I noticed that I actually slept better this week when I wasn’t using a pillow. Made me curious.
ETA: I think my framing was slightly unhelpful. I do understand why babies don’t sleep with pillows due to the risks. I am more curious about if there are benefits to using a pillow as an adult.
In: 493
Babies mattresses are firmer, babies heads are bigger and their necks/shoulder proportionally smaller, their joints are also more flexible. Babies are also encourage to sleep on their back until they can roll themselves over. As a result, if you look at a sleeping baby, it can comfortably have it’s head on the mattress without bending the neck as much. Sleeping on their side, as they get older, the shoulders sort of collapse, allowing the head to still keep a fairly neutral spine – thus comfortable.
For adults, our shoulders get wider and head gets proportionally smaller and our joints get stiffer. We also tend to start to like softer mattress. So, if you try to lie on your back or side without a pillow, you’ll find your head awkwardly pulling your neck into a bent position which can cause back and neck pain.
Additionally – babies can roll onto a pillow and not be able to breath – so babies shouldn’t have pillows in their cribs. Or blankets – use a sleep sack.
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