Newborn sleep in the 4th trimester has become so complicated. Sacks versus swaddles, hats versus bare head, bassinet versus cribs and family beds. Even terms such as co-sleeping and bed-sharing become confusing. All parents are thriving for optimal safe sleep for their newborns and ultimately themselves. In order to understand newborn sleep, we need to take into consideration the 4th trimester.
The 4th trimester is the postpartum period, traditionally defined as the 12 weeks following birth. Dr. Harvey Karp coined this term in 2002, recognizing that “full-term” babies are actually born about three months early. Human evolution caused this disparity by favoring bigger brains and upright posture. Standing upright led to smaller pelvic sizes, resulting in early birth. Newborns, now, need an extra three months to adapt outside the womb, thus the fourth trimester.
Why swaddling?
Newborn sleep during the 4th trimester can be affected by the Moro or startle reflex. Evolutionary this reflex was a protective mechanism to defend newborns against prey. Now, in the comfort of homes, the startle reflex can cause unnecessary wakings. Therefore, swaddling is recommended until a newborn can start rolling over, a developmental milestone that occurs around 4 months.
Benefits of swaddling also include mimicking a womb, providing deep pressure touch, and help with colic and gas. Newborns can gravitate to their side during sleep, which is normal. Try to reserve swaddling for sleep. This way, inadvertently, you are setting up a sleep bedtime routine. Sometimes swaddles help with soothing a distressed baby due to gas or over stimulation and tiredness.
A favorite choice for swaddling fabric is muslin, soft against newborn’s delicate skin. Other blankets that can be used are large receiving blankets or swaddles that are sewn with pre-folds, velcro or zips.
Do you have to swaddle? Or the most common question I get asked is that my baby, a Houdini, always escapes the swaddles–now what?
First, you don’t have to swaddle. Another option is a sleep sack. A sleep sack is adding an extra layer to the baby without using a blanket. Nowadays, you have an option of a single swaddle, sleep sack, or even a swaddle sleepsack!
Does my baby need a hat?
Contrary to popular newborn pictures, healthy term newborns do not need a hat. Since thirty percent of heat escapes from a baby’s head, hats in healthy term newborns can cause babies to overheat. Another reason, hats tend to fall out and can increase the potential for SUID (sudden unexplained infant death). Therefore, ditch the hat. If your baby is premature, hats are helpful with temperature regulation two to three weeks after coming home.
Where should my baby sleep?
Just a basic question though steeped in controversy. Before diving into the answer, let’s define terminology around co-sleeping and bed-sharing. These two words often get intertwined regarding sleeping next to newborns.
Co-sleeping is sleeping in proximity to your newborn that includes room sharing and bed-sharing. Bed-sharing is physically sharing the same space your newborn sleeps in including a bed or a sofa. Co-sleeping is a natural human behaviour that promotes breastfeeding and infant development. American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends and supports co-sleeping upto a year. Bed-sharing can lead to an increased risk of neonatal deaths and SUID, previously known as SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).
Just recently as of January 2020, the American Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) revised their protocol around bed-sharing. Under the right circumstances (no smokers, no prematurity, no sofa, bed on floor,and breastfeeding) ABM supports bedsharing that leads to increased breastfeeding duration. This is in stark difference to AAP who still currently denounces bed-sharing. Side note: Both organizations consist of Board-Certified Pediatricians.
Therefore, what should I do as a parent?
First, always practice safe sleep methods regardless of placing the baby in a bassinet, co-sleeper, crib, or even bed sharing. Safe sleep methods included placing babies always on their back, no smoking or smoke exposure, no loose blankets, crib bumpers, toys or items in the designated sleep space, and a firm sleep surface. Next, be open with your pediatrician about your decision. As objective medical providers, we might unearth other issues such as postpartum anxiety. Lastly, even if you start bed-sharing, try to wean towards co-sleeping in separate spaces, allowing everyone a restful sleep.
Bed-sharing is only allowed if you are breastfeeding. Other parameters include no smoking, no alcohol, and your baby cannot be premature or low birth weight. If you qualify and still want to bed-share, the research based guidelines are thus: 1. Place the firm mattress on the floor and away from walls to prevent wedging of the infant. 2. The sleep order is baby and mom. Mom needs to be in a C-curved position termed “cuddle curl.” Dad can sleep elsewhere. 3. Babies should still practice safe sleep techniques such as sleep on backs, sleep sack, no blankets, soft toys or pillows around the baby or mattress. And yes if you want to practice this way, then you have to follow ALL these guidelines, absolutely no shortcuts.
Read my complete article on how I handled newborn sleep in the 4th trimester published in Scary Mommy here. Feel free to reach out with any questions!
This month as we focus on baby safety, we talked with Santiago Ongay. He offered his perspective as a dad going through the process of babyproofing the house and their life. You can listen to the interview or read it below.
Sonal Patel
Hello NayaCare Family. And welcome back. We’re continuing our series with our amazing dad, and this time we’re going to be talking about safety and the way that we thought we talked about safety would be in the fashion that we’re actually dealing with it in the different stages of our lives. So for example, you guys all know that I have four boys, the ranges from four, six to 15. So I have other safety issues I am now more concerned about.
Sonal Patel
And then Santi has a three month old and Meagan has a toddler on the loose. So let’s kind of just start in the order about baby safety and infant safety. And obviously say sleep is one thing that always comes up. So we will. If you go on our website, we’ll have a PDF that shows you exactly about infant safety and what to do with it. But the next big topic. And so we won’t draw on that as much, because since it’s everywhere is car seat safety, and I think that’s one thing that people overlook or don’t know how to do it.
