Deep Sleep--SIDS Fear

oh, i feel for you, that happened with my son once, i shook him and shook him, finally grabbed him up out of the cosleeper and gave him a little shake, i was completely panicked. he was fine, opened his eyes and looked at me like i was crazy, i cried and couldnt calm down for hours, it was so scary. im sure your daughter is fine, but i would check with your ped anyway. and just so you know, they do have a monitor pad that you put under the baby when they sleep, and an alarm sounds if they stop breathing for i think 15 seconds. so, might be worth it just for the peace of mind?

Whenever you are this concerned, schedule an appointment with your doctor. Tell him or her exactly what you observed, and ask for advice. It can only help to get a medical opinion!

So - good luck sleeping tonight! I probably wouldn't! Yikes - I'm so sorry for the scare.

But - call your pediatrician. Even today, I'm sure they are either open or on call. It's worth your peace of mind. Was she premature? They may want to check her out - but call to make sure. It's better to know there is nothing wrong.

Sometimes when they are in a deep sleep, they won't wake up - if she is not breathing, that's a whole other story. I can remember though standing with my hand on my dgtr's belly for minutes making sure she was breathing b/c I couldn't always feel it well. The other thing I sometimes did was put my finger under her nose or by her mouth to feel the warm air as she exhaled. But, if she stopped breathing - again call the doctor today.

By the way, my son is 2 1/2 and I STILL check to see if he's breathing. I still cannot sleep until I know he is okay. Any how, enough about me. I think at age 6-8 weeks, the newborn starts sleeping longer stretches. I don't know about how deep or light the sleep is. Did you try a pacifier? That is supposed to reduce the risk of SIDS. It prevents the baby from falling into too deep of a sleep. Also, I believe the co-sleeper also helps reduce the risk of SIDS because you are right there to check on the baby. Also remember reading that the baby hears you and is in sync with your sleep or something like that. I had my son in the cosleeper until he was too big for it!

Get the Angel Care system from babies r us. It goes under the mattress and alerts you when there is no movement for 10 seconds once it gets to 20 seconds the alarms go off. I had some false alarms with the monitor but I'd rather it accidently go off than not. Hope this helps. :o)

Stacy

There is a medical term called ALTE which used to be called Pre-SIDS (or something similar to that name) and it usually happens to infants younger than 8 weeks when they do stop breathing for short periods. I'm not saying your baby did stop breathing but wanted to give you some info in case you want to do research...
Something similar happened when my baby was 9 weeks old and I ended up getting the sleep monitor because i couldn't sleep anymore... I would check on him every hour.... I was hesitant to get it at first because I didn't want to add more anxiety but it has been great so far having it.
If you do plan on getting it... there are false alarms which the instructiosn will tell you about (if baby moves to one end of the crib etc)

I hope this helps....

R.