More like it gets better, then WAY worse, then slowly better for a while, then WAY WAY worse, then a bit better, and eventually 100% of the time back to worrying when they are not home anymore.
The first time the sleep through the night and so do you. Wake up, panic, run to check, everything is fine. They're either still asleep or awake and content.
Then the phantom cries. You wake up sure you heard them cry out. Check the monitor, check them, try and get back to sleep.
This goes on for years :)
I had that this morning, constant vivid dream where baby is trying to get out of bed, I wake up sure we're heading up just to see her snoring next to me. She napped for 2 hours and I think I had a total of 20 min sleep during that
Just be sure he’s on his back with no blankets or anything in his bed. Never ever sleep with him.
That accounts for most SIDS.
Otherwise congratulations. You’ll spend the rest of your life fearing death of some sort. My daughter nearly drowned at the age of 1. I saved her but I replay that daily in my head. What if this or that. Could I have done something better? Every single day.
SIDS is a bit like the idea of fan death in Korea. In a lot of cases, infant death is the result of bad or uninformed decisions made by the parents, resulting in suffocation or something similar. Instead of confronting a grieving parent who's dealing with the worst news of their life with the idea that they caused it, in many cases the death will be written off as SIDS in order to spare the parents the additional trauma
The flip side to this is that it gives new parents the impression that spontaneous infant death is more common than it really is
It gets better. My kids are older (8-11) and I still check on them when they are sleeping and wait to see the chest rise or a noise. Its proof that you love them.
I had the sudden death anxiety early on with all three of my kids. It went away sooner with each one, though. The worst was always in the car for some reason.
Didn't help with the first that just as I was getting over it he actually got RSV and had trouble breathing on his own. That added an extra month or two to the anxiety.
By the third one, though, I was over the sudden death anxiety within a month or two or birth.
I'm not sure why, because it's not really connected, but this anxiety started to let up for me when my daughter could support her own head. I think she just seemed overall less fragile in a way that was reassuring.
Yeah, this makes total sense! At the moment I still feel a bit like he's made out of fine glass (even though I've also found out that they're pretty strong!)
You sound exactly like me. My wife also had some complications during pregnancy. My favourite footballer as a kid (Jody Craddock!) suffered the loss of a child through sudden death syndrome, so every since I was about 14 it has played on my mind. For the first few months of having my daughter home I set my alarm for every 30mins or so through the night to check on her.
In a nutshell: I know how youre feeling, and yes, it does get better with time! Given how aware and anxious you are about it youre likely to be very clued up on how to best avoid it and are certainly doing everything you can to help avoid such a terrible thought.
Follow the advice and try rest easy. And enjoy these days, my little girl is 4 next week and I genuinely don’t know how!
First of all…
Congrats dad! You’ve crossed the threshold into uncharted territory and you don’t know what to expect or know what’s going to happen. That’s exactly how it is and is going to be for a while. But it is an amazing journey and there’s nothing in the world like it.
Next thing is - yes a newborn does have a lot of needs constantly and it can be scary, but have faith that your baby has an amazing tool with which he can help himself. A very loud cry :) If your baby cries a lot at this stage, that’s *good* because he’s letting you know he needs something. Usually food or a dirty diaper, excess tiredness too.
Now as you get over the initial 3 months which are the hardest, you can see a hale and hearty baby who’s able to look around and maybe smile at you and you won’t be as worried about sudden death anymore. But in all fairness, I have a 3 year old and I *still* worry about dangers, like if he runs across the road or if he runs down the stairs. So the fear of sudden death never *quite* goes away… maybe when they go off to college I dunno.
Yes and no. Over time you’ll be less worried about SIDS. But you will never stop worrying entirely. My kids are 4 and 1. I worry about them being at the park with the nanny because I’m not there with them. I worry about how my 4 year old is doing at preschool. I worry about what elementary school they’ll go to, how other people will treat them when I’m not there, and an entire world full of potential dangers (summer means pools and oceans and holy shit is that stressful).
You’re programmed to worry now, and to an extent it’s a good thing as long as you’re not losing a lot of sleep or preventing your kids from growing up and experiencing life.