Sonal Patel
When we first got our cars for first little one, I remember bundling him up in it, but we didn’t know how to adjust the straps. And so the poor boy was, like squeezed in like it was a straight jacket for him, essentially because we couldn’t figure out. And until we went to our pediatrician’s office, they’re the ones that showed us to be like, no, no, no, you just have to press that button to loosen the straps. So did you guys have anything about infant safety or car seat safety in particular?
Sonal Patel
Or one last thing when I was doing my car, we didn’t have all these options that you young parents have now. So how did you guys navigate all of that? Because that seems mind boggling to me.
Meagan D.
For me, I get kind of lucky because my stepped out is a paramedic, so I don’t have the choice but to do it correctly because I have him in the back of my head constantly telling me, even as an adult, how to properly be buckled. In several weeks before we had our daughter, we installed the course, and we actually had him come over and make sure that it was properly installed because he actually helped do installations when he it was at the fire Department. So we got kind of lucky with that.
Meagan D.
I still don’t know how to install it. My husband has since figured out how to install it properly. I am hoping nothing ever happens to him because I’m never going to know how to install the car seat.
Sonal Patel
I hear you. Santi, how about you?
Santiago (Santi)
That’s funny. Yeah, I left that to my wife. She picked out the car seat. She did her research, got some recommendations. She also was looking for something light so she could carry it. But the installation, she then left to me. And we also went to the fire Department here locally in Arvada, Colorado, and made sure that they checked it out. And my sister also has a three year old and an eight month old. So we had her check it out. We letting everybody check it out. They could check it out just to make sure we got multiple points of view.
Santiago (Santi)
So that was definitely interesting, right? That’s before the baby comes, we were already driving around with a car seat ready to go. And luckily, at the hospital, they showed us what you were mentioning, Dr. Patel, how to loosen it, because that’s something everybody checks to make sure it’s installed. But then when you actually have a baby in there, you got to figure out a few other things. So they showed us how to loosen it, how tight it should be. The pinch test above the shoulder to make sure you can’t pinch the strap so that, you know, that they’re tight enough, but not too tight.
Santiago (Santi)
So it’s definitely a more complex situation that I imagined with the car seat. I thought we just purchased it, install it, and that’s that. But even as my wife was going through the research, I learned there were so many different car seats to choose from. Figure it out. Yeah, I’m definitely comfortable with it. And I think, like Megan mentioned, I think I’m a little more comfortable than my wife at this point.
Sonal Patel
I totally agree with all your points. There the comfort. My husband took over more of the charge with the comfort, but it was like I said, you guys have so many more choices out there. And to kind of find the right one, because it’s the safety of your infant. If you’re just like, I’m bringing this child home. And also you have to make sure that you spend your money wisely that they are, they can grow with a child as well. So then for car seat safety, obviously, the law is in Colorado two years backwards.
Sonal Patel
And then most people recommend as long as your child allows it to be facing backwards, and the car seats will start supporting that. The other little quick things about safety, car seats. There is an expiration date because of the plastic. So please be mindful of that. So now that we’re going to start with the state of Sunny, what is your biggest concerns now with safety now that you have a three month old?
Santiago (Santi)
So I’ll try to go in chronological order. I love the term making use to describe how we’ll talk about it today, the generations of safety. So I’ll try to keep it in chronological order as we were. So first, obviously, the car seat right before the babies here, we have that installed and make sure it was done properly, got a few people to review it. And after that, the whooping cough, the TDAP vaccine as well as unfortunately, nowadays the COVID vaccine was a big topic for us even before the baby was here.
Santiago (Santi)
My wife’s family’s out of state, so traveling right now was also a concern. Even with the vaccines being out. Obviously there’s concern whether vaccinating people can carry the virus, whether they can, whether they can spread it, etcetera. So those two I think again, the whooping cough, which is not a normal conversation that you would have if baby aside with friends and family. So that was a new conversation to make sure people had their shot, and also the COVID vaccine and just being careful with COVID. That was before baby was here, thinking about bringing him home, thinking about friends and family wanting to meet him and visit.
Santiago (Santi)
And honestly, till this day, most of our friends have not met our baby. Only my parents and my sister, who live locally in Colorado met the baby, and then some of my wife’s family who slowly have been traveling here to meet the baby as well. But health concerns, of course, sleeping and all that. I think we’ll get into those topics a little later because they’re definitely worth discussing in detail. But those two were new to me that I didn’t really concern until much later in the pregnancy were those health concerns of the vaccines and COVID.
Sonal Patel
So as a new parent, navigating all of this, how did you address that to your friends? Because some I mean, I could just imagine having that kind of a difficult conversation for some particular friends that I have.
Yeah.
Santiago (Santi)
And I think human nature, you try to avoid those difficult conversations. So what I found myself doing is really I wouldn’t approach the conversation unless someone was adamant about meeting or visiting us or meeting the baby. So at that point I would bring up the conversation of the options are to get the that vaccine and explain what the whooping cough is and what I’ve learned of it. And also the COVID vaccine and just being careful with COVID and mask, et cetera, or waiting a few months until the baby has the opportunity to get his vaccines so that he’s covered.
Santiago (Santi)
And luckily, most of the people that were adamant about meeting the baby were also obviously open minded and either already knew that they would have to do this or we’re open to doing it. And it’s funny, one of my friends even ran out to Walgreens to get the tap vaccine and send me a picture of his Band Aid afterwards because he was excited to meet the baby. But I let people more so open up the conversation right by wanting to meet the baby. I didn’t approach people who were more so willing to wait to meet them, telling them that they have to run out and get their vaccines Megan.
