepy head, Ewan, mobiles, white noise machines etc. We even wedged his Moses basket up at an angle using a monopoly box. Eventually it just....worked. He's 2 now and will sleep on his back voluntarily, usually spread out in a star shape.

I have a 4 month old who will only sleep on his back if he's lying nest to me in bed. Which means he feeds all night and I barely sleep. With my older DS I caved when he was 7 months, with uni finals approaching, and put him on his stomach and he immediately went from never having slept in his cot to sleeping through the night.

I think it’s more that society as a whole doesn’t support new mums as realise that actually for months and months they won’t be getting any sleep.

In some cultures the mum and baby go to bed for six weeks and the rest of the community look after her, cooking etc

In my opinion YABVU. Since the back to sleep campaign began in 1991 SIDS rates have dropped by 81% in the UK and that is not coincidence. Being placed to sleep on their back in a clear cot (as in no toys or bumpers) is proven to be the safest way for a baby to sleep. Sharing a room reduces the risk of cot death. Accidentally falling asleep on the sofa with a baby is the most high risk for SIDS, but yes it happens, looking after a newborn is exhausting, I too have done it 3 times and have nodded off with baby on my chest, but it’s best to try and avoid it. They don’t like to be put down at first, they sleep best being held and it seems a never ending and exhausting cycle of trying to put the baby down to sleep, but it is worth persevering to put your baby down on it’s back.

Please check out the Lullaby Trust website. They offer advice on safe sleeping, obviously promoting babies sleeping on their backs, but also offer advice on safe co-sleeping. I co slept quite regularly with my current baby when I had trouble transferring her back to her Next2me crib, or I nodded off whilst Bf’ing her, but it’s important to know how to do this safely. SIDS rates in the UK are actually on the rise again and part of the reason for this, could be that people have forgotten how many more babies died before this advice became the norm.

Dishwasher yes to that. And many mums are forced back into work, not knowing that many, many babies don't sleep properly for the first year or two.

My sister couldn't afford to stay off for longer than three months, she'd used maternity as soon as she could due to a bad pregnancy. Her baby didn't sleep and she ended up being signed off as the lack of sleep and stress made her physically ill.

Some people don't understand how awful sleep deprivation can be for some and simply laugh and say "well what did you expect".

Smoking in public places ban only came in in what, 2007? So I don’t think that can be a big factor in the drop of deaths related to SIDS

Sleeping babies on their backs made an immediate significant difference in sids. I’m sorry your baby is a tough one but babies do sleep on their backs and the guidelines are not taking the piss. No one wants to pile in on a sleep deprived mum (I’m one myself) but I can’t not say something in case other sleep deprived mums think oh what the hell and put baby on their front.

OP the risks of SIDS for a baby sleeping on its front are far higher than if you safely co-sleep (you can look up safe bed-sharing guidelines online).

I don't see sleeping through as a 'holy grail' as one PP said, but functioning on little to no sleep is a nightmare. I also worry on the dangers of having to cosleep when seriously over-tired.

They’re not just making up guidelines for the fun of it or to ‘take the piss’ Also, there are loads of babies that sleep quite happily and well on their backs, mine did and slept through from 5 weeks.

Dr Fleming only drew his conclusions on back sleeping in 89 I think. Before 1991 this was the stats change:
. As his first study predicted, the number of Sids deaths fell from around one a week to less than one a month, and then to just three a year.
Trends through the 2000s etc may have made minor differences. Sleeping babies on backs made a huge difference and saved lives. Before his research 1 in 250 babies died of sids.

I have nothing very useful to add, but your post has brought so many memories of despair back. Remember it is not forever and it will get better.

Safe co-sleeping. Perfectly safe if done properly and as you are a nursing mother will ensure you don't fall asleep sitting up with baby feeding in bed. There are safe co-sleeping guidelines available. It's the only way I got any sleep with no 2 until 8 weeks when i got a purflo nest. He loves it even now at 8 months!

OP, could it be the swaddling that's the problem? One of mine loved to be swaddled, but all of the others hated it. As others have said, 4 days old is so very young and at this stage odd snatched moments of sleep is really normal.

Nobody here can tell you what would happen to your baby if you put him to sleep on his front, but it's not something I'd ever advise. The consequences of being wrong are just too horrific.

I kind of see where you are coming from. Guidelines are sometimes so much of a holy grail that it encourages people to take risks in other ways. I'm thinking primarily of the guidelines about making up formula. We were told to make every bottle fresh etc etc and the number of posts and RL examples I see of people who do this, thinking they are doing it right because they are making it fresh but using water that isn't hot enough worries me. They are simply not told enough about how formula works and the bacteria etc. They are just told to make every bottle fresh. It is far safer to make them in advance using hot water, flash cool, store in back of fridge.

Having said that, the statistics for the back to sleep campaign are absolutely conclusive in terms of how many babies have been saved (yes, I'm sure there are other factors that have helped, less smoking, alarms/monitors, clear cots etc) but it is not a risk I would be willing to take.

Have any of those who think it’s sinply a matter of perseverance for the greater good had babies with really bad reflux? Back sleeping for my babies with terrible reflux led to hours of high pitches screaming - screaming because they were in absolute agony.
I could just about cope with no sleep (I didn’t get any sleep because I was awake most of the day and night watching them sleep and making sure they were breathing okay even though we invested in sleep monitping mats) but I couldn’t cope with watching and listening to my baby scream in agony. No amount of perseverance was going to eventually lead to them just getting it and sleeping on their backs for more than 5 minutes.

It's your choice. It's entirely up to you. No one else (MW/HV) is going to be around when you put your baby down.

But. If your DC died from SIDS because you made this choice could you live with yourself? If yes then make the choice based on that.

Peadatrician told us that sleeping on their back means the windpipe is in the best and most open position for breathing, the hospital did sometimes put baby on front to sleep to help with wind but they had all the monitors so knew if there was a problem. I did notice that oxygen levels were consistently lower when on front rather than on back.

He is so very new OP. It may be he likes and feels secure by your smell and feel. I sympathise as mine wanted arms only and sleep deprivation is dangerous. During the day a sling and carrier were great help and at night well we winged it.

We did try a couple of things that helped us. A dummy, the swaddle and inverting his moses slightly, he was in a next to me bed so very close and i slept with the bed sheet before it went on. Which the midwife suggested as it gave it my smell. My husband and i also staggered the start of sleep. He fed every 2 hours so i expressed and went to bed at 8, my dh gave the milk about an hour later and then more around half 10 before his bed. I then woke up at 1 but at least had had a good few hours. That worked until sleep regression.

It makes you so irritable and clouded to not have sleep. I still am not sure how we got through it. Its a a haze now which is probably why ttc dc2 is on our minds. Its hell in it but you forget after. I think if you didn't then there would be a lot of only children.

My DS still likes to sleep on his back at 18 months. Although he has I think only slept through twice since he was born. And by that I mean midnight to five so I think my expectations are lower than some people's.

What I did find when he was newb orn is that he wouldn't settle at all in his next to me bed (which I used with the sides up like a crib). But as soon as I tried him in a moses basket he settled much better. He just looked so lost in his next to me bed. White noise from his Ewan Sheep also helped considerably.

But I do empathise. Trying to function on little sleep is really, really hard.

Also he slept better in the next to me bed than the moses so we changed. Even with inversion. We thought reflux at first.