Sleeping whilst baby on chest also sleeping

[hollydoyle]

Hi there first time poster here,

I'm just interested in seeing everyone's views regarding "safe sleeping " and how everyone feels about a parent (mum) sleeping with baby on their chest who's also sleeping, for both long and short periods

My daughter (4 weeks old) will only seem to sleep/ settle on someone's chest, particularly at night time
Sometimes I be afraid whilst doing night time feeds incase I lift her up on my chest to settle her to fall back asleep and I accidentally dose off. Any advice?

Thanks in advance

Please don’t berate parents who have adopted a not-SIDS-ideal sleeping approach, because it was the only way their babies would sleep. If your baby would sleep in a “safe” way, lucky you.*

My nephew wouldn't sleep in a safe way. He died of SIDS at 7 weeks.
That's the harsh reality of the risks of non safe sleeping.
It's not a case of being lucky, it's finding a safe way and getting baby used to it in whatever way you can. There's ways and means. It's never, ever worth the risk. I can still hear her screaming down the phone telling me he was gone.

It's better to be told it's dangerous and wrong, than to have to bury your baby.

I wouldn't (although I've done it accidentally and woken in a panic). A girl at school had a baby at 16, fell asleep on the chair with the baby and he suffocated. It was an accident and exceptionally sad for everyone but I don't think I could consciously make a decision to do the same thing knowing the risks?

Ds was an awful sleeper and sleep deprivation is used as torture for a reason. Hope you manage to find a solution.

I used to do this, I'd strip the bed completely apart from one pillow with my head on and sleep with ds on my chest right in the middle but if he fell off then he'd fall onto an empty bed, he never did to be fair.

My baby was exactly the same, she hated being swaddled until about 7 weeks old and then LOVED it, try and get a large muslin swaddle and watch some videos on how to put them on properly, we were doing it wrong and she kept escaping. Just keep persevering with popping her in the next2me! We put her in her sleepyhead in the next to me so she was more snug but for ages she would only sleep on me and we just had to make it work- my husband would take her for walks in the evening to let me sleep. She was fine until 4 months when she went through a sleep regression and hated the crib again but also hated co sleeping. We moved her into her big cot in her own room and she’s much happier now she has more room!

No this would be terrifying to me. I have a recurring nightmare that I fell asleep with my baby still in the bed and it jerks me awake in a panic looking for him.

My baby was a really terrible sleeper for the first month, still is actually but much improved from those early days. I used to start trying to put him down at 10pm and it could be 5am before I actually got him sleeping in his cot for a few hours. Now I feed him to sleep, hold him for 20-30 mins, then I gently get up and rock him for 5 mins and put him down feet first as gently as possible and crouch beside him with my hand on his chest for a few minutes if he stirs when I put him down. It's literally the only thing that works for me

Have you tried a sleepyhead or Dockatot I think they're called now? They are also not recommended fo overnight sleep but it's safer than on you and also safer than you getting zero sleep

Here's the thing OP, this question gets asked all the time on Mumsnet. And the reason, as a PP has said, is because all the safe sleeping guidelines are also things babies hate.

A newborn still wants to feel the way they felt inside your womb. The thing they want the most is to be against your body. They want to feel you, feel your warmth, hear you, smell you. They want to be curled up and cradled. Safe sleep guidelines say they must be flat on their back on a flat, firm surface with nothing in the crib that would comfort them. Debate rages over the safety of swaddling and they can only be swaddled until they are able to roll. Your baby will cry it's heart out being put to sleep according to safe guidelines. Most do. Mine would startle immediately, choke, vomit his milk, scream and cry and flail inconsolably. Hours and hours of effort and swaddling and white noise and rocking would get at most an hour of sleep out of him. It was horrendous.

So... what do you do?

You know your baby best. You have a feel for what is safest. Go with your gut. My baby would only sleep, like yours, on my chest. For the first fortnight my partner and I took it in shifts to sleep so that one of us could have baby on our chest where he was happy. Then partner goes back to work... what then? Well, I end up utterly ill with lack of sleep. I mean hallucinatory levels of sleep deprivation.

