The nine months leading up to a baby’s birth are full of anticipation. Parenting books have taught you the best way for a baby to sleep, and given every risk factor of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Unfortunately, there’s will never be a perfect guidebook for your child.
Making mistakes is part of becoming the best parent possible. Sleep, for both a baby and parent is easily one of the biggest concerns for someone new to this job. Sleep deprivation can lead to postpartum depression and marital tension. Unfortunately a child’s sleep schedule can improve one day and cause confusion the next day. Here are seven common baby sleep mistakes that new parents can make:
1. Don’t
assume the mellow sleepy newborn phase will last forever: We hate to break it to you, but your dozy, peaceful
infant who simply falls asleep, milk-drunk, after a feeding may not always be
this way. The first few weeks (or even months) are not always indicative
of the kind of sleeper you will have. Some babies randomly sleep through the
night early on, but it doesn’t mean this will continue indefinitely.
Have you weathered the four-month sleep regression yet? You might want to read up on that. Even though
nursing to sleep or rocking to sleep before naps and bedtime might be working
for you now, know that sometimes it just stops working. If you’re one of the
lucky parents whose baby is sleeping well, try not to brag. It doesn’t
necessarily mean that you’re doing it right while that other mom with the
colicky, sleepless baby hasn’t figured it out.
2. Don’t buy those
cute crib bumper sets you see in stores or in catalogs: They are a SIDS risk. The sale of them is even
banned in some US states. Doctors have been lobbying against crib bumpers for
years. Some babies thrash around a lot in their sleep especially when they’re
on the verge of learning to roll, crawl, or walk.
They probably won’t seriously injure themselves by bumping their heads on a
crib rail.
While those “breathable”
mesh bumpers do a good job of keeping little hands and feet from poking out of
the crib slats. They are not recommended due to the risk of entanglement and
strangulation. Older, more mobile babies can stand on bumpers and use them
as a step when they’re trying to get out off the crib.
3. Don’t let a high-tech
baby monitor make you feel over-confident (or overly anxious): Baby monitors are super useful, but they’re no
substitute for avoiding baby sleep mistakes. If you hear your baby stirring, a
quick peek at a video monitor can tell you if it’s a full-fledged
wakeup, or just some nothing-to-see-here squirming. Some parents are taking the high-tech baby
monitor trend to the extreme, buying expensive wearable vital sign devices like Vida or Owlet, a “smart sock” that
measures an infant’s heart rate and oxygen saturation levels.
Pediatricians advise against
using these kinds of cardiorespiratory monitors as well
as the sensors that go under the baby’s mattress because they can
cause false alarms. There’s no evidence that these devices help prevent
SIDS in healthy babies. Signing up for alerts and biometric data streaming
to your smartphone is no substitute for creating a safe sleep
environment for your baby.
We’re worried people will become
complacent if they have a monitor they might feel they can put their baby on
its belly to sleep, or sleep with their baby. Always put your baby into the
crib on her back (not her side or her tummy); keep blankets and pillows
out of the crib; and stop swaddling once your baby has learned how to roll.
4. Don’t let your
newborn sleep in the car seat:
This is a arguable one because we’ve all been there: Your baby falls asleep in
the car seat while you’re driving home or running errands, and the beauty of
the bucket seat is that you can pop it out and transfer your sleeping infant
inside for the remainder of her nap. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), allowing an
infant to sleep in a bucket car seat that’s been placed on the floor is a
safety hazard, as the baby’s head can fall forward and cut off her airway.
Due to the angle of the seat
design, it’s much safer to let your newborn nap in the car seat while it’s
attached to the base, installed in the car, or clicked into a stroller using
the proper stroller/car seat adapter. Letting your baby sleep in a car seat
overnight when you’re not awake enough to check on her is a serious baby sleep
mistake. In fact, experts actually recommend limiting the time your baby spends
in a car seat, Rock ‘n Play, bouncer or swing to 30 minutes, mostly for developmental
reasons (it restricts motion) and the risk of developing positional plagiocephaly
(flattened head syndrome).
However, we’d like to acknowledge
that this 30-minute maximum is downright impossible on road trips for parents
who have long work or daycare commutes, or when the swing is truly the only
place you can get your infant to nap.
5. Don’t put off sleep
training because the baby is teething:
Your baby is always teething, or coming down with something, or suffering from
Unexplained Fussy Baby Syndrome. If you’re hoping to sleep train, it’s
important to know that it may never feel like the right time. Experts say it’s
easiest to sleep train a baby between the ages of six and 12 months, but use
your intuition. If you’re not fully committed to sleep training
before you start, you won’t stick to it.
6. Sleeping on the couch
with a newborn in your arms is dangerous:
Falling asleep on the sofa with an infant curled up on your chest is one of the
best feelings in the world. Many an exhausted new mom has nodded off for a bit
while her sleeping baby is sprawled across her lap or nestled up all warm and
cozy on a breastfeeding pillow. According to AAP, this kind of co-sleeping on a couch or armchair is a serious
baby sleep mistake. Its way more dangerous than co-sleeping in a bed due to the
risk of dropping or smothering the baby. If you’re going to nap or sleep with
your infant, opt for bed-sharing.
7. Stop room-sharing
after six months: The experts are saying
that you shouldn’t room-share beyond six months. Many parents’ bedrooms only fit a bassinet (not a
full crib), and most babies outgrow the bassinet (or start rolling or pulling
up on the sides) by month four, five or six.
Some babies will wake up in the
night more frequently if they hear or smell their parents nearby, and will
sleep more soundly in their own room. It’s also hard to teach independent
sleep, or do the cry-it-out method of sleep training, if your baby is right next to you.
If room-sharing is working for you, great. Don’t feel pressured into
it. Researchers aren’t seeing huge benefits after a baby’s older than six
months.
“People who say they sleep like a baby usually
don't have one.”
(Leo J. Burke)[i]
[i] Sources used:
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