Sonal Patel
You had to encounter COVID White when it was starting with your little one. How did you navigate that conversation?
Meagan D.
It was really difficult because in general tend to be very far. I’m kind of known as the germophobe of the family. I get teased quite a bit for it. So this couldn’t have been, like any closer to my worst nightmare if it tried and then being pregnant and having a new baby, it was definitely scary. It was really hard because we didn’t have a lot of family around, but the biggest person that wanted to see him was my parents, and my stepdad was expose based on his job as a paramedic.
Meagan D.
So that was definitely a concern for me. But it was also kind of a relief because I felt like at the same time, he knew the risks and he knew how to be careful, and he wouldn’t have done something to put our daughter in danger. But my parents especially had been very good about being vaccinated, wearing masks, washing hands. David made sure they had the flu shot last year. They’re really good about adhering to what we’re comfortable with. But even after those conversations, we even had some people that were exposed that didn’t let us know until after they visited, which was very frustrating.
Meagan D.
So now we just ask a lot of questions and going into COVID kind of coming back. And with this variant, we’ve had to start having the conversations because my entire family is not vaccinated. We tend to be very close. And I’ve had to have the conversation that if it gets to the point where we feel uncomfortable again, we’re going to be distancing ourselves from the unvaccinated family members for our daughter’s safety, or they can wear a mask around her just because she doesn’t have the ability to be vaccinated.
Meagan D.
I mean, we’re hoping that breastfeeding is protecting her in some format, but there’s still just not a lot to know on how protected she is, and I’m just not willing to risk it. But my husband has never gotten the flu shot up until we had the baby, and now he is a regular vaccine taker.
Sonal Patel
So Interestingly. Pertussis and the tap was reemerging. And those guidelines came out when I actually was training for pediatric residency. So for our audience, pertussis actually present in less than six months, not as whooping cough, meaning that your senior by call cough, but they actually present with lack of breathing, which is the medical from apnea. And I remember being in New Orleans being in my LSU residency and had to admit to kids both babies. One was like a four month old, one was a five month old, and we thought it was in the winter.
Sonal Patel
Obviously you go to RSV, but when it came back as pertussis and you know, my residency training was 2003 to 2000 or 2004. Sorry, I’m missing of the date, but what I’m just trying to get at was it wasn’t very long ago that we saw this. It was less than 20 years ago that we actually changed the guidelines for pertussis. And it was really interesting to see avail in front of your eyes because of all what you were seeing. So that was kind of an interesting thing to take on that in science in real time.
Sonal Patel
And I think that’s what we’re dealing with COVID, right? Science in real time and people that people are seeing it more first hand than ever now fancy. So now we have the baby stuff. And like you said, the vaccines and all of that. What’s your next concern? Because I think that’s going to lead into really nicely to what make him dealing with these days.
Santiago (Santi)
My next concern, I usually was not a concerned person, but since my wife was pregnant, I’m now all of a sudden concerned with everything. So I’m just laughing at the question. But from the top of mind, what I would review as the top concerns right now, I’m terrified of choking anything to do with choking, and I know it’s more common than I imagined. So that’s something that’s on the back of my mind. And obviously the CPR classes we took, but they were virtual this year because a COVID following that conversation.
Santiago (Santi)
So I don’t feel like and on my hands on learner. So I don’t feel like I got the hands on experience of what the CPR infant CPR course would give you. So that’s definitely always on the back of my mind. And the other one is sleeping. I think we might dive deeper into this one, but not only sleeping right right now, I think of sleeping at night the way they sleep, whether in the bassinet next to the bed. We have a pretty fancy Basnet that has a swaddle attached to it.
Santiago (Santi)
So at least it just gives me the peace of mind also that he’s not going to be rolling around or anything like that, but also napping. So sleeping and napping. We used to or mom more often than that. After he was done feeding, he would fall asleep on her chest. And then sometimes mom would be tired and would start dozing off. And we know that Child Safety 101 don’t fall asleep while holding your baby. But we also read a little bit about that specific position of them sleeping on your chest and how if they turn their face towards you, their nose doesn’t really have the bone or cartilage to stop them from completely blocking their airway.
Santiago (Santi)
So that’s another super scary fact that I guess. Dr Patel, maybe you could speak to more. But going back to ignorance is bliss, right? As soon as I learned that now terrified every time the baby’s napping or when mom’s tired. Usually since I work from home, I have the ability to just kind of Hover when I can and make sure they’re not boat sleeping. And if mom’s tired, just take them and put them in his best in heat, or maybe hold them for a little bit if I can.
Santiago (Santi)
So those two sleeping napping and choking out the top concerns right now, on top of mine.
Sonal Patel
Again, how did you deal with the choking? And then we’ll dive into sleep.
Meagan D.
So again, I got really lucky. I have taken CPR several times. I started taking CPR when I was younger because I used to baby sit a ton. I also worked with adults with developmental disabilities, so I had trained for that as well. Then I did kind of like a refresher thing with my stepdad. I didn’t do formal training, but just kind of a refresher on what you do. But I’m kind of with you, Sante, where I still had to practical, but I feel like in the moment I would kind of panic and I question myself and I wouldn’t know what to do.
Meagan D.
So I do worry about choking. But surprisingly, my husband actually worries about it far more than I do. And it could be because I’m home all the time with her. So I see how she eats food and the things she does, and I see like, oh, it’ll be fine. She’ll work this out where he sees crap, she might choke. So for me, I don’t worry about it as much. I mean, it is there. I obviously watched for smaller things on the floor, things like that. When we started food, it was a little bit of concern.
Meagan D.