I turn to Mumsnet like you for advice. Pages and pages and pages of discussion on the matter. Everyone has the same problem, no one has a solution. Everyone is ill with sleep deprivation. It leads to PND. I was becoming genuinely angry. I couldn't cope. I was not a good mother to my baby in this state and it was not safe and not sustainable. I thought to myself, how is this safe sleeping. How am I supposed to ride this out?

After reading and reading and reading about safe sleeping, and after trying absolutely everything with my refluxy baby, including co-sleeping and swaddling and everything else under the sun I decided to go with my instincts. The minuscule risk of cot death when all other safe sleep guidelines were ticked off (empty crib, firm surface, no smoking, no drinking, I breastfeed etc etc) made me decide it was worth trying putting him to sleep on my front.

This is verboten!! You cannot put a baby to sleep on his front, my god!!! Well I did, and I didn't sleep properly for a week as I sat up watching him in his next-to-me crib. He has been able to lift and hold his head up from birth and I watched as he'd shift to get comfortable and turn his head this way and that. Eventually, out of sheer exhaustion I fell asleep.

He is now turning 4 months. I started him sleeping on his front at 2 months. He is a different baby and I'm a different mother since doing this. He sleeps 12 hours a night, waking twice to feed. He is so happy all the time and so am I. His reflux disappeared overnight.

I am not recommending you put your baby to sleep on their front (although this is what they are already doing on your chest except they are not in a stable position and could be more easily smothered).

I am saying, read the advice, go with your gut, do what works and what you are comfortable with.

Cot death is often a traffic mystery. We can only do what we can to avoid it.

We must also sleep.

Of course I mean I put him to sleep on his front and traffic should read tragic.

One day Mumsnet will introduce an edit function.

Good luck OP x

@GromblesofGrimbledon

Of course I mean I put him to sleep on his front and traffic should read tragic.

One day Mumsnet will introduce an edit function.

Good luck OP x

Thank you soooo so much for your detailed response. I am definitely definitely going to look into this snd research more Xx

Have you tried warming up the mattress with a hot water bottle before gently lowering the sleeping baby on to it?
I used a baby sheepskin for both of mine. It feels warm to sleep on and sort of reflects their body heat back so it feels to them as if they are asleep on a nice warm body. Some people think they are risky but it meant the baby was in the basket not in with me.
If your pram is safe for over night sleeping they may prefer that.
I used to get mine to sleep in their own basket for a few hours then after the 2am wake up would co sleep in the c position. I needed a few hours sleep in my own first though

Have you tried a swaddle bag? We use the tommee tippee ones with the arms in. I’ve heard the love to dream ones are supposed to be good too. We used a purflo nest in the early days. They are supposed to be safe for overnight sleep but I was always a bit nervous. DP pointed out that the nest was better than falling asleep with the baby on us. I was glad when we stopped using it anyway.

Good luck, it’s really tough but it will get easier 💐

It's so hard OP. I feel for you. My boy is asleep on my chest right now after his second feed of the night. I sleep so well now that it's nice to just sit up with him for a little while like this and cuddle. It's no longer a means of getting some desperate, uncomfortable sleep, it's actually a joy. Now that he sleeps I think to myself, this assumption that newborns don't sleep is all because of how we put them down. When I was pregnant everyone said, "oh ho! Say cheerio to your sleep then." They almost relished saying it. Like, "I've done my time, now it's your turn to suffer too!"

The default is you don't get to sleep. But how awful for mother and for baby. They need sleep to develop! Now he sleeps 12, sometimes 14 hours. He is the first generation of my family where the recommendation is to sleep on their backs.

Now, I get it. I really get the point is to minimise cot death. But the risks are already very low and I made the decision that he was safer on his front in his own space than on his front on my wobbly, unconscious body!

