Good Baby TipsTips for keeping your baby happy and healthy

A majority of babies seem, from the beginning, to be a little more comfortable sleeping on their stomachs. This is particularly true of the baby who develops colic; the pressure on the abdomen seems to partly relieve the wind pains. Others either don’t care at first or prefer sleeping on their backs.

There are two disadvantages to a baby sleeping on their back. If he vomits he is more likely to choke on the vomitus, also he tends to keep his head turned towards the same side which is usually towards the center of the room. This may flatten that side of his head. It won’t hurt his brain and the head will gradually straighten out, but it may take a couple of years. If you start early you may be able to get him used to turning his head to both sides. To do so you can rotate him every time you put your baby to bed by putting his head where his feet were the time before. Then if there is one part of the room that he likes to look at, he will turn his direction half the time. Within a few weeks a baby usually develops such a strong preference for his usual position, stomach or back that it becomes very difficult to change his sleeping habits.

I think it’s preferable to accustom a baby to sleeping on his stomach from the start if he is willing. He may change later when he learns to turn over. The one objection that is raised in sleeping on the stomach by some orthopedic (bone) specialists is that if the baby has a tendency to turn his feet in or out too much, this maybe accentuated by his lying on his stomach. Others reply that even if this is true in the in-turning or out turning will be outgrown in any case after the child has been walking for a while.

Some physicians recommend that to avoid the disadvantages of back or stomach sleeping, a baby should be taught to sleep on his side with the aid of firm pillows. In my experience this is very difficult to accomplish; the baby always slides away from the pillow and ends up on his back or stomach. By six months however, some babies begin to sleep on their sides by preference.