I know it's bad but... sleeping on their fronts

[islandbaby]

DS is 3 weeks old and just refuses to settle if put on his back. He seems to have a lot of uncomfortable wind, which he can only fart out if he's got his arse pointed ceilingwise, so putting him down on his back just leads to waking up crying and uncomfortable every 10 minutes.

We have tried to persevere, but more often than not we end up putting him down on his side/back.

We'll keep trying, but can anyone give me any advice on how to get him to sleep on his back.

And if not, is there anything I should be doing to make sleeping on his tummy as safe as possible.

And really... how big is the risk of something terrible happening to him if he sleeps on his front?

So many things to try and get right, along with struggling with breastfeeding, struggling to not co-sleep...

DS had horrible colic and would only sleep on his front too. Its hard isnt it? We ended up buying a movement monitor which has been invaluable to us HTH x

Personally, I would not fret.

He is telling you what he needs and I would go with that. 'back to sleep' is only one of many things to minimise the risk of SIDS: no smoking, have baby sleep in your room but not your bed etc etc.

It all depends on what you are less uncomfortable with: his discomfort and disrupted sleep or a theoretical increase of risk of a rather rare tragedy.

Our DS also slept on his front for the same reason.

We made sure all other risk factors were eliminated i.e. not over warm, no smoking/drinking, nothing else in cot, in our room for 6 months, well ventilated room, breastfed etc.

Only you can decide though, but it is worth looking into the other factors too.

You can get a mattress sensor thing which monitors breathing. However, apparently they give off a lot of "false positives" so can panic you unnecessarily- i.e. you think the baby's stopped breathing when in fact he hasn't.

My two dc both slept on their fronts from quite tiny as they couldn't ever settle on their backs either.

My DS would only sleep on his front for the first few weeks but now sleeps fine on his back - so you might find this passes too? He is 9 weeks now, so it didnt last long. Still prefers on the front for naps.

DD was the same, I slept with her chest to chest with me and me sleeping in 5 minute bursts for about 8 weeks. Horrendous but I was terrified of putting her on her front. I eventually decided to only put her on her front to sleep if she had a really uncomfortable night, which was maybe 4 out of 7 and she had a movement monitor, plus she was inches from my face and I slept sooo lightly... (ds was never like this, happy as as a pig in the proverbial lying on his back). As soon as she got to 6 months and could turn over I put her to sleep on her front and for the first time in 6 months both of us got a proper nights sleep (phew!)

As the others have said - my DS2 is the same and has only ever slept on his tummy. We had a monitor so we all slept soundly (I didn't need to wake every three minutes wondering if he was okay!). The Angelcare one was excellent.

The other advantages are that he has never startled himself awake (unlike DS1 who slept on his back) so has always been a good sleeper and has had so much tummy time that he is really strong!

My midwife said that they put all special care babies on their tummies as is eases digestive discomfort.

I really wouldn't worry!