let's talk about safe sleep

To recap Sleep Awareness Week 2022 (March 13-19), Dayton Children’s wants to remind parents that infants younger than 12 months should sleep alone on their back and in an approved safe sleep area like a crib or bassinet.   

As the injury prevention coordinator at Dayton Children’s, I often get questions about why safe sleep recommendations are so important.  The short answer is these steps are proven to prevent suffocation and strangulation during sleep.   We know introducing new safe sleep guidelines in a home is hard. Simply telling families to follow the ABCs of safe sleep is one thing. But in practice, it is a whole different story. 

Recently, I have gotten so many questions about approved safe sleep surfaces. If approved sleep surface guidelines seem like they are constantly changing, it is because they are! In the past few years, The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced millions of recalls related to sleep surfaces.  These recalls prompted the CPSC to update their standards for what qualifies as a safe sleep surface and the new standards will be enforced starting in mid-2022.   

So what does this mean for parents and caregivers with infants either on the way or already here? 

Here are a few ways you can ensure you aren’t using a recalled sleep area: 

• Nearly every inclined sleep product has already been recalled. However, these are still for sale second-hand or being passed down by friends and family. These products have been linked to deaths in infants and are not recommended for use going forward.     

• Many infant lounging pillows have been recalled or now include a warning label that they are not intended for sleep.  If you have one of these products check and see if it has been recalled and follow the instructions to use the product as intended.   

• Look up your product on the CPSC website.  Check and see what the next steps are if you have a recalled product.  

Getting a safe sleep area is just one part of ensuring your child is sleeping safely.  Once you have an approved sleep area, you’ll want to remove any “extras” so the baby is sleeping alone.  Except for a pacifier, nothing else should be in the sleep area with baby.  I know there are so many cute items for the inside of cribs.  It can be hard to resist those matching nursery items, but they simply aren’t safe.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tips on how to create a safe sleep area, click here to learn more.  

Once you have your approved safe sleep area, don't forget the proper sleeping or resting position.  You may have heard multiple ways and reasons for various sleeping positions, but according to the American Academy of Pediatrics babies who sleep on their backs are much less likely to die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.  Placing your baby to sleep on their back is the safest way for them to sleep.   

I hope this article clears up some of the most common questions we get about safe sleep.  If it doesn’t, Dayton Children’s would like to hear from you! Let us know your questions about safe sleep and other baby safety questions using this form.