Too Young for a Pillow?

[plummed]

My DD (7.5 months) has always had trouble sleeping, I think I have posted here before. She refuses (always has done) to go to sleep alone. I have to hold her to get her to sleep. Even for naps, which never last longer that half an hour.
I have just discovered that I can get her asleep alone lying next to me if she has a pillow. Well, it is really a folded blanket, so quite flat. Her head is probably only an inch higher than the rest of her.
I am a little worried that everyone says NO PILLOWS until she is one. DO you reckon she is a bit young? Or does it not really matter that much? I mean it is progress...

sorry don't really know why it is recommended that you wait until 12 months ... not sure if it is a suffocation issue with soft pillows or whether something harder like a blanket is any safer? I used to put ds on pillows in our bed for naps when he was younger but not at night time.

The problem I think is that until they are 12 months old, they don't really have full control of all their movements and the danger of suffocation. I've read some books that say wait till they go into a bed at 18 months or older. I've just given a pillow to my 11.5 month old and he sleeps a lot better (always a good sleeper but taken to waking up once or twice a night recently and that's stopped now)! But the first two nights, I left his monitor on...

The only thing I can think of (and I actually bought one but never used it as DS always seemed to sleep well without one) is something like this. It's fairly flat and it's made of latex with holes on the side where their head lays so it reduces the risk of suffocation.

Thanks, will have a look at that.

Sseems to go down a bit better now, still takes a lot of effort to get her there without cuddling to sleep. Doesn't seeem to stop her waking up every hour though!

Brilliant bit of typing that!

I have to say my DS's sleeping took a turn for the worse at 7-8 months. We went on a long haul trip when he was 7 months and he slept brilliantly on holiday. When we came back, a combination of jetlag, bug after bug, developments etc saw all of us getting really bad sleep for a while. Fingers crossed though that his sleep is finally getting much better.

Apparently pillows are still commonly used in sweden (scandinavian countries also still use duvets cos of the cold but special baby ones) and ds (now 5 months) has used one of these www.goigoibabypillows.co.uk pillows for all his day naps, inc early morning sleeps with me after a friend recommended it as I as was worried about his head getting flat as he always slept on one side. He slept so much better on this and also found it was great for lying down feeding as made the angle better. Not sure what makes it safe, think its the way they lie on them with their shoulders and head on pillow so can't roll off them.