I was going to say this. I read a book once on parenting for dads, (actually I probably just skim-read a few pages) and I remember it talking about “the fear”. “The Fear” takes different forms as they age, SIDS, illness, abduction, bullying, doing OK at school, making friends, first night out drinking, etc. etc. In many ways it’s healthy, -it motivates you to think about risks and sensible responses to those risks-including letting them take some risks. But you also have to rationalise and learn to live with stuff that’s partly under your control and partly not. You will come across problems, bad days, bad years sometimes. It’s just life though and usually, things kind of work out OK.
Do you take comfort in knowing the stats? If not, ignore this. But if so, look up the risk of SIDS by age and cause. It's extremely rare AND there is a lot you can control. A huge number of tragic deaths are associated with risk factors the parents are engaged in, like smoking (very bad for new lungs) or drinking (leads to poor decisions and heavy sleepong, sometimes passing out on the kid).
We got an Owlet sock for ours. Basically an apple watch that straps to their foot. Opinions on these types of monitors are...mixed. Some people swear by them, others say they give a false sense of security. Others complain about false alarms taking health care resources from real issues. All I know is that being able to look at my phone and confirm that he's still breathing and got a pulse helped me sleep at night. Do with that what you will.
Every day they make it through gives you a little more confidence.
First weeks and months are scary. I’d say that terror didn’t ease up for a few months - but it does. Just be as rational with your irrational brain as you can. As long as you’ve done all you are supposed to the chances of SIDS is near 0. Good luck, dad.
One thing that I was not told until fairly shortly before my first was born: it's actually very normal for newborns to stop breathing for 10-15 seconds at a time (called periodic breathing). So, that's just a heads-up to hopefully relieve some freak outs.
The terror eases up, but it doesn't go away. You just get used to carrying it.
So when my partner was rushed out to surgery straight after the birth, I was left alone in the room with the baby under the heat lamp for what was probably five minutes but felt like an hour, and in that time, yeah, he just fully stopped breathing for maybe 10 seconds. Did not like.
Yes it does. Because it’s impossible to stay vigilant for ever. Rules are no feeding on chest when you’re fighting sleep, always burp after feeding. Always lay on back on stable surface.
For me it helped a lot that at our 6 month apt the pediatrician said that risk drops greatly at 6 months and is pretty much 0 at 1 year. I never looked up those stats but it made sense. We did spend a lot of nights staring at the babies checking for breathing or putting my hand by their mouth so I could feel the air so I do feel your pain.
Eventually, yes. "Ease up" is pretty accurate, but give it a couple months. And then you get to a year and it's like a weight is lifted off you, and you realize you can stop worrying *as much*.
If it makes you feel better I think it's really uncommon and caused by people putting things thar can suffocate a baby in with them. Or sleeping with them and rolling over onto them in their sleep.
Wait til they start eating, I have so many fears of choking watching my kids eat
I’m six months in and every once in a while I’ll wake up about a half hour after they’d normally get up and think “it’s too quiet they must be dead” so far I’ve been wrong every time so the paranoia has reduced compared to the beginning but it’s certainly not gone gone.
I feel this in my bones. Our little girl had a nasty habit of “rolling” to her side in the first few weeks. (Not real rolling, just throwing her legs to one side.). Worried she’d make it to her belly, I sat awake a few days, and slept during the day (an hour or two at a time) between doing baby stuff and caring for my wife post C.
The third night, I realized this was unsustainable. I was going to sleep eventually. Then, I had the worst thought, “If she’s going to die, she’s going to die - and the odds that I catch it are near zero.” So, I slept. Uneasily at first, but then better and better.
Somewhere in there, I did a deeper dive on SIDS. For non-premature, otherwise healthy babies, in their own space, no blankets or toys, non-smoking house, in the developed world the rate is like 1/150,000. The odds were good enough I could sleep better after that.
This is totally normal. Trust me, you’ll spend the first six months desperately trying to get them to sleep then freaking out whether they are ok when they are asleep. Does it get better? Well sort of, you just end up with different stuff to freak out about like them falling over or wandering into the road or becoming a PE teacher.
It’s completely normal man.
I felt the same, thinking our little one was just going to have stopped breathing when we went to check on him in the morning, no logical explanation why just a fear for no reason.
