How to prevent your baby from developing a head-turning preference

Babies often develop a head-turning preference, leading to a flat spot on their heads. This article provides simple tips like alternating sleep positions and supervised tummy time to help prevent it.

What’s In Store In Your First 30 Days with Nanit Reading How to prevent your baby from developing a head-turning preference 3 minutes Next Sleepless Nights? Discover Sleep Tracking for Babies!

Tags

Share

Babies tend to turn their heads to the same side repeatedly, which can lead to positional head flattening, also known as a head-turning preference. This means that one side of the head becomes flatter. This flattening can cause issues later on with motor skills, speech, and even hearing. By varying sleeping positions, you can prevent your baby from lying in the same position for too long and encourage healthy development.

We’re happy to share some concrete tips for a good sleeping position with you:

Back sleeping is safest: The most important tip—always place your baby on their back to sleep, at least for the first six months. This significantly reduces the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Although tummy sleeping can have benefits, such as for reflux, it’s important to only do this under the supervision of a pediatrician and when monitored.
Alternate, alternate, alternate: Change up the direction your baby sleeps. Place your baby with their head facing left one time and right the next. A simple change in environment, like rotating the crib so the light comes from a different angle, can help.
Tummy time is your best friend: When your baby is awake and supervised, regularly give them time on their tummy. This strengthens the neck and back muscles and helps prevent a head-turning preference.
Feeding: Variety is key: Whether you’re breastfeeding or bottle-feeding, try feeding your baby on both sides alternately. This helps prevent your baby from developing a head-turning preference by avoiding always feeding in the same position.

Tools like the Nanit Pro Camera can give you peace of mind

The Nanit Pro Camera is a smart baby monitor that can track your baby’s sleeping position. The camera records how your baby sleeps and provides you with sleep logs via the Nanit app if you have a Milestones Plan. This way, you can see how long your baby has been sleeping in each position. This information can be valuable to discuss with your child’s doctor or nurse at the health center.

Trust your instincts

You know your baby best. If you’re concerned about your baby’s sleeping position or development, don’t hesitate to contact your doctor or health center. They can offer advice and reassurance.

Nanit is dedicated to delivering high-quality, reliable content for our readers. Our Parent Confidently articles are crafted by experienced parenting contributors and are firmly rooted in data and research. To ensure the accuracy and relevance of the content, all articles undergo a rigorous review process by our team of parenting experts. Additionally, our wellness-related content receives further scrutiny from Nanit Lab, our think tank of scientists, engineers, physicians, academic experts, and thought leaders.

Our primary objective is to furnish readers with the most current, trustworthy, and actionable information concerning a host of parenting topics. We strive to empower our readers to make informed decisions by offering comprehensive and respected insights.

In pursuit of transparency and credibility, our articles incorporate credible third-party sources, peer-reviewed studies, and abstracts. These sources are directly linked within the text or provided at the bottom of the articles to grant readers easy access to the source material.

CONTRIBUTORS

Natalie Barnett, PhD serves as VP of Clinical Research at Nanit. Natalie initiated sleep research collaborations at Nanit and in her current role, Natalie oversees collaborations with researchers at hospitals and universities around the world who use the Nanit camera to better understand pediatric sleep and leads the internal sleep and development research programs at Nanit. Natalie holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of New England in Australia and a Postgraduate Certificate in Pediatric Sleep Science from the University of Western Australia. Natalie was an Assistant Professor in the Neurogenetics Unit at NYU School of Medicine prior to joining Nanit. Natalie is also the voice of Nanit's science-backed, personalized sleep tips delivered to users throughout their baby's first few years.

Kristy Ojala is Nanit’s Digital Content Director. She spends way too much time looking at maps and weather forecasts and pictures of Devon Rex cats and no-cook dinners. A former sleep champion, she strives to share trustworthy somnabulism tips with other parents—praying for that one fine day when no tiny humans wake her up while it’s still dark out. Her kids highly recommend 3 books, approximately 600 stuffies, Chopin’s “Nocturnes,” and the Nanit Sound + Light for bedtime success.

Mackenzie Sangster is on the Brand and Community team at Nanit. She supports content development and editing for Nanit’s Parent Confidently blog as well as other marketing initiatives. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her friends, cooking, being active, and using the Pro + Flex Duo to keep an eye on her fur-baby, Poppy!