Tummy sleeping

At 3am this morning, him indoors and I were awoken by a piercing 'beep, beep, beep!" once I realised it wasn't the smoke alarm in Dilys' shop (Fireman Sam is never far from my thoughts), we stumbled over each other and said:

"OHMYGOD!!! Tilly's alarm!!"

We both ran into her room, first stepping on the obligatory squeeky toy (me) and the hard plastic one (him)then frantically sshhing each other lest we wake Eliza, the human foghorn.

He turned on the light, ran to the cot, I followed and there was our sleepy little baby, one eye open and looking oddly at her bewildered, panic stricken parents, as if to say " I'm asleep, turn off the light and go away.  Please" (always polite my children).

So we did, relieved and cursing the the "Angel Care monitor".

The reason we have this is because as a little baby Tilly much preferred tummy sleeping.  At the risk of being lambasted as irresponsible parents, we took the decision to let her do this once she could control her neck, since she slept peacefully, happily and without the colic that had plagued her early weeks.  I also did masses of research on this subject and felt that I had a balanced view and was able to make an informed decision.  

On discussing this with other mum friends and a couple of midwives I found that more people that you might think do this. ( Of course I was put down on my tummy too, because we were back then, but that doesn't make it right, it's just a point of reference). At any rate it was the decision we took for our family, having looked at the information available. 

We bought the Angel Care monitor because of the sensor pad that you place underneath the mattress.  If it can't sense movement (or breathing)  it goes off.  Which is what happened last night.  The first time ever. 

But is has a sensitivity dial on it, and if one or other of the cheeky people who play in Tilly's cot in the mornings has fiddled with this then the sensitivity is super high and will go off if a car pulls into the drive 2 miles away.

Now that she can sleep in whatver position she wants (she's 14 months) we don't really need it.  But it's hard to let go of the idea of her as a little, helpless baby quietly snoozing on her tummy, so I expect we'll probably keep it for a while yet.

PS:  this isn't a sponsored post by the way, just felt it might be helpful to anyone else who is going through the dilemma of tummy sleeping.