Baby trapped on her front when sleeping

[Jan1984]

Hi, our four month old baby has mastered the art of rolling from back to stomach - and has great fun doing so. She just can’t manage to get from front to back and lies there and eventually her head droops into the playmat - we’re teaching her to roll back but it’s not happened yet.

So the problem is she frequently rolls onto her front in her cot while awake/semi awake and then has no way to get back. So we’re up all night trying to put her back the right way in case she suffocates.

All the things I’ve read online say to just let her roll back when she’s uncomfortable all will be fine - but ours can’t even if she wanted to.

Has anyone got any tips?

Tbh I think you just need to leave the baby be to sleep like that. You're all going to go mad turning the baby otherwise. My eldest slept on his stomach pretty much from the beginning as he literally wouldn't sleep any other way. I know that's not the official advice but it sounds like the other way is madness.

Hey 👋 my little girl 6 months, started rolling onto her tummy to sleep at about 5 months (she could roll back though) but i was worried about leaving her to sleep on her tummy and everyone advised to leave her to sleep, if she rolled over in the night while you were sleeping you wouldn’t be able to roll her back, if she’s comfortable sleeping like that then leave her xx

She’s not going to suffocate. Even if she hasn’t mastered the front->back roll yet if she can do back->front then she will have more than good enough head control to ensure that doesn’t happen. So I would just let her sleep and only move her back if she’s awake and crying about being stuck. Then lots of tummy time in the day until she nails rolling the other way. It won’t be long.

She will be fine sleeping on her stomach, as long as you have her on a hard firm mattress. She will naturally turn her head to the side, and even if she weren't to and was face down as long as it's a hard mattress and nothing else in the cot she won't suffocate. Don't worry about turning her, you don't need to