Stomach Sleeper

Nate is now five months old. A few days ago Nate figured out how to flip from his back to his stomach we've figured out over the last few days that he likes sleeping on his stomach. At first there were worries that we could be causing Nate harm by letting him sleep on his stomach. The back to sleep movement has really strong message that babies should always sleep on their back.

We tried to figure out if we should flip Nate back over or not. I found a lot of conflicting answers. We felt that Nate was actually sleeping better on his stomach, which he is not always sleeping great so why change a good thing. My best piece of information that was clear and concise I found when reading through information on the First Candle site (www.firstcandle.org). There was the answer of what to do when baby starts rolling over. They made it clear that every baby is going to determine their favorite sleep position. By flipping them back over you end up disturbing everyone's sleep. Just make sure that sleep area is free of anything (blankets, toys, etc) that could get their face next to.

So Nate has been sleeping pretty well recently and I think being on his stomach may be a factor. If Nate ends up taking after me he'll sleep on his stomach a lot. We will still put Nate on his back to go to sleep, but if he flips over we won't do anything, except let him sleep.

In doing the research I came up with some other good news. Nate isn't in any high risk categories for SIDS. The major risk factors are below.

* Infants born to mothers who are less than 20 years old at the time of their first pregnancy
* Babies born to mothers who had no or late prenatal care
* Infants born to mothers with too short an interval between pregnancies
* Premature or low birth weight babies and multiples
* Babies born to mothers who smoke during or after pregnancy
* Infants who are placed to sleep on their stomach or side (we place him on his back)

In addition, breastfeeding and using a pacifier are thought to further lower risk of SIDS. So hopefully, with this question answered Nate will just sleep (and sleep some more).