And keep in mind the baby isn't going to tell you "I can roll over now". No, one day he'll just do it, and surprise the hell out of you. Be _extra_ vigilant of your kids, it's not worth the risk.
I think the problem is they lose a lot of weight early on (can roll over) and then begin to fatten up quickly. The calorie intake relative to body size is immense and for a few months a baby just doesn’t have the muscle strength to support its newfound fat composition (loss of ability to roll) in addition to their heads growing rapidly early on and not having the neck muscles developed yet.
> Just make sure you stop using swaddles as soon as the kid can roll on their own.
Good to call out for safety reasons. FYI - this is when we transitioned to the Merlin Sleepsuit which prevents them from turning over but does not fully restrain their arms.
The initial warning last week said this was due to infants over 3 months who were capable of rolling and not using the harness. They also said only 10 deaths.
Consumer Reports did an investigation and discovered 32 deaths, including some where the infant was less than 3 months old and died without rolling over.
> There is, for example, the mother in Hidalgo County, Texas, who placed her 2-month old daughter on her back for a night’s sleep on Oct. 19, 2013, according to a lawsuit filed by the family against Fisher-Price. At 4 a.m., when the mother checked, all was well, but by 7 a.m., the baby had stopped breathing. Her head was tilted to the side with her chin on her shoulder, compressing her airway. She was pronounced dead at the scene from positional asphyxia, or an inability to breathe caused by her position.
> The most recent deaths CR found occurred in spring 2018—one involving a 1-month-old girl in Knoxville, Tenn., and the other a 9-day-old boy in Copperas Cove, Texas.
There's another where a 7-week-old nearly died with their grandmother in the room, but thankfully she noticed the kid turning blue and lifeless and got him breathing again in time.
+1 to some sort of "engineered swaddle" that restrains the arms effectively.
We found "traditional" swaddles to be unreliable - once the arm/arms were out then it is only a matter of time before they hit themselves in the face with their arms, but swaddles with specific features to prevent the escape of the arms to work really well.
We used one called Miracle Swaddle for both our kids. Just make sure you stop using swaddles as soon as the kid can roll on their own.
We had one child who had acid reflux which doctors suggest putting them on an incline, so we had them sleep in there a few years ago before they could roll.
Hopefully a safer equivalent comes out for future parents.
Parents were using them without the straps when the child could roll. So the child would roll over, and lay face down with high walls, likely resulting in a perfect SIDS environment.
By 6 months the incidence of SIDS is almost nil. This is what we learned with our kids, so it helped us tremendously because our son also sleeps on his belly.
As for the rollover issue, many folks co-sleep with their babies. We did it with all 3 of ours. Apparently babies really really like your breath - the CO2 helps them develop their lung motion.
The key is to not be inebriated or taking sleeping meds while doing so.
There are also co-sleeper attachments that make cribs accessible to mommy without having the baby sleep on the bed and thus not ever in danger of rollover.
The unstraightening thing is actually because of the construction of the bones. The bones bend a little, just a little, more than straight and there is a muscle that can pull on the other side. This locks legs in place when straightened, but still maintains a spring-like mechanism protecting the weak points in the bone structure (because it's not actually straight, it makes an angle).
A baby is actually too weak to hold himself up. I'm not saying that that's the only problem, but his muscles are certainly not capable of holding his body off the ground the first 2-3 months. That's why it's important to put them on their belly (but not leave them like that for more than 30 minutes or so), and ideally try to help them crawl, roll and walk, even when they can't. They'll love standing up, and hanging from the side of the cot. Plus they'll love the attention.
And don't worry about babies and young kids falling over. Their skeleton can actually absorb more force than yours can (because it isn't nearly as rigid as yours, which probably also means it's much harder to walk with). In addition to that, they weigh less, and F=ma, so they can easily survive drops that would kill or severely injure an adult.
Sids usually means inexplicable deaths for babies less than one year old.
I can remember my daughter at five months, as soon as she learned how to turn, she would start sleeping on her stomach, no matter what we did. What should a parent do, then?
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