Understanding when baby can sleep on stomach

[KJEL]

So, im sure many others have covered this before but, my DS is 4 months and will only sleep well if hes on his stomach, on his back or side he will only sleep for around 20 mins at a time, including through the night, and doing that for the last 4 months is slowly killing me. Im trying to get a better understanding on when its okay for him to sleep on his tummy as there are some that say from around 4-5 months and others that say only after a year?

Once he can roll over himself. Will differ for different children. If you can’t wait that long maybe when they can lift their head, logically that should reduce suffocation risk but don’t take that off a stranger on the internet without researching further.

It has nothing to do with age. As PP said it's only safe if baby can roll back AND forth himself. Until then it's back to sleep and if you notice he's on his front, move him onto his back. Do not put him on his front, ever.

I feel for you, my LO is the same, she will only sleep for around 30 mins on her back and that's if she's exhausted otherwise she won't even go down without waking. I spoke to the health visitor about it and she said it was fine for her to go on her front to sleep. I looked at all the SIDS risks and made sure they were reduced as far as possible. So my little one has slept on her front since she was around 6 weeks old. I hate to think how exhausted and traumatised id be if we hadn't done that. LO is now a very happy smiley 5 month old and still sleeping on her tummy.

Don't get me wrong, it was an extremely stressful decision at the start!

Once baby can roll onto their front and gets there on their own it's fine to leave them, you don't need to be checking all night. Always place him on his back but if he rolls over he has the required strength to turn and lift his head.

Did it from 6-8 weeks, never looked back.

There's a lot of sensationalism about babies sleeping on their front. Once they can turn head or lift their heads up almost certainly it'll be fine.

My son is 9 weeks and will only sleep on either myself or my husbands chest. He hates being in his crib on his back so I'm tempted to put him on his belly as that's how he sleeps for hours on us. I'm not sure if him sleeping on our chests is a comfort thing as he can hear our heartbeat and it's warm and cosy or if he genuinely likes it because he's on his tummy? Anyone elsehave this issue?

@Robyn8 he probably wants to be close to you rather than the way his body is positioned so I doubt sleeping him on his front is going to help much. Have you looked into safe sleep 7 and tried to bedshare? Mine hated sleeping anywhere but being held, and I wasn’t keen on bedsharing, until I got a purflo, I think it made him feel safe and cosy, there was just too much space in the cot. I first put the purflo on the bed next to me and then eventually moved it in his cot. This worked until the 4 month regression when we then had to start cosleeping anyway so I might as well have saved the money and just coslept! And once it was working I actually loved it, his little sleepy face right next to me 🥰

My baby was very gassy and fidgety and would toss and turn, even if swaddled he would break free, rub his face and wake up. I started with putting him on his stomach from 4 weeks already..