But I also kind of learned to trust her a little bit. I realized that when something was too big, she also realized that, hey, this is not going to work. I can’t swallow this and she’d actually pull that out of her mouth or try to get it out of her mouth. So I realized that some of that she could work out on her own a little bit, and it taught me to be a little less paranoid on that came to choking.
Santiago (Santi)
I’ll add a little bit to that paranoia in the first few weeks, any little noise that he would make, especially at night, he could make really, what would be a cute noise? But any little noise, I would jump up in bed and ask my wife if he was choking. I don’t know why I had that phobia so bad. And now little by little, like Megan mentions. Right. You get to know their noises and kind of just how they are when they’re eating or when they’re sneezing or sleeping.
Santiago (Santi)
So now much more calm and compost when it comes to any little noise. I haven’t got to the milestone of eating solid food yet or crawling around. Right. So what Megan was mentioning about making sure there’s nothing small on the floor that they could get to or eating solid foods. I’ll have to come back and let you guys know how my paranoia is doing at that point.
Definitely.
Sonal Patel
Yeah, I agree. I mean, it’s like it’s more watching and allowing your kids to explore. And you offer the best abilities that you can, but really starting to get to know them. And do remember, coughing is a reflex that they’re protecting themselves. So parents usually get really scared when their babies are coughing and the mistaken that is choking. But actually the mechanism of coughing is protecting your airway, so that’s actually a good thing. And then you can adjust your or just whatever they’re doing. And Fancy, I have to save this.
Sonal Patel
Also, when your little one grows up a little bit more, I mean, they can choke on a tether sometimes it feels like so they have it in their mouth. And all of a sudden, because of all that, the build up and they start just coughing on that. And again, like Reiterating, a lot of parents confused coughing as choke game. The coughing is literally it’s a defense mechanism for the body. So that’s a good thing.
Santiago (Santi)
I’m nervously smiling with us.
Sonal Patel
No, it is a voyage. It is. Hopefully in the fall, we actually started a series for introduction of baby food and developmentally and all of that good jazz. And just to have parents understand the knowledge about developmentally, we introduce food and that’s your biggest source of if they’re going to be choking or not. And that’s usually around six months. So you have a couple of months left to go. You know, being cautious is with everything. The minute you become a parent, the light bulb switches in your head, your mindset just switch.
Sonal Patel
And you just want to make sure that everything around this little one is the best to its abilities and the safest visibility so your little one can grow and thrive. So your concerns, I think, are not. They resonate through all parents and particularly new parents. And I’m sitting here fortunate to have four. But I will tell you, every single time experience does create more comfort in some regions, some ways, and in some ways you get too comfortable with certain things. But you do learn. You do learn.
Yeah.
Sonal Patel
Let’s dive into sleep, guys. So Fancy, you started with the sleep. Megan, do you want to add? So Megan and I have to be totally open. We’ve had a lot of conversations on sleep, and there’s two aspects of sleep. One is a sleep training, and then one is a sleep environment. And Megan knows my stance on this. You cannot sleep. Train a baby. You can sleep. Q A baby. What’s the difference is that when you’re training something you want it to do and respond to the same ques the same time every single time they have to do it this particular way, you can definitely train like to train your dog to go outside and pee and do it.
Sonal Patel
And training can lead into good habits and behaviors. But unfortunately, what happens in the first year is babies change a lot. So what you want them to do is you want to create an environment where they’re starting to recognize that this is the same place, basically sleep every single time. But you know what? When they’re six months old on the weather’s night and you want to go out, it’s okay once in a while to be like, I want to go out with my baby and I might want to skip my nap for that day and then have a bigger nap in the evening or however.
Sonal Patel
But the training, when people train their babies, they become so just too much into the schedule. I feel that it doesn’t allow them to have a little bit of maneuvering. So that’s my one stand one sleep training. I really prefer sleep queuing. And what that means is again, same environment, same thing. I think I’ve told you both guys, eat, play. Sleep is what I kind of go along with is babies. Each babies play for a little bit and then they sleep. And as your babies get older, you see that pattern occurring and occurring, and that’s what the pattern is.
Sonal Patel
The other thing is that when babies are crying at night or send you, like, for your age three month old baby, they’re crying for a reason. That’s their way of communicating. So go address that reason. And then you start creating bondings of comfort, bondings of nurturing, bondings of security because I’m seeing the end of it or my 15 year old, I wanted to reach me. I mean, he’s going to be in three years, he’s going to be in College, but I wanted him to have the security to be like, I don’t care.
Sonal Patel
It’s two in the morning. I’m going to call my mom because I need my mom. And I think sleep queuing is just a better way to go about when you have a three month old to a toddler age, because that’s just establishing more security and bonding with your babies. And not to say sleep is not important to sleep, it definitely is important, and there’s definite transitions part of it, even at this stage. My youngest is 6 miles old, is is 15. We have quiet time in the afternoons where we go into the rooms, everybody gets a book and they quit their bodies.
Sonal Patel
So that was initially when they were mapping, but now it’s turned into quiet time and then the sleep safety. So let’s break that up. Do you guys have any comments about the sleep environment and the training and the queuing?
Santiago (Santi)
Well, I have three months of perspective, so not as much as a few doctor could help, but I definitely resonates what you’re saying with the Cubers training. I think there’s definitely a balance, because if you’re so strict with just one right way, then maybe if you have to go out of town on a family vacation or whatever, you’re just outside of the normal environment, then it might impact the baby negatively because it’s just so used to that one specific way. We started being a little too much, I would say, with the apps and tracking the feeding and the sleeping and napping.