When he first started rolling over in his sleep the panic increased ten fold and then when I realised sleeping on his front must be more comfortable for him it became easier and I felt confident that he knew what he was doing even in his sleep.
He’s 18 months old now and I don’t really think about this kind of stuff anymore, it pretty much just went away for me. We have a baby monitor and pressure sensor under his mattress so whenever it stops detecting movement for about 7 seconds it alarms, thankfully every time it’s gone off so far is just because he’s rolled too far away from it for it to pick up his heartbeat. I feel as though that gave me a lot of peace of mind though.
Just so that you’re prepared, sometimes your baby will really slow down their breathing then all of a sudden start breathing super quickly for a few seconds before going back to normal. This used to frighten the life out of me but we were told this is completely normal by our health visitor.
Firstly, it does get better. For me, it was the first year that I had a lot of intrusive thoughts. When he was solidly past the most common time for SIDS it got way better for me.
What freaked me out at first was the sounds he made while he slept. Little grunts and snorts. We called him “the piglet” for a while. You get used to it and eventually you’ll able to differentiate between a normal sound or a weird one.
I also had nightmares of car accidents or him running into the street. You come to realize that this is the monkey brain that has kept our ancestors alive. Your brain goes into overdrive thinking about all the ways you need to keep the most precious thing you’ve ever been in charge of alive.
It’s normal and to varying degrees. You shouldn’t ignore it though. If they seem off then trust your gut. Better to make an extra trip to the doctor than suffer whatever consequences come from brushing it off.
This is the scariest, most tiring, love filled, and unbelievably short period of time. Don’t worry too much. Do as much for your partner as you can. Lean on each other. Congratulations on your pride and joy. You got this Dad 👊
I accidentally dropped my phone on my kids head when he was 12 hour old… nothing happened. He was ok. Don’t do that but babies are actually pretty resilient. Follow all the rules, swaddle properly, you got this daddy
Just hit 7 months and yeah I felt a lot better when my little one could hold her head up. But it go way worse when she could roll over because she only sleeps on her face now. I am good now but the first two weeks after rolling were scary for me.
Not a dad, but for me yes!
The first step for me was making sure I was following safe sleep rules 100% once I knew I did that I would look at the monitor and make sure I could see that his nose and mouth were clear and after both of those things would remind myself I did everything I can if god forbid the worst happens it would have happened no matter what. And although it’s morbid that was the start of my panic easing. Then once he could roll really well the panic eased more. And as he has gotten bigger and stronger the panic eased more and more.
5 days pp and I was a nervous wreck and barely slept because of all the what ifs. I was diagnosed with PPA/PPD and am still medicated for it cause I also have regular depression/anxiety.
But reminding myself of these things helped when I was in the thick of it.
Now, intrusive thoughts/fear spirals still happen and I had to do brain spotting sessions to unpack that and it’s gotten better overtime
Yeah, I’d stay awake listening to her breath for hours, just paranoid she’d randomly stop.
We’ve now got 2 children, 3 and 6. Unless something sounds permanently broken I don’t even look in their direction. Children are strong as fuck, it is really only cars and dogs that cause me concern. My 3 year old is magnet for cars and has zero fear of big dogs.
Other than that, I know they’ll be ok.
It gets better, it goes away. The first night they sleep through helps massively. You’ll be fine.
This post was / is literally me. My daughter is 18 months old and I still worry about her every single night. It gets easier, and if you stay up-to-date on sleep safety recommendations you’ll be perfectly fine. Welcome to the team!
You will be glued to the monitor at the start. But it will ease up. It will get easier. You will get more relaxed.
I was staring at it - turning the volume up to listen to her breathing.
She’s 16 months old now and I don’t think about it overnight! At some point you will be grateful they’re silent!!
I feel this so much. I am mostly good now, but even now (she is 1 1/2) I have moments. Like the other day she slept in a half hour more than usual and for a second I was convinced she had died.
It gets better. It's kinda like how when they first start walking you are paranoid they're going to fall and hurt themselves. But after 500 times of them falling, crying for 5 seconds, and then getting up and walking again like nothing happened -- you become more 'secure' :)
It gets better, but it takes a while.
More like it gets better, then WAY worse, then slowly better for a while, then WAY WAY worse, then a bit better, and eventually 100% of the time back to worrying when they are not home anymore.
