When does the fear go away?

I'm referring to the fear of something happening to my daughter while she sleeps. SIDS. Ugh, the thought rips my heart open and makes it hard to breathe. I understand, now that I have a daughter, my life will be have plenty of added worries about her safety. Right now, I'm still really afraid of something happening to her at night.

She's almost 6 months, and I feel like I should be less worried about SIDS. I'm not. I honestly feel like I was getting better about it, and then last night happened. After last night, I'd say now I'm MORE worried.

Rosemary has been rolling from stomach to back since about two months and it felt like forever before she’d go the other way. She tried so hard and finally, last week, she was able to do it! I was very excited for her as we've been working on it for a while now.

Well, not so much anymore.

Last night I was going to bed and I always check on her first as that’s my routine. So around 1:45AM (I'm a night owl), I go into her room.

She's not moving, face down completely! Head not even to the side a little! I FREAKED. I frantically started jiggling her body and nothing happened for what was realistically only 30-45 seconds. Those were the longest seconds of my life!

For those seconds I swear I didn’t breathe and I felt like I was going to puke or pass out. I’ve been nervous before about her sleeping and SIDS, but never like this.

I was practically in tears, and of course being suddenly woken up, she was too. She cried some and I'm sure I could've let her fall back asleep in her room, but I went ahead and woke her up all the way after that. I'm thinking most of us would have done the same. Right?

I went ahead and changed and fed her (and got in some snuggles of course) before putting her back to sleep in my room. To be fair, she often does this (sleeping the second half of the night in my room.) I know, I know, she's 6 months; I should put away the pack n play. I conveniently keep it out in my room for when I need her close, I mean, she needs me close. There was also just no way that I was going to sleep with Rosemary anywhere but in my room last night!

All I could think about was how I’d been out in the living room while she could’ve been dead. This thought makes me feel sick. I had the monitor right next to me and she still wasn’t safe. I never even noticed if she needed me! Now, how am I supposed to get past that? The fact that any night now she could just roll over, get stuck, and not be able to breathe scares the you know what out of me. Especially since I’m right there! What’s a Mom to do? How can I make her safer than she already is?

I know that statistically the likeliest time something like that would happen is 4-6 months (which is pretty much in the past), but that isn’t making me feel any better right now. I don’t have bumpers on her crib, and that’s not making me feel better either. I feel like the only way to do that is to watch her every second of the day, and that’s just not practical.

So how do you ladies make yourself feel better about this? I’m just going to have to tell myself over and over she’s fine, she’ll always be fine and nothing is going to happen to her when she's asleep. She’s getting older and babies just roll, that’s what happens. I’m still pretty nervous for night time tonight. I really hope I’m not in there constantly checking on her, but I guess if that’s what makes me feel better for a few nights, that’s what I’ll do. I promise not to go back to having her sleep all night in my room.

To think just the other day I was planning on taking down her pack n play. I’m pretty sure that’s out of the question, sorry husband.

I’d love for any tips you readers have on this! I’m sure this fear is something all of us have dealt with since our babies were born.

Unfortunately, there may even be some of you living with the result of SIDS. I think just knowing it happens so randomly is what scares me the most. One day you have your baby and boom, the next she could be gone. I just don’t think I could survive that. To those of you who have, you are the strongest of the strong. I’m sorry if my fear seems silly, when you’ve actually had to live through it.

I want to add that Rosemary never sleeps on her stomach. Ever. Not even for naps. She has been sleeping on her side for a couple weeks now, and even that freaks me out. I'm not saying its’ bad parenting if you let your baby sleep on their stomach, some babies sleep best that way. What happened last night only freaked me out, because my daughter has never slept on her stomach.

Please wish me courage for tonight. I feel like it’s going to be a rough one for me. Poor Rosemary is going to be sleeping and here comes Mama opening the door every half hour. Fingers crossed she doesn’t wake every time.