Santiago (Santi)
And then you gave us a different perspective, which you just shared right now. And since then, I think that as parents were a lot more laid back, we still have a routine not as strict of a schedule as you said. Right. If we have to do something during his nap time, he doesn’t necessarily have to nap in the bassinet at home. Sometimes nap more so, like in the car and things like that. So we are trying to find our balance and our routine without being too strict and also allowing us as parents to not be so under such a strict schedule and still allow us to kind of live our life, but definitely with a new routine now with a baby.
Santiago (Santi)
So I would say what I took away is just that balance. I think that being too strict might be a little too much, but definitely a good routine is healthy. So when it comes to that, we’re trying to find that balance. And like Megan said before, right. Just when you think you figured out the balance and their schedule or their routine changes a little bit, which is also nice to have that adaptability instead of being too strict with what we’re doing. So.
Meagan D.
For me, I have struggled every step of the way with sleep. When she was first little, I never understood the EA play sleep. I could never get it in that order, no matter how much I tried. My daughter seems to be a unicorn of that situation, and she just does her own thing and she beats to her own drum. Even when she was little, her wake windows were more like three 4 hours versus one to 2 hours, like she just always seemed to do stuff differently. We did at one point, as Dr tell us very well, try to hire a sleep trainer who I promptly fired the night that I was supposed to start, because even though we had discussed at great length what me and my husband wanted for our daughter, this person slowly came in and started trying to change how we were going to do it in a way that I wasn’t comfortable with, such as taking my daughter’s past supplier.
Meagan D.
I felt like at that point she had been used to sleeping in our room. So I felt like trying to take all those things at once was way too much, and I needed to do it in a way that I also felt comfortable doing it so I could reinforce it with her. I did take some things from the experience we do let her sleep in her own crib in her own bedroom. Now I do try to keep bedtime at the same time every night and that time at the same night, the same time every day within about a half hour of reason.
Meagan D.
We have noticed if we don’t stick to those times, we either don’t get naps at all or bedtime. It’s really hard to get her down. So we do stick to that. We do leading up to that do kind of a routine, especially at night. She gets to watch a little bit of she loves the Muppets. So we let her watch the Muppets, and then we do teeth brushing and story time and snuggling and bedtime. So we do keep a bit of a routine. But for us, that just works for her and her busy little mind.
Meagan D.
But with safety, we do the crib. And right now she’s 16 months. So we have just started to introduce a blanket in the crib. And that’s more at nap time when I can really watch her on the monitor with the blanket and make sure that everything is safe in the past, that we don’t use any kind of bumpers or anything like that. The only bumper we did use at one point was a mesh one. So it was breathable, mainly because she can literally turn a 360 and has.
Meagan D.
And she was really little in her bed, so she was getting her legs and arms stuck in between the railing of the crib. And for me, I was paranoid that she’d break her arm or something, getting it stuck in there. But we pretty much adhere to the safety rules. The only other thing that’s inter cribs, it’s a harder kind of stuffed animals that live up and it sings doesn’t really present a lot of suffocation risk past that, though. We adhere a lot to the safety rules when it comes to the car.
Meagan D.
I’m still very paranoid of something happening with her, but we’re doing pretty good so far. But like I said earlier, every time you think that you get used to it and I think you’ve got something in place, they change. I had her sleep trained, and as I would say, I guess at this point for the last four and a half months and now just recently, the last few days, she’s not wanting to go down. She’s struggling to take a nap. And it could be other things with teeth and everything else, those tend to mess with the sleep times, but it does change.
Meagan D.
I think it’s being flexible to work with it.
Sonal Patel
I think that’s one thing that you mentioned that you are particularly a little better than I did was structure versus being so like, I mean, I know parents who would be like, oh, my God, it’s 10:00. We need to go home right now, you know, or we need to do this right this second, because otherwise it’s going to mess up everything. And I just honestly, from looking in that way, it just didn’t seem healthy to be like, if you’re so ridges on that aspect of it that you cannot just enjoy one evening, then how are your kids going to adjust when things are thrown at them.
Sonal Patel
But I like the term structure a little better because it’s still not training because you’re not setting a particular time. You’re not being like, okay, we have to do ten steps first before we can actually have this bedtime routine and go to bed, because sometimes life happens and those things can be messed up. So you really do want to teach your kids, even with the sleep, part of it is to be able to adjust two things that happen to you, but hopefully in most normal circumstances have a good structure for it.
Sonal Patel
Making your little one reminds me of my oldest one. He never like, I remember he was nine months old, and I read in a book that he was supposed to get two naps still. And I literally had him in his crib and close the door, and he was crying his head off. And my husband looked at me and he goes, what are you doing to him? Like, Why? I was like, no, no, no. A book told me a book told me that I had to do this, and that was literally the last of that.
Sonal Patel
My husband was like, no, we’re not doing this. And he’s like, we’re gonna make sure that he gets appropriate sleep if we need to listen to our child as well. He’s telling us he doesn’t want to do this, and those points in time are just changed. So, like, your toddler is going through right now. Is she’s growing? She’s changing, and there might be something else that needs for her. So with every sleep change, I know I did this, too, is whenever they went down to one or one map or even if they dropped, they’re not completely.
Sonal Patel
Every third or fourth day, I ensure that they had a nap because then it would catch up to their body until they were over that transition. And, you know, when you start listening to your baby’s cues, I.
Santiago (Santi)
Personally really appreciate you guys sharing those perspectives, because obviously you are 15 years or a few months ahead of me. So it was great to hear your guys. We’ve been very lucky with our baby, so he has been, you know, as soon as I think he was two months, he was sleeping six, 7 hours through the night. And as a newborn, he was sleeping fairly often. So we felt like we got really lucky. And I’m looking into the future as to how things might change there. So thank you for sharing the perspective.
