Family member's newborn – WWYD?

[CrumpetConnoisseur]

My cousin has recently brought her tiny premature baby home after a stay in NICU. She weighs less than 5lbs.
She sent me a photo of the baby asleep on her tummy in her Moses basket and said that this is the position she settles best in.
I have to admit I’m quite concerned. I know babies shouldn’t generally be put down to sleep on their fronts, and with her being so premature and tiny, it makes me particularly nervous.
My cousin also doesn’t want to use a breathing or movement monitor such as an Owlet, which adds to my worry, although I appreciate these aren’t recommended as a substitute for safe sleeping practices.

Obviously, I’m not her baby’s parent and I don’t want to come across as judgemental or interfere with how she’s looking after her. I also don’t know whether the NICU team has given her any specific advice regarding sleeping positions.

Would you be concerned in this situation? Would you say something to her, or leave it alone because it’s not your baby?
I just want the little one to be safe, but I also don’t want to overstep the mark.

Tbh the parents are obviously thick as fuck if the dad smokes indoors.

People like this generally have a lack of curiosity and critical thinking which, in my experience, often goes hand in hand with a defensive attitude in the face of any perceived challenge.

I’ve met people both professionally and personally who’ve played fast and loose with basic child safeguarding with some awful results.

It normally goes one of these ways:

• Survivorship bias - often combined with ignoring damage to the child that is not immediately apparent or can be seen eg ‘I smoked throughout pregnancy and DC was fine’ whilst dismissing epigenetic modifications that led to child having cardiovascular/cancer/diseases as adults etc.

• Issues with child’s health or wellbeing occur but cognitive dissonance leads parents to blame others/some other reason instead of acknowledging their own accountability and actions.

• Something tragic happens and the child becomes a statistic collated by the National Child Mortality Database.

As I’ve got older I’ve realised that we can, as a society, try and reduce risk but there’ll always be parents like this as it’s part of human nature.

As others have pointed out, the advice over sleeping has changed over time - I do understand that there is evidence to support back sleeping, but as I outlined upthread my baby darn near died from back sleeping as she choked on her vomit and I found her blue. Had she been on her front it would have simply soaked into the sheet.

It may be that a full term baby has sufficient reflexes to project vomit out of their mouths safely whilst lying on their back, but a prem does not. Is there evidence about this?

I put my GC down on their backs as ordered, but as you can imagine I watched them like a hawk having has such a bad experience.

The front sleeping advice made perfect sense to me for the reasons above.

I think the OP should refrain from comment - the midwife/HV will be on top of this.

Agree with PP about bringing these things up in a conversational style but for your own sake you need to find a way to try and accept that there is only so much you can do here. It sounds like they are making all sorts of bad decisions here but not bad enough for social services to get involved. It's a massive worry for you to live with and be unable to change so you need to find a way to try not to dwell.

I would be more worried about the smoking ... just unacceptable.

not sure if it’s just semantics or we’re both saying the same thing. You said co sleeping is “not strictly reccomended” and I said it is “supported”- . I didn’t say it was reccomended. My personal experience from my health visitor was “if that’s how you chose to sleep with your baby that was fine, here was how to do it safely.” They Ofc told me about the reccomended way of doing it too. I know friends who had children 4-5 years before me and they report they were told co-sleeping was an absolute no no so I do think the messaging has changed on this.

Also think we’re saying the same thing about potential advice she could have been given about safe sleep. You say you were not told about safe sleeping practices at all in the NICU, I say I wasn’t told at all in my pregnancy so it’s entirely possible that OPs cousin hasn’t been told at all which is the point I was making - which is really a failure of our heath service not a failure of OPs cousin - I’m sure she has had a really difficult time. Although OPs updates about partner smoking in the house and blankets etc suggest that she could do with more info / support or maybe she knows and feels her way works better for her.

I agree there’s different approaches re how to tell her. I’m a people pleaser and also remember the uncertainty of those first few weeks of bringing a newborn home, hormones being all over the shop and being so terrified you were doing something wrong. If OP has a relationship with her cousin where direct approach would be fine then fair enough but I also don’t think it’s passive aggressive to ask in a more subtle and enquiring way

I think we are basically saying the same thing. I was just making the point that co-sleeping is not considered as ‘safe’ as a baby sleeping on their backs in a cot on their own. We all make decisions and risk assessments based on our own circumstances and if OP’s cousin has decided this is what she needs to do then I don’t think she should be judged for that. It might be that she fears falling asleep during the night while feeding baby in her arms, which would obviously be a much greater risk. So on that basis OP should tread carefully not to come across as sanctimonious. Subtle and enquiring is fine if it actually comes across that way but I think that’s difficult to achieve - especially over text. A face to face conversation might be the best bet here.

If OPs cousin really isn’t aware then she should absolutely be informed, but it’s awful to think anyone could be so uninterested in the welfare of their own child that they wouldn’t at least educate themselves. I would be worrying for the baby in other ways - no doubt she’ll be treating fevers with aspirin and weaning at 3 months onto whole grapes and honey 😬

Just call her.

