Sometimes between 4 and 7 months, babies learn to roll from their tummy to their back, and their back to their tummy. You mentioned that your daughter prefers her tummy, and she's really good at rolling from her back to her tummy, but not from her tummy to her back, and you're worried about SIDS. And this is a valid concern that many parents have. It sounds like you're being diligent at paying attention to it, and you know that a baby should sleep on their back. That's the only thing that we can do as parents is put our children to sleep on their backs, and keep their sleeping area free from all extra soft fluffy things - so stuffed animals, pillows, extra blankets, bumper pads even - for the entire first year. And by doing these things, you're significantly reducing their chance of SIDS. But you can't realistically stand over their crib all night and watch them, and flip them over every time they go onto their tummy. It will get to the point where they can flip themselves over onto their tummy, and they're probably just trying to find a more comfortable position. Once this starts happening, again the only thing you can do is keep their sleeping area free from soft fluffy things, and you're doing all you can. The very fact that your child is able to turn herself over is an indicator that she's getting stronger, and would hopefully be able to find herself out of a compromising situation.

It sounds like you're doing tummy time a lot with her during the day, and that's good because that's developing her strength and other skills that are necessary as she develops. So when you do tummy time during the day, make sure that she's always supervised, that you're there with her, and use it as playtime. You can actually encourage different movement by getting toys and moving them around different parts of her body. That gets her to turn her head different ways, and that may start to get her to learn how to flip from her tummy to her back. And as a child gets older, you can use toys as incentives to get them to lurch forward, and crawl, and do other sorts of things. So this is a good opportunity for you to get down on the floor with your child and play with them. Again, always supervise tummy time. And it's good because it will help her to stay off of her head, and prevent other complications that can happen when children are sleeping on their backs, as they should. If you have more questions or concerns about it, ask your pediatrician, but if you have any other questions for me in the future, feel free to ask them on our Facebook page at Facebook.com/IntermountainMoms, and recommend us to your friends and family too.

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