Santiago (Santi)
And I’m now more prepared from this conversation to what comes next with a sleep journey.
Meagan D.
It’s a difficult one.
Sonal Patel
Or it could be totally easy. That’s the thing with kids. They’re so different. My second one, he loves to sleep, and you still love if my teenager will wake up at, let’s say, 08:00 738 every single morning, he goes to bed at ten, and my eleven year old will literally can sleep till 11:00 at night. Do goes to bed 11:00 in the day, though. He goes to bed bed at 08:00. So again, I think what we’re all kind of saying in a different way is there are some guidelines.
Sonal Patel
There are some safety rules that we all follow. The safety about when to introduce things into the crib when obviously and you mentioned not to fall asleep with your babies and stuff, but all of the safety rules are there. And those are guidelines. At the end of the day, the relationship comes between you and your child, and you have to figure out how you need to make sure that they’re following the stuff that you’re putting as guidelines and also how to parent them appropriately. And then another thing you’ll see plenty.
Sonal Patel
I had plenty of pictures where my little one fell asleep on my husband, but he was being supervised. I was awake sitting next to both of them while this is happening and while they were doing their bond. So it’s okay to once in a while color your baby, but make sure that they are supervised that way. Someone supervising that that interaction.
Santiago (Santi)
That is a great point. Yes, we do. I do let them cuddle when I’m able to supervise, and those guidelines are priceless. Dr Baton also Echo something that I really took away when you mentioned nap time. Going to quiet time. I think that’s awesome. And I’m definitely going to try to do that when Santis older. I think especially nowadays with how quickly life moves and how we’re just stimulated having a little bit of quiet time. Some people might call it meditation reading, whatever you do. I think it’s definitely important just to let the the mind and the body relax, even if you’re not fully napping.
Santiago (Santi)
So I might try to do that myself.
Sonal Patel
I literally say my kids taught me how to take naps and they will vouch for it. I can take a ten to 15 minutes nap every afternoon, and my oldest is like, how do you do that? You guys trained me away around toddler age. Megan, what are you dealing with? Safety issues out of toddler age?
Meagan D.
Well, the biggest thing is that my daughter we always say that she’s kind of like a dog. There’s a movie where they say that dogs get to know each other by sniffing each other’s butts. And we feel like my daughter gets to know everything by putting it in her mouth like it’s how she figure out what it is. And everything literally goes into my daughter’s mouth at some point or another. So making sure everything is clean. As I mentioned earlier, I’m a bit of a German folk, so I am definitely the mom that is constantly cleaning toys, constantly making sure that things are picked up within reason.
Meagan D.
I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t want it in her mouth. It doesn’t come even remotely close to her level. I have gone as far as to kind of keep her in a zone. So we have gates by our living room over our stairs. My bedroom is closed off almost all the time. The only time she’s ever allowed in our bedroom is if we are in our bedroom. Her bedroom for a while. We had an issue with how things were plugged in. My daughter loves to pull cords out of the wall, is pretty obsessed with cords, really.
Meagan D.
So we actually had to block her off her room for a while until we could find a better solution for her chords. Now, I mean, everything safety wise. My daughter is the challenger. She likes to definitely test her boundaries. We got the plastic stuff that it’s like tubing type stuff that sticks on the edges of corners that’s supposed to protect them. The first thing my daughter did when she could reach for it was pull it off and chew on it. So that did not work very long.
Meagan D.
Needless to say, outlet covers. We had to get heavy duty ones because the plastic one. She also figured out how to pull them out, and she just would love to try to sit there and put them back. And she loves trying to figure that kind of stuff out. So we had to get heavy duty ones that actually have, like, a little plastic key that helps you remove them because they stick in so well. Like I said, it’s a lot of keeping doors, locks on cabinets, gates up, and nothing within realm.
Meagan D.
And now she’s starting to climb. So we were comfortable with her going into the kitchen because when we were in there, we let her walk in there because she likes to play with the room. But now we cannot do that, because even with cabinet slope and the things put away, she has started cling onto our dining room table and onto our chairs, and she’ll push the chair to wherever she wants to crawl up. That so she’s very crafty when she wants to be. And when she wants to get something right now, it’s just everything.
Meagan D.
Everything safety. I’ve got to constantly be watching her, and she learns something new every day. And I had to get into something new every day. So it’s definitely a little bit of everything.
Sonal Patel
And are you looking forward to that?
Santiago (Santi)
That’s so interesting. I’m smiling now, making his expense. But just looking forward to that, I was thinking, Megan has a little electrical engineer on her hands without interested. She is the record on outlets. But yeah, I’m thinking, oh, man, I got the plastic outlet covers and all the other things that I purchased that he’ll probably figure out. But as with everything else, I think everybody has their own journey. And I’ll have to come back and let you guys know how much my little guy figures out with all the safety protocols.
Meagan D.
Mind you, most of the safety stuff that I got was recommended to me by several other moms. I think for some, it works. My daughter just she’s very honor, like her dad. So she likes to try to test her limits and figure out what she can get away with. So I think that’s a big part of it.
Santiago (Santi)
Well, at least I know who to call. We have to move on to the heavy duty stuff.
Meagan D.
I’ll be here.
Sonal Patel
Man. It seems like the more the more germophobe you are and the more safety rules you follow, the for your daughter tries to break home. Yeah.
Meagan D.
I’ve let us on the germophobic hard a little bit with her. She’s taught me to be a little more. She taught me very much about being more relaxed, about things. It’s funny, because when she first would drop stuff on the floor, I would clean it. I’d sanitize it now. I’m a lot like, it might be okay. I mean, she’ll find, like, a cookie or, like, a cracker that she had on the floor. She has a little ball pen, and sometimes, like, food ends up in there, and she’ll come out with it.
