What should I do if my newborn baby's head is tilted when sleeping? How can I correct it if my newborn baby's head is tilted when sleeping?

My baby has been born for more than a week. I need to coax him to sleep every night. Recently, I found that his head is a little tilted when he sleeps. What should I do if my newborn's head is tilted when sleeping? How can I correct it?

What to do if the newborn's head is tilted when sleeping

The first three months of a baby's life is a critical period for shaping the baby's head. From the first day of the baby's birth, the mother should get used to changing the baby's sleeping position frequently to keep the force on both sides of the baby's head even. Do not let the baby often adopt the same sleeping position, especially during the day.

Tip: Sleeping on your baby's stomach can make the baby's head rounder and prevent the baby from choking on spilled milk. However, when sleeping on your baby's stomach, the toys, pillows, and blankets around the crib may block the baby's nose and cause suffocation. If you let your baby sleep on his stomach, don't use pillows for him, the bed should not be too soft, and don't put plush toys on the bed.

Because newborn babies do not need pillows or shaping pillows before 3 months old, because it is easy to cause the baby's neck to bend and cause breathing difficulties. At this time, mothers can put some soft cotton wool or pure cotton towels (folded into rectangular blocks) under the baby's head to relieve the pressure on the head.

Tip: Mom can also make a small pillow by herself, the height of which only needs to be 3-4cm. The pillow should not be too soft, and should be sweat-absorbent and breathable. The outside should be made of pure cotton soft cloth, and the inside can be filled with buckwheat husks, tea leaves, reed flowers, kapok, etc.

Causes of baby's head tilt when sleeping

1. The mother used external force during childbirth. During childbirth, some mothers may be forced by doctors to use vacuum suction, forceps, etc., which makes it easier for hematomas to form. After birth, babies are unwilling to sleep sideways on the hematoma, which can easily lead to head tilt.

2. The mother’s habit. If the left and right sides of the baby’s head are symmetrical after birth, and the mother is used to putting the baby to sleep in the same position, the baby is likely to develop a tilted head.

3. Nutritional and genetic diseases. This is mainly due to the mother's malnutrition during pregnancy, which leads to skull deformity or other family genetic factors that cause the baby to have a tilted head.

Correction of baby's head shape 6 months ago

When a baby is just born, the shape of the head may become long and pointed due to the squeezing of the birth canal, but the impact of this situation usually only lasts for a few days, and the child's head shape will slowly become round. If you find that the shape of the child's head becomes flat and skewed after a few months, it is mostly related to the sleeping position. This is because the skull of a newborn baby has not yet completely ossified. In the first few months after birth, if a certain part of the head bears the pressure of the entire head weight for a long time, such as lying on the back all the time, the delicate occipital bone is under pressure for a long time, and its normal curvature will gradually be flattened. As the age increases, the bones calcify and form a flat head. Generally speaking, the skull of a baby within 6 months is relatively soft and can be corrected. After more than 6 months, the head shape is basically fixed.