Front sleeping

[Watsonjm]

Hi all,

My 4 week old will not sleep on her back. She was ok for the first couple of weeks but only for an hour at a time maximum. We put her on her front once and she sleeps soundly as we stared nervously at her at making sure nothing was wrong. We tired to turn LO over once asleep and her eye ms ping open and that’s the end of that.

Obviously this isn’t ideal but it we don’t know what else to do. We currently take it in turns for her to sleep on us as this is the only other way she’ll sleep.

Before any starts throwing rocks I know the risks and know it isn’t the way to go but we don’t know what else to do or try.

Any help or advise gratefully received.

It's really normal for newborns to only want to sleep on you, look up the 4th trimester. It's not easy, but it does get better!

In terms of the safe sleep guidance, I would look at your other risk factors. Was baby small for their age (less than 2.5kg) or prem, do either of you smoke, is baby formula fed? Then weigh up the risks. For me I wouldn't have put my baby to sleep on her tummy, but we did bed share as she was exclusively bf and that allowed me to rest.

With our oldest, around 6 weeks, we were not getting more than a 40min block of sleep from him day or night, we made the decision to try front sleeping. It stretched his longest sleep block to about 90 mins.
For us, the balance was the risk of front sleep vs the horriffic sleep deprivation I was struggling with, and the chances of me doing something dangerous. It is against all advice, but I was a disaster zone (by 9 months, his longest sleep block was about 2 hrs. By 18 months I was getting a 4 hr block of sleep from him. He is still a sleep dodger and about to start secondary school).
You need to see what might be right for your family, remembering you are increasing the risk of SIDS.

My Dd slept on her front from about 6-8 weeks she just wouldn’t sleep on her back. We weighted up the risks, she was full-term, EBF, in a cot on a new mattress next to me. I was hugely nervous about it, but made a risk based decision.

As an older member of Mumsnet , can I point out that when I had my babies we were told to put them on their front to sleep . My daughter in particular loved sleeping with her bum in the air. Both grew to healthy adulthood.

My baby has slept on her front since 6 weeks old, she would not sleep any other way, we weighed up the risks and we knew it wasn't ideal, but we went with it, she was fine and everyone finally got some sleep cue a happier household, shes now 6 months and rolls herself onto her front to go to sleep, dont get me wrong I know it can be risky and when us as parents are sleep deprived were always looking for answers to get our babies to sleep, when i was a baby the advice was to put babies to sleep on their front so the advice is always changing the more that research is done, its ok for me to say all this as I did it and my daughter was fine, however if something tragic happened to my baby I wouldn't feel the same way, you've just got to go with what you feel is right for your baby and your family xxx

Mum of three tummy sleepers here. They wouldn’t sleep any other way. As others have said, we read into risk factors and after a few v anxious nights with our first felt comfortable with it. When our second and third also refused to sleep on their backs we felt more comfortable with it. I wouldn’t say it was life changing, as my dd still slept pretty terribly, but better than she had been!

Thank you for all the replies. Its reassuring to hear we aren't the only ones that have struggled with this. Given everything thats said about tummy sleeping we've been killing ourselves even considering it.

@Watsonjm another one here, baby front slept from the day we got home from hospital. Only started to sleep in all possible positions from about 8-9 months.