Meagan D.
And I’m like, you might have had that, like, yesterday, but. Okay. I guess it’s still food. I’ve learned to just kind of pick my battles with her. Like, I can’t freak out about everything, because otherwise, I mean, my day will be intense. Like, she loves to go through our cabinet. So I gave her, like, a cabinet that she can go through and she could play. And so there’s a little compromises there, too.
Sonal Patel
I mean, luckily, the house that we moved into the mom had covered all the outlets. And so now we’re trying to uncover some of them because now we actually use them. Our kids are a little bit older, but it’s so funny that in the weirdest places, you will find an outlet cover. That’s awesome. The other thing don’t forget, is for tubs, make sure that you’re always monitoring your babies when you’re giving back, particularly. And then also, when the summer comes, people really forget that the toddler walking age, the number one area where receive drowning is in pales and buckets.
Sonal Patel
Usually in the summer, even a little Kitty pool is dangerous for that age of kids. Just because, first of all, with the buckets. Yes. If you ever seen a Home Depot buckets, they just kind of fall in. And that has actually happened. Make sure all the chemicals and the cabinets are closed. Kind of reminded myself where the buckets usually are captive, where all the cleaning supplies are capped. And then obviously, when they get a little older, pool safety is very important. But I think people don’t recognize the fact that toddlers actually drown in smaller bodies of water up to, I mean, as little as two to three inches of water.
Sonal Patel
And we are more aware of them when they are in a pool or a larger body of water. But kind of forget about that one. And however soon you can get them into swimming lessons. That’s one place that I would spend my time and energy and money doing is swimming lessons, actually. So that’s one of my takeaways. But now to my generation, to my generational, kids and safety. And I think, Sandy, we have kind of bridge the subject last time. And you’re just like, oh, I didn’t even think of this.
Sonal Patel
So we have a rule in our house that we don’t do sleepovers until kids are between nine and ten. So we don’t do sleepovers. And below that. And it also kind of depends what when and co. So that’s the other thing, too. It’s like we need to to know this family really well. They can’t just be a random like, I just met this person and a tech window, and I want to go to sleep. But we’ve got to have known the family for a while, definitely through school and everything like that help.
Sonal Patel
And one of the questions we ask is about gun safety. And I just remember walking that line like, oh, my God, I’ve got to ask about gun safety and just like you. And I don’t like confrontation. I don’t like telling I don’t like to hear or I don’t want to hear something I don’t want to hear either, because that leads to a different line. But luckily, most of the people that we interacted with initially when the kids were a little bit younger, they did not have guns.
Sonal Patel
And we did come and ask them. And a lot of parents were very open to the question and very understanding. So that actually was really helpful, because then you knew they were on the same values as you. And then now as they’ve gone older, we do have some friends who have done they had BB guns. But, you know, I know the safeties for that and hand guns and stuff, but I’m very comfortable saying, okay, that’s great. My son’s coming over for even a simple play date.
Sonal Patel
My oldest eleven year old just went for a play date where they actually have done. And he shot a couple of begun on the farm and everything. And I was fully aware of that. And I was like, okay, but it was that asking those questions and guns are such a trigger point in our society that when I was asking it, initially, I was very reluctant. But then I realized, well, if something happened to my child and I didn’t ask this question, I would never forgive myself.
Sonal Patel
And more and more, just keep asking it. I mean, you ask it on. I remember I know. I remember coming to both of you guys when I did you guys home is is I asked you right away. One of my questions is like, okay, do you guys own any guns? Where are they kept? And I’ve learned over time to have more of that as a natural conversation rather than it’s a triggering conversation, because the way I approach it now, it’s like I’m just going to ask and I get comfortable asking it.
Santiago (Santi)
I just want to say thank you for sharing all those perspectives. Obviously, they’re not something I’ve experienced firsthand before. Not only sharing that, but also I think after every subject that we’ve touched on, you’ve added great facts there regarding car seat safety, vaccines, sleeping safety. So just thank you for sharing that perspective. It’s eye opening to here. Here what’s coming next and what tough conversations to get used to because it’s a lot easier when you have time to at least mentally prepare about having these conversations, both with friends, family as well as with your kids directly.
Santiago (Santi)
Just thank you. Thank you for sharing that and opening up that perspective for me.
Sonal Patel
You’re welcome. I think there is one thing I read very long ago, and we can kind of end on this and making asswords. Also, I’ll tell you, I read somewhere when I was having my first to about 16 years ago that it’s actually the kids aren’t afraid to receive information. It’s a parent are hesitant to give information because they’re not comfortable talking about it. So I remember when my baby was one month old, I told him smoking is bad, smoking is bad. Do not smoke, do not do alcohol.
Sonal Patel
I kept just repeating it off and on. I would do that through the childhood because I got comfortable saying it. And back forward, when he was 9910 years old and were on the car and he saw some guy on the side of the street, he was in a wheelchair and he was smoking, and he turned to his brothers and he said, that’s what happens when you smoke. I I did my job, so I still remember two or three months, smoking is bad smoking. No, because you’ve got comfortable talk about those conversations.
Sonal Patel
More conversation wouldn’t even talk about with sex, education and the safety that goes around that. But I think that’s a whole another hour discuss. But there’s a lot of stuff that comes on when you start diving into and when they start getting older. And I really want the last piece of advice is get comfortable having the conversations on your end because it’s not the kids don’t want to receive information. It’s how you present it to them. That’s going to really help.
Santiago (Santi)
It’s a great point.
Meagan D.
