Hello! I have a 7 week old baby who absolutely hates his bassinet/cot and will only sleep in our arms or in a cacoonababy. I understand the cacoonababy is not red nose approved for unsupervised sleep therefore we Do not want to use it at night but at the moment we have no other option to get our son to sleep at night. I’m hoping to make his bassinet/cot more alluring to him and someone mentioned that he might find the cold hard fitted sheets uncomfortable and might be waking him up every time we put him down. My mum mentioned that she used to be a short hair Sheep skin run under the bassinet sheet for warmth (obviously this is another time/generation pre sids knowledge) however I want to see if this is appropriate for us to do as we want to avoid co sleeping or other more risky sleeping practices but are running out of options Thanks so much!

Red Nose information in relation to sleep surfaces stresses the importance of a firm & flat (not elevated, surface to reduce the risk of Sudden Unexpected Death of Infancy (SUDI) for all sleeps.
Red Nose recommends avoiding placing anything in baby’s sleep environment (including sheep skins) that might create a soft surface for baby to sleep on.
Inclined sleep surfaces can cause baby’s chin to slip to chest, increasing risk of airway compromise/obstruction.

Unfortunately, at this stage of research, we cannot identify (physiologically) exactly which babies are at risk (except for the sleep environment) so we have to assume that all babies are at risk, particularly in the early months. 90% SUDI deaths occur before 5-6months.

Do you think your son might be cold?

Can you chat to your Maternal, Child Health Nurse or Midwife about different settling techniques?
Many of the States have telephone support services in this area eg Karitane/Tresillian/Ngala/MCHN?