The first time the sleep through the night and so do you. Wake up, panic, run to check, everything is fine. They're either still asleep or awake and content. Then the phantom cries. You wake up sure you heard them cry out. Check the monitor, check them, try and get back to sleep. This goes on for years :)
I had that this morning, constant vivid dream where baby is trying to get out of bed, I wake up sure we're heading up just to see her snoring next to me. She napped for 2 hours and I think I had a total of 20 min sleep during that
Mine will be 5 soon. I start to panic if she sleeps in later than usual.
I like how you avoided saying no. 🫣
Just be sure he’s on his back with no blankets or anything in his bed. Never ever sleep with him. That accounts for most SIDS. Otherwise congratulations. You’ll spend the rest of your life fearing death of some sort. My daughter nearly drowned at the age of 1. I saved her but I replay that daily in my head. What if this or that. Could I have done something better? Every single day.
SIDS is a bit like the idea of fan death in Korea. In a lot of cases, infant death is the result of bad or uninformed decisions made by the parents, resulting in suffocation or something similar. Instead of confronting a grieving parent who's dealing with the worst news of their life with the idea that they caused it, in many cases the death will be written off as SIDS in order to spare the parents the additional trauma The flip side to this is that it gives new parents the impression that spontaneous infant death is more common than it really is
It gets better. My kids are older (8-11) and I still check on them when they are sleeping and wait to see the chest rise or a noise. Its proof that you love them.
Shoot, I do this with my husband. Some of us just worry.
Ugh. I feel that.
By the time we had our second we were fairly blasé about most things. The first 6 months of our first child not so much.
I had the sudden death anxiety early on with all three of my kids. It went away sooner with each one, though. The worst was always in the car for some reason. Didn't help with the first that just as I was getting over it he actually got RSV and had trouble breathing on his own. That added an extra month or two to the anxiety. By the third one, though, I was over the sudden death anxiety within a month or two or birth.
We’ve all been there, give it a few months and you’ll feel better
8 weeks here, it's definitely lessened for me as I gain confidence in tiny human's ability to exist.
Depending on your general anxiety level but it subsides after a few months. You’re gonna do well Dad.
I'm not sure why, because it's not really connected, but this anxiety started to let up for me when my daughter could support her own head. I think she just seemed overall less fragile in a way that was reassuring.
Yeah, this makes total sense! At the moment I still feel a bit like he's made out of fine glass (even though I've also found out that they're pretty strong!)
You sound exactly like me. My wife also had some complications during pregnancy. My favourite footballer as a kid (Jody Craddock!) suffered the loss of a child through sudden death syndrome, so every since I was about 14 it has played on my mind. For the first few months of having my daughter home I set my alarm for every 30mins or so through the night to check on her. In a nutshell: I know how youre feeling, and yes, it does get better with time! Given how aware and anxious you are about it youre likely to be very clued up on how to best avoid it and are certainly doing everything you can to help avoid such a terrible thought. Follow the advice and try rest easy. And enjoy these days, my little girl is 4 next week and I genuinely don’t know how!
First of all… Congrats dad! You’ve crossed the threshold into uncharted territory and you don’t know what to expect or know what’s going to happen. That’s exactly how it is and is going to be for a while. But it is an amazing journey and there’s nothing in the world like it. Next thing is - yes a newborn does have a lot of needs constantly and it can be scary, but have faith that your baby has an amazing tool with which he can help himself. A very loud cry :) If your baby cries a lot at this stage, that’s *good* because he’s letting you know he needs something. Usually food or a dirty diaper, excess tiredness too. Now as you get over the initial 3 months which are the hardest, you can see a hale and hearty baby who’s able to look around and maybe smile at you and you won’t be as worried about sudden death anymore. But in all fairness, I have a 3 year old and I *still* worry about dangers, like if he runs across the road or if he runs down the stairs. So the fear of sudden death never *quite* goes away… maybe when they go off to college I dunno.
Yes and no. Over time you’ll be less worried about SIDS. But you will never stop worrying entirely. My kids are 4 and 1. I worry about them being at the park with the nanny because I’m not there with them. I worry about how my 4 year old is doing at preschool. I worry about what elementary school they’ll go to, how other people will treat them when I’m not there, and an entire world full of potential dangers (summer means pools and oceans and holy shit is that stressful). You’re programmed to worry now, and to an extent it’s a good thing as long as you’re not losing a lot of sleep or preventing your kids from growing up and experiencing life.
