The short answer is “on your back.”
However, here’s some food for thought. Very few people can control how they sleep. Some people can, but most can’t.
Sleeping on your back is the best for your back, but you shouldn’t become paranoid if you can’t do it. Video’s of patients during sleep studies have shown that people toss and turn multiple times per night. When the video is placed at high speed, it looks like someone is having a seizure.
When our first child was born I remember trying to “force” her to sleep on her back. All the fear with SIDS and stuff can scare a parent. So we would place her on her back. When she was old enough to roll, she would do what was instinctive to her and that was to sleep on her belly. One option would be for us to wake up every half hour and rotate her to her back, but that was not an option that could last for very long.
How you sleep is somewhat instinctive. That’s the lesson I learned from my kids.
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2 comments:
Here's my thoughts on back sleep and infants. I'm currently doing research on SIDS and came across your site although your post is a bit unrelated. BTW, beyond what I write below stomach sleep tends to prevent hip subluxation in infants. Stomach sleep also reduces the number of apnea episodes per night for people with sleep apnea.
Anyway, regarding what you said about back sleep and infants it seems like the Back to Sleep Campaign to prevent SIDS is primarily responsible for the increase in plagiocephaly. But, it prevents SIDS because Back Sleep does not allow an infant to get Deep Sleep (Stage 3/4 NREM sleep) which is when Babies primarily die of SIDS. Stage 3/4 NREM sleep is also when much of a babies plasticity and memory consolidation happens. Increased Tummy time won't help this because by definition tummy time is only when an infant is awake.
But, beyond plagiocephaly infants who sleep supine compared to infants who sleep in the prone position also have increased rates of:
- Social skills delays at 6 months (Dewey, Fleming, et al, 1998)
- Motor skills delays at 6 months (Dewey, Fleming, et al, 1998)
- gastroesophageal reflux (GER) (Corvaglia, 2007)
- Milestone delays (Davis, Moon, et al., 1998)
My question is: If a doctor was presented with a baby that had social skills delays, motor skills delays, and gastroesophageal reflux what would a doctor say if a child had these three things but not too bad. The doctor might tell the parent to be patient and that different kids develop differently. But, what if the case was more severe - what if the kids social skills were wors? The doctor might diagnose him with ADHD. But, what if the kids delays were really far behind - that is the kid had very large delays in social skills and motor skills? The doctor might diagnose him with Autism Spectrum Disorder. I think part (if not all) of the Autism Epidemic is caused by the SIDS Back to Sleep campaign. This is totally unrelated to plagiocephaly only that plagiocephaly could be used as a marker for how well the parents followed the SIDS Back to Sleep advice. My guess is that for every 30 boys who slept in the supine position and have plagiocephaly then 5 will be diagnosed with ADHD and 1 will be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. My guess is that for every 210 girls put to sleep in the supine position that 5 will eventually be diagnosed with ADHD and 1 will be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This is just my theory.
The point was that it's not really under our control. Some say it is, some say it isn't. I couldn't convince my one-year-old to sleep any other way than the way she wanted.
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