I'll pop him in his crib in a little bit and he'll sleep through til 9 now. He's like clockwork 9pm-9am (watch how I'll jinx myself now!)

I hope you find the solution. A half-way house for me for a while before I was confident that he was safe on his front was to have him on his side. He didn't sleep as well that way but he slept in 2 hour stints at best. I'd put him in a sort of recovery position with his arm straight out under him so that he couldn't roll onto his front. A blanket rolled tightly like a sausage at his belly meant that if he rolled it would only be onto his back. Perhaps that might work for you if you're not happy with baby on their front.

He is so close to being able to roll front to back and back to front now and I'll sleep so much more soundly when he finally does.

I'm not sure it is true that they are safer on their front in a cot than on their front on your chest, ditto not sure they are safer on a sleepyhead than on your chest (that's a harder comparison though). Most babies statistically will be fine doing either of these things - front sleeping was the advice for decades. But it is worth being aware that there is a higher risk.

Look, I get it, you do what you do to get through and at four months the base risk is lowered anyway. I've always coslept because I've been lucky that my babies settled that way but I know this is riskier than cot sleeping. Thing is cot sleeping never felt as safe, I know that's silly because of course statistically it is safe or safer.

When you cosleep, although the safest way to cosleep is with baby lying on bed next to you and you on the same mattress but in the C position, whatever position you do it in if you are close enough to them you have an awareness. I've always woken up when they are too hot, too cold, if something has moved and is covering them, to shift them back towards the cot (as they slowly gravitate towards you and you end up in the middle of the bed). Memorably with DS1 I would wake up seconds before he vomited everywhere. Many, many mothers have reported the same. Even that panic about the phantom baby in the bed, my gut feeling is that is the same cosleeping awareness instinct kicking in, because we are meant to sleep next to our babies.

They think this awareness is protective against SIDS. It can't really be studied, although there are night time observations that have been done at Durham and Dr Sears famously documented his wife doing it.

The main problem with chest sleeping is that you might roll to the side or the baby might wriggle and the baby could fall off, as well as the fact people do it accidentally in sofas and chairs. Actually having the baby on you has so many benefits in terms of regulating their temperature, breathing and heartbeat that they are probably safer there than anywhere else apart from that risk of falling. I also heard a very sad story on MN of a dad who was sleeping with a newborn on his chest, in sleep his hand, placed on the baby to prevent rolling, became heavy and caused too much pressure on the baby's lungs which meant they could not breathe.

I'll see if I can find the pages in sweet sleep.

@BertieBotts

You say that the statistics mean that certain ways of sleeping are riskier for a baby. But then you highlight the importance of maternal instinct. Statistics are statistics regardless of how you feel surely? A baby lying on you might feel safer but there are already PPs on this thread telling stories of babies being smothered or dropped this way.

For what it's worth, I agree with you. Maternal instinct comes first and foremost. And everyone has to weigh up the risks. Like a PP I felt I was more of a danger to my child without sleep. One dangerously tired drive behind the wheel of the car put any debate about it to rest for me. And I still sometimes fall asleep with him on me. It's tough!

Wee one was restless tonight between 5 and 8 so was scooped into bed with me. I still like to co-sleep when he's unsettled rather than waste his energy and mine re-settling if he just can't. He woke me up at 8 with a massive grin and an "ah ah gaaah!"

OP, consider all the risk factors and tick off what you can. After all there are people on this thread advising sleep nests and so on that are also against guidelines, but everyone does what they can to get some sleep.

There's more to cot death risk than the baby's sleeping position. Consider:

Smoking
Drinking
Loose covers
Overheating
Baby being in a different room to mum and dad
Baby sleeping propped up (i.e. in a bouncer or car seat)

These are all increased risk factors. In amongst that people will debate sleep aids (nests etc), swaddling, breastfeeding vs formula feeding and co-sleeping as being more or less risky where cot death is concerned.

If there was one way to get it right everyone would be doing it and everyone would be sleeping!