OK? When was this? If it was 2024 then that is remiss on the part of the hospital staff. If it was 1994 then it’s fucking irrelevant.

@Hadenough32 Had you chosen a hospital birth rather than a home birth whereby the midwives left you after an hour, would your daughter would have had this near death experience?

What’s your experience in this area @Goodwitchglenda ? You speak very dogmatically and authoritatively on the matter. One would think you were head nurse in an NICU

You are being judgemental and you have decided you know better than a mother who has gone through the most traumatic time, in circumstances you can’t even imagine.

There are so many issues with breathing monitors, 99% of the time they go off for entirely no reason. When you have already spent weeks and weeks focussing on a monitor, with your heart racing every time it goes off, having one at home is not at all a good option unless your baby is specifically at risk, in which case the hospital will provide it.

Preemie parents have gone through one of the most intensive parenting training courses there is, under the watchful eye of specialist nurses. They know every risk and every benefit for their child. Preemie babies are often placed on their stomach because it helps digestion and improves O2 saturation. Stands to reason this will be how they sleep best. My daughter was exactly the same and when she had colic it was the only way she slept. Unfortunately because of everyone bleating on that this would inevitably kill her, I still didn’t sleep as I was afraid if I did she would die. It was only when I had a review with the NNICU team that I told them all about it (whilst breaking down) and they told me it was ridiculous to be so concerned about it and as long as I was eliminating other risks (not smoking, not co-sleeping, new wrapped mattress, baby in our room, not too hot, no extra blankets) the risks were very low.

Do not mention it, even in the passing, simply respond with “awww cute” and move on. She’s had enough trauma without “well intentioned” people giving her “advice” which is really just judgement. If I had £1 for every time a “well intentioned” person gave me “advice” or made a really offensive comment after NNiCU, I’d be very rich.

It’s her partner who smokes (allegedly). Why does she need anything explained to her? Why aren’t we explaining to him, if we absolutely must get involved in their lives?

My ex smoked in the house unknown to me when I brought my daughter home at her original due date. She had to be rushed back in due to respiratory distress leading to respiratory failure and spent the rest of her first year in hospital

@sumayyah was your ex the baby’s primary carer?

More neglectful that constantly turning them on their front so they scream and scream and scream, and never sleep? That doesn’t sound very good for a child. I was berated for never doing tummy time with my daughter, told I was doing her harm but whenever I did, she screamed constantly. I was also told I was a terrible parent for letting her cry for a few minutes before she went to sleep, all that nonsense about cortisol etc. Everyone had an opinion on everything, forgetting that babies are individuals.

Can you imagine the responses here if a MIL was posting about her DIL doing this? Would everyone be advising how to “subtly” get their view across?

Gosh, by the end of this thread she'll be sending photos of the baby sweeping the chimney with a pint of beer in her hand.

Yep. It’s going to get worse and worse, these photos the OP apparently is being sent.

Has she invited you to meet the baby yet @CrumpetConnoisseur ?

She is sending this as group and not specifically to you I would guess

It must have been awful for the mom of course, nobody is questioning that, but that doesn't automatically make her an expert on all matters related to the health and wellbeing of children.

And she will be a damn sight more traumatised if her baby dies due to unsafe sleeping practices she didn't realise we're unsafe!

If you can say something and potentially save a life, why wouldn't you?

If I had to choose between feeling judged/criticised and my daughter dying, I would opt to be judged every time! I think all parents would.

I don't know why we are assuming the mom is so hyper-sensitive that any form of advice, no matter how kindly delivered, will break her .....

OP, have you said anything yet? If not, what are you waiting for?

"Babies are individuals" has nothing to do with the fact that is dangerous too put a baby to sleep on their tummy.

Lots of things are good for some children and bad for others but danger doesn't vary from child to child. If something is dangerous it's dangerous.

Do you say "people are individuals" to all health facts like smoking causes cancer or just the ones you want to ignore?

You don’t have to be a head nurse in a NICU to be aware of what the 2026 safe sleep guidelines are for premature babies, and to know that putting a premature baby on their front to sleep is against that advice, you just have to be able to read.

Not going to get into what my personal experience is and what authority it does or doesn’t give me because unlike so many people on this thread I know that the plural of anecdote is not data.

I bet this thread is giving more than a few people flashbacks of trying to tell the boomers in their life not to put their babies down on their fronts/cover them in blankets/sorry we don’t want that cot bumper from 1987 😅

I had a prem baby and they did do this. She might not be aware it’s only safe because of the monitoring .

Safeguarding children is everyone's job.

I think this is a very tactful way to say something.

Both of mine slept on there tummys in moses basket pram and cot they had pillows and matreses with breathable holes in there 26 and 21 now only way they would sleep as babies

How is this relevant? They slept on their tummies when safe sleep guidelines were different, your survivorship bias doesn't dispute data and statistics

I don’t think the OP is in anyway responsible here. Her cousin will have been told all of this when being discharged from NICU and the midwives who visit in the community will check this when they visit too. Your cousin is making a choice here, she has this information.