I completely agree. I think it’s being comfortable to have those conversations and being open. My parents were always pretty open with me about things, and I think in turn, I felt for the most part, comfortable being more open about things with my parents and most of my friends did growing up. But when it comes to the safety, I think we just have to lead with what we think is comfortable for us. As you said, like those gun conversations, you know, vaccine conversations, all of it has to be what we feel comfortable with for keeping our kids safe.
Meagan D.
As I said before, it ultimately comes down to us to keep our kids safe, and we can’t leave that responsibility to anybody else. And when they’re so young, especially, they don’t have the choice to make those decisions.
Sonal Patel
Well, thank you guys so much. Once again, this was amazing. Anything I’ve missed, I think that pretty well covers it again. Thank you. Thank you so much for bringing the DoD perspective. Like, just enjoy it so much. And I think it’s so valuable for people to hear what dads are going through as well. So it’s totally indebted to and appreciate everything that you have put the time and effort to do for us to.
Santiago (Santi)
Yes, the right back at you guys. Thank you guys so much for giving us a platform and for inviting me to be here. I think that there’s definitely a lot of dad that would like to speak up, but they’re just never given the opportunity our platform to do so. So right back at you guys. Thank you for everything you’re doing and for allowing me to be a part of it.
Sonal Patel
On that note, thank you, everyone. And we will end the conversation on safety. Thank you.
Do you have any tips or things you’ve learned about baby safety on your parenting journey? Share them with us in the comments!
When I announced I was pregnant I was inundated with everyone’s helpful and not so helpful advice. The seasoned parents shared there stories, tips, and what I thought to be anecdotal advice. No one ever expressed how much time I would spend not only worrying about my daughter’s safety, but implementing it as well. The worrying started when I was pregnant and has been a continuous part of motherhood. I was about to experience the mischievously inquisitive mind of a toddler on the loose.
For the longest time it seemed as though my daughter was not going to start crawling. She was very content to sit and sometimes roll around on her blanket on the floor. Myself and my husband had gotten comfortable with her inability to go anywhere. We had prepared ourselves early for baby proofing by purchasing item we would need . Some part of us was still holding on to the last bit of our home that we had left, before being regulated with locks and gates that would become our new normal. It took a matter of a few days for her to go from rocking on her knees to zooming around the house on all fours. For my daughter this meant doing it at high speed to because she does not seem to know how to do anything gradually. A short two months later she was walking and by the time she was one she could run.
Babyproofing: What did not work.
Soon enough our daughter started crawling. We knew we had to protect her from sharp edges on furniture and even corners. I spent quite a bit of time spent researching all different types of products. We came across a sticky protective edging that can cover the long edges of furniture. This product did not work for us. Even though it was strong enough to rip the finish of my entertainment center, it proved no match for my 8-month-old and her need to not only take things apart, but chew on them as well. She, yet, found it very useful to chew on. We ended up lining the base of the entertainment center with pillows to prevent her from hurting herself.
The next item that did not work were the cheap translucent outlet covers. They were too easy for my daughter to pull out of the wall and try to put back it the wall. They were more dangerous than safe in our case. Instead, we used some higher quality covers that we got in a baby proofing kit. They only require a little plastic key or significant amount of effort to be removed. The last item that did not work for us was the little foam pieces shaped like a “C” that are meant to be placed on the inner part of your door frame to prevent the door from smashing your littles fingers. These did not work for two reasons: 1.) you must take them on and off when you want to shut the door 2.) taking them off tends to lead to forgetting to put them back on which means they turned into toys for my daughter. She still has one of these foam pieces in her toy bin that she plays with, so at least one of us got something out of it.
Babyproofing: The things that worked.
As soon as our not so graceful daughter started crawling around, we knew we had to protect her from the corners of the wall. The pillow trick mentioned above might have worked but I would not have had enough pillows. So, upon some more research I found some great pre-cut wall corner protectors. These have been great because they are thick to cushion a blow if she falls into them, and are strong enough to defeat my little mischievous girl who likes to disassemble and chew on things.
My absolute favorite product I found was the outlet cover with attached power strip. From the minute my daughter could start grabbing for them, she was OBSESSED with cords. With that obsession came unplugging said cords and trying to plug them in. We tried to hide the chords and the outlets they plugged into but we were not always able to. There was a particular outlet in her room where this was an issue. We found ourselves locking her out of her room except to sleep because she would always try to play with these cords. This outlet cover was our saving grace. It plugs in like a flat panel and comes with adhesive to adhere it to wall. It also has varying sized extension cord lengths. With the extension cord it was long enough that I was able to hide the cords behind a dresser. My daughter is no longer able to continue her potentially shocking behavior.
Life Babyproofed
Everyone knows your life is supposed to change when you have a child. I did not want the appearance of the home I had before having a child to be completely altered though. When choosing some of these products I selected them not only for there safety, but how they looked esthetically. There are so many options out there now to choose safety items that are not as loud and go with your home.
The next thing I took into consideration was ease of use and practicality. I did not want to struggle to bypass these safety features more than my daughter. When it came to practicality, I had to decide if some of the safety products were to over the top. I decided that I would have to teach my daughter safe ways to engage with some things. For example, we chose not to lock the toilet. We started trying elimination communication at 9 1/2 mos. so early on she was used to the potty. Additionally, I did not want to be fumbling with a lock on the toilet in the middle of the night. We use the rule that the bathroom door stays shut unless we are there to supervise.
It has been an adjustment and a learning curve to have all these products in my home. It has been 100% worth it though to keep my daughter safe. I have even found myself getting used to them just as quick as it took my daughter to become mobile and now they are our new normal.
