STILL terrified of SIDS....

[mercury92]

Baby is 10months old and the poor thing still has to wear a movement monitor clip and sleep next to me every night cos I'm absolutely terrified of SIDS.

I feel like the fear of death (literally) was put in to me by NCT 😢

Every day I wake up I'm so relieved that he's alive. It's like I'm holding my breath constantly wondering if he will wake up each morning? He's perfect and so healthy. I don't have any anxiety about anything else. If we are downstairs and he's in his bed I spend the night staring at it to check I can see he is breathing.

I want to be confident in knowing that I have a perfectly healthy baby who is not going anywhere but I still can't seem to quite grasp that and am terrified of losing him, particularly to SIDS it would seem.

I even hate him being asleep in the car cos I can't tell if he is alive or not! Crazy!

Any words of advice for me? Please be kind ❤️

@user1471604848

I have 21-month twins, and was PETRIFIED of SIDS. I still am to some extent. I am terrified of them overheating. As my health visitor said "the worst thing that happen when they're too cold is that they wake up...", leaving me to imagine the worst thing that happens when they get too hot.

Up till a week ago, my twins slept in a light 1-tog sleep sac in a very cool room. I then moved them to a 2.5-tog sleepsac, and am afraid they'll over heat. When I hear one cry in the middle of the night, my first thought is "thank god, at least one of them is still alive".

It's no help to me to hear the statistics, than only one in xxx babies die. Someone has to be that one, and why not my baby. That probably stems from a previous miscarriage - I was told the baby had a 1 in 10,000 chance of having that illness, and unfortunately my baby was the one.

It never entered my head the way I feel might be unusual, I just assumed all mums feel like this. Maybe I should say it to a doc.

But I am reassured a bit hearing that 4-months is the riskiest time. I hope you get some relief too, OP.

This is so familiar! I was petrified of my son overheating. As a result, he spent most of his first few mo the half-naked and probably freezing cold, the poor wee guy! I do wonder if that’s why now, at 5yo, he refuses to take his socks off and always wants to be wearing warm pyjamas - like he’s got some primal memory of constant cold

Please get help, my mother has wasted her entire life with this kind of anxiety, and it started the same way. I can’t share most details of my life with her since it paralyses her with worry.
Your child is more likely to live to 100 than die in childhood.

I was the same with my first. It made me quite unwell actually. In hindsight I think it was a manifestation of postnatal anxiety. I used to not sleep and instead sit next to baby's bed with my hand resting on their little tummy so I could feel the rise and fall and make sure they were breathing, among other crazy things.

With my second I wasn't worried at all and was generally less anxious about everything!

Maybe you can speak to someone, although I do think it will pass. Mine passed by itself eventually but my goodness. It was awful while it lasted!

I haven't read all the replies, but I had this with my first, I'd constantly be looking in the pram to check his breathing and wouldn't even leave the room for a minute if he was sleeping (I remember the first time I did and my heart was racing and I was properly stressed). I had antenatal anxiety with him as well, not believing there'd actually be a baby at the end of it all. I had CBT through the perinatal mental health team and increased my dosage of antidepressants, which helped a fair bit. When he moved into his own room I gave myself "permission" to stop worrying so much, as he was now over the 6-month threshold. With my second pregnancy I had virtually no anxiety and I definitely didn't have the same worries about SIDS. Was your little one ill after birth? My first was and I think I'm still scarred by the experience of him being in SCBU. Just suddenly occurred to me that that might have been a contributing factor

I also had flashes of terrible events befalling my baby for his first year - SIDS, dog attack, dropping him on his head, shelf falling off the wall etc. Terrible images would just burst into my head. I wasn’t anxious or depressed in other ways - actually felt extremely happy those first months of maternity leave. I can only put it down to sleep deprivation and maybe ‘protective mummy sensors’ going into overdrive? The images eased up over time - probably ironically now that he’s a climbing, fearless toddler and more at risk of self-inflicted injury than ever!

@mercury92

I think it genuinely comes down to not believing my luck - still. It's like it hasn't sunk in that I'm a mum. I can't believe I got him. He's just the love of my life and it's hit me so hard like a tonne of bricks! So I'm just terrified he will be taken from me in some way.

I guess these are intrusive thoughts yes and I do get other intrusive thoughts eg today I imagined our (very friendly, non aggressive beautiful doggy) attacking my child - not sure why this just popped in to my head but it's very upsetting. I also often imagine accidentally hurting my son and envisage the whole horrid incident - he's just so precious - I'm still so careful with him but I don't want to project my fears on to him!

This is fairly normal IMO. I had all these intrusive thoughts when DS was a baby. Not to the same extent with the SIDS thing but I imagined all sorts of accidents occurring etc. It’s your brain’s way of trying to protect this precious thing you have. But when it gets to a point when it’s overwhelming, it could be a symptom of anxiety. Have you ever suffered with anxiety before? Your hormones go mental after birth and they can trigger episodes such as this. I would speak with your GP.

@Ozanj

I am a nursery manager and know better but DS is almost 2 and I still use a monitor with him. I have accepted it and don’t mention it to anyone but it makes me feel better and so I keep going.

Nothing wrong with that, or the co-sleeping! We used a monitor until DS was 3 and a half - which was when he finally went in to his own room after sleeping with me every night since birth. Did what anyone else thinks - it worked for us

Another sufferer of intrusive thoughts here. My DS will be 4 in Feb and my DD is 8. DS still has a monitor, and I still check both of then during every night to make sure they are breathing. Didn't help my DD had bacterial pneumonia at almost 2 and had to spend time in hospital. I absolutely know my actions are ridiculous, I've had Counselling and CBT but the thing that works for me is accepting I feel like this and just not belittling myself for checking. That seems to minimise the time I'm needing to spend checking in all honesty. I used to set alarms for every hour to check they were breathing. Now I only check when I naturally wake for the loo or something.

It’s completely normal to think about the worse situation that could happen it’s called the Imp of the Perverse. It’s the same as driving down a motorway and thinking I could yank this steering wheel and crash.

I think it’s all linked to anxiety and it can get out of control. I think being worried about sids is rational but not at this level. I would speak to your health visitor see if you can get some CBT sessions to help you not go down that rabbit hole each time.