sleeping on tummy - is it very wrong.?

[Yorkie1]

I know the advice from FSIDS - don't do it!
And I know lots of you may think I'm terrible for allowing it but it's the only way my colicky baby will settle.
Is it so bad?
He sleeps in the room with us in a crib - pulled right up to the bed so I can see/hear him. When he naps on his tummy, he is downstairs with me and I check on him regularly.
He is 8 1/2wks old and has strong head/neck muscles already so can turn his head to the side easily.
When he goes down on his back, unless he is exhausted - he either struggles for ages to get to sleep or cries. Have tried raising the cot etc. When he sleeps on his front he sleeps for a long stretch and naps well - maybe a little too well! Not sure how much sleep babies are meant to have at this age.
He's only just started sleeping in the day the past few days and this is due to him being on his tummy, don't like to hear him uncomfortable but worried I'm being a bad mum by letting him sleep on his tummy.
Please advise or give me reassurance it's not only me who does it!
Thanks

not at all!!! both mine slept on their tummies from around 6 wks!! it was how they were comfortable.
however i did purchase a sensor mat, u can get them from argos. u have a mat that goes under the mattress of the cot and also baby monitors. if the baby stops breathing (heaven forbid) the alarm goes off and u will hear it through the monitor. it put my mind right at ease!!!
hope this helps
also, dont worry about how long he is sleeping in the day. he will sleep all he needs. just go with it unless its really disturbing his nights!!

Mine sleeps on his tummy. I am not not advocating it as all the evidence suggests they are safer on their backs- I just didn't want you to think you were the only one.

I have other bases covered- keep him cool, no blankets, no smoking.

I will admit (and no doubt get flamed) he sleeps on his tummy in his cot in his own room, night and naps. Do your research, make your own risk assessment and do what seems right to you.

If you are going to go with it then maybe get the sensor mat for when you are deeply asleep. There have been times when I haven't slept because I've laid awake listening to him breathing (our house is tiny- I can hear him in his room). But he has slept (also had hellish colic before tummy sleeping) and I feel that is more important for his development.

My kids all slept on their tummies in their cots in their own rooms.

That was before the back-to-sleep advice came in, but even so I believe a lot of babies sleep much better that way (no startling themselves awake, & also they keep warmer - at this time of year overheating is much less likely)

Mine slept on his side - mainly as he co-slept and breastfed for most of the night! But he went down in his cot on his side in the end. The midwife in the hospital started it as he kept being sick and choking so she put him on his side. Unless he was really shattered and in the pram he would sleep on his side after that - moving to sleeping on his belly at about 6mo.

To place things in context.....

the risk of SIDS lying supine is approx 0.3/1000
the risk of SIDS lying prone is approx 1.5/1000 ( 5 fold increase in risk)

the risk of dying in a road accident is approx 1/200 according to the dept of transport in 2008.

You have to make your mind up according to all the risks you take in life.

My dd3 is 5 mths and has slept on her front since she was 8 weeks old. ( although she managed to roll from her front to back as young as 5 weeks!)

I just copied and pasted the above from a thread entitled "sleeping on front, would you?"

I'm crap at copying a link so suggest you have a search for it!!

I gave in after 6 weeks and let DS sleep on his tummy - noone got any sleep otherwise. I figured that severely sleep-deprived parents were actually more of a risk!

Thanks for all your replies. It's good to know I'm not the only one!
We've got a sensor mat and have started using it but not through the night-will probably start doing that as at the moment I could sleep for England!
DS has started rolling onto his tummy to sleep and he can easily move his head from side to side so I hope it will be ok. I hope that when his colic gets better I'll be able to put him on his back to sleep and not worry so much. I guess you just have to go with what works for you and your baby - I know the risks and we don't smoke and he uses a sleeping bag so no risk of covers slipping down or hopefully overheating.
Thanks again

yorkie our DD is 10 months and has slept on her front from being a few weeks. She wasn't sleeping well on her back, waking up sometimes every 10 minutes!

From the first night we put her on her tummy, she slept well.

We have once since tried to put her on her back, within an hour she had turned herself over (including the sleeping bag she was in, i was very impressed :o)

I understand the risks, but there are many more risks we take every day, as amijee says about travelling in cars, etc. - and I figure it's worth it to have a baby who's not grumpy and stressed all day and night as she's not sleeping - and parents who aren't grumpy and stressed because they're not sleeping!!

No real advice for you, but just to let you know tummy sleeping is more common than you think and health visitors / midwives would have us believe

Swaddling has been shown to help babies sleep better on their backs. Might be worth a try.

I think swaddling really only works when they're very tiny, & you need to do it from birth - once they're bigger & stronger they don't tend to take kindly to being confined [smiles]

or rather!

i know it's against the advice but both of mine slept on their fronts. DS had a very strong startle reflex, hated being swaddled and would jolt himself awake if you put him down on his back. so he slept on his front (after spending the first 6 weeks sleeping on my chest as it was the only way i could get him to sleep).

DD had raging reflux and would vomit as soon as you put her on her back. but not if she slept on her front.

but it's not what we are advised to do, so you need to calculate the risks and do what you feel is right for you and your baby.

We swaddled from birth so I'm not sure about starting it older, but swaddled till about 5.5 months when DS decided he didn't like it any more. We did try to stop it before then, but he couldn't sleep without it.

He did sleep on his stomach from 6/7 months when he could roll himself over onto his front though.

I swaddled from birth too, Angels (& put them on their sides to sleep to begin with), but they started fighting back after a very few weeks & at that point went on their tummies

:) DS struggled a bit but was fine once bundled - it was when he started screaming and trying to roll away every time I approached with the swaddle blanket that I knew it was time to stop.

DS has awful colic and has only slept in his moses basket once or twice, the rest of the time he co-sleeps on the bed or lying on our chests(we do it in 4 hourly shifts), this has been going on since 2.5 weeks, we're now in week 8! He also has dreadful hiccups whenever we put him down on his back. We put him down on his side which seems to work, he generally rolls onto his back when asleep. He also doesn't like tummy time, so we have shied away from this...