Now, you may be reading my title and thinking to your self that there is no question about sleep positions anymore. Well, you’re mostly right. There is a great amount of research to support the benefits of laying your baby on their back to sleep (around %75 percent of North Americans and large majorities of parents and care givers in other nations including Australia and Great Brittan adhere to this rule). However, since 1991 (when the back to sleep campaign in the United States began), the rates of colic and gas problems have skyrocketed. Though there are many safe and fairly effective tips for soothing infant colic out there which should be tried first (5 of my favorite tips can be found here), there is a bit of information that parents of a severely a colicky baby should have, and (controversial as it may be) that is my Tripi’s Tip of the Day.
The single most effective strategy for helping your colicky baby find relief is: Sleeping on their stomach.
Agh! Someone just threw a tomato at my head! Okay seriously folks, I know the risk as well as any of you. SIDS. It is a serious and a seriously scary prospect for any parent. I do not offer up this tip lightly, but the fact is that a baby with severe gas and/or colic will sleep better on their tummies.
Now, I do NOT recommend that parents simply flip their baby over and leave the room. If you are going to increase your baby’s risk of SIDS through one avenue, try to offset the risk by doubling your efforts in the other areas that have been shown to reduce the incidence.
For example, though the vast majority of new parents always lay their baby down to sleep on the baby’s back, they often will be unaware that the cute bumper in their crib is something that increases their baby’s risk factor. Decorative pillows, blankets (even for swaddling), stuffed animals, the location of the crib, the firmness of the mattress, room temperature and the medical history of the mother and baby are all factors that affect your babies SIDS risk which receive a fraction of the attention given to back-sleep from many parents. Also, there are many risk reducing practices such as offering your baby a pacifier for night sleep, and having a fan on in your babies room that can reduce your babies risk even further (a fan on in the room where your baby sleeps reduces your risk of SIDS by over %70!).
This decision is a serious one, and deserves deep and thoughtful consideration. When deciding whether to try having your baby sleep on his stomach consider all of your current risk factors. Are you and your baby caucasian (yes reduces risk)? Was your baby carried to term (yes reduces risk)? Did your baby have early prenatal care (yes reduces risk)? Was the mother a drug user during the pregnancy (yes increases risk)? Are you or is anyone in your family a smoker (yes increases risk)? Is the mother in her teens or very early twenties (yes increases risk)? Does your baby have siblings (risk is increased proportionate to the number of siblings)? Has your baby had any serious health complications since birth including sickness and congenital deformations or serious infections (increases risk)?
If you have the lowest risk rate after answering these questions, then and only then would I recommend that you consider changing your babies sleep position to help treat their colic, on several conditions. The conditions would be that you take every opportunity to decrease your risk factors in other areas:
1. Keep your baby’s room temperature moderate (68-70 degrees Fahrenheit, 20-21 degrees Celsius)
2. Remove bumpers, blankets, pillows and stuffed animals from your baby’s sleeping area.
3. Use a firm flat mattress with a tight fitted sheet in your babies crib, and keep the crib located in the parents bedroom.
4. Offer your baby a pacifier at night.
5. Do not swaddle your baby for night sleep.
6. MOST IMPORTANTLY, place a fan in the room where your baby sleeps.
7. Have your baby sleep on her stomach during the day a few times before trying night sleep, stay in your baby’s room during these naps and observe if there is any occurrence of sleep apnea, or any other concerning episode. If you have the smallest concern about whether your baby’s sleep was normal, do not move on to night sleep.
There is absolutely no question in my mind that a gassy or colicky baby sleeps better on the stomach. What I struggle with in even offering this option for parents to consider is the knowledge that parents may try to use stomach sleep to soothe colicky babies on their own without realizing that there are many ways that they can drastically reduce the SIDS risk that they are increasing by placing their baby on her stomach. While there are other benefits associated with stomach sleep, in my opinion none of them warrants increasing your baby’s risk by trying to introduce stomach sleep, only consider this option if you have a very low risk factor naturally, and you do everything within your power to reduce your baby’s risk as far as possible in every other front.
I myself even knowing all of these factors did not consider for even a moment laying my son on his stomach for sleep because he was premature, and was sent home on oxygen. I was lucky enough to have great success using other techniques to help address his problems with gas.
This tip should be considered as the opinion of a non-medical layman, and is offered only as educational information for parents who are faced with the difficulties of caring for a baby with serious colic. Any change in your babies sleep routine should always be discussed with your pediatrician before being implemented.
All this talk of SIDS risk factors has got me rather emotional. I am going to go snuggle my baby boy now. I hope all new parents find this article a helpful source for information that will help them reduce their baby’s risk factors for SIDS, even if thier babis do not have colic . The more we all know, the safer our babies can be. Happy parenting!