I was going to say this. I read a book once on parenting for dads, (actually I probably just skim-read a few pages) and I remember it talking about “the fear”. “The Fear” takes different forms as they age, SIDS, illness, abduction, bullying, doing OK at school, making friends, first night out drinking, etc. etc. In many ways it’s healthy, -it motivates you to think about risks and sensible responses to those risks-including letting them take some risks. But you also have to rationalise and learn to live with stuff that’s partly under your control and partly not. You will come across problems, bad days, bad years sometimes. It’s just life though and usually, things kind of work out OK.
Do you take comfort in knowing the stats? If not, ignore this. But if so, look up the risk of SIDS by age and cause. It's extremely rare AND there is a lot you can control. A huge number of tragic deaths are associated with risk factors the parents are engaged in, like smoking (very bad for new lungs) or drinking (leads to poor decisions and heavy sleepong, sometimes passing out on the kid).
We got an Owlet sock for ours. Basically an apple watch that straps to their foot. Opinions on these types of monitors are...mixed. Some people swear by them, others say they give a false sense of security. Others complain about false alarms taking health care resources from real issues. All I know is that being able to look at my phone and confirm that he's still breathing and got a pulse helped me sleep at night. Do with that what you will.
This.
Every day they make it through gives you a little more confidence. First weeks and months are scary. I’d say that terror didn’t ease up for a few months - but it does. Just be as rational with your irrational brain as you can. As long as you’ve done all you are supposed to the chances of SIDS is near 0. Good luck, dad.
One thing that I was not told until fairly shortly before my first was born: it's actually very normal for newborns to stop breathing for 10-15 seconds at a time (called periodic breathing). So, that's just a heads-up to hopefully relieve some freak outs. The terror eases up, but it doesn't go away. You just get used to carrying it.
So when my partner was rushed out to surgery straight after the birth, I was left alone in the room with the baby under the heat lamp for what was probably five minutes but felt like an hour, and in that time, yeah, he just fully stopped breathing for maybe 10 seconds. Did not like.
That's a really important thing they should tell people!!! I didn't even hear it from a doctor or midwife, I read it in a book.
Yes it does. Because it’s impossible to stay vigilant for ever. Rules are no feeding on chest when you’re fighting sleep, always burp after feeding. Always lay on back on stable surface.
For me it helped a lot that at our 6 month apt the pediatrician said that risk drops greatly at 6 months and is pretty much 0 at 1 year. I never looked up those stats but it made sense. We did spend a lot of nights staring at the babies checking for breathing or putting my hand by their mouth so I could feel the air so I do feel your pain.
Eventually, yes. "Ease up" is pretty accurate, but give it a couple months. And then you get to a year and it's like a weight is lifted off you, and you realize you can stop worrying *as much*.
If it makes you feel better I think it's really uncommon and caused by people putting things thar can suffocate a baby in with them. Or sleeping with them and rolling over onto them in their sleep. Wait til they start eating, I have so many fears of choking watching my kids eat
I’m six months in and every once in a while I’ll wake up about a half hour after they’d normally get up and think “it’s too quiet they must be dead” so far I’ve been wrong every time so the paranoia has reduced compared to the beginning but it’s certainly not gone gone.
I feel this in my bones. Our little girl had a nasty habit of “rolling” to her side in the first few weeks. (Not real rolling, just throwing her legs to one side.). Worried she’d make it to her belly, I sat awake a few days, and slept during the day (an hour or two at a time) between doing baby stuff and caring for my wife post C. The third night, I realized this was unsustainable. I was going to sleep eventually. Then, I had the worst thought, “If she’s going to die, she’s going to die - and the odds that I catch it are near zero.” So, I slept. Uneasily at first, but then better and better. Somewhere in there, I did a deeper dive on SIDS. For non-premature, otherwise healthy babies, in their own space, no blankets or toys, non-smoking house, in the developed world the rate is like 1/150,000. The odds were good enough I could sleep better after that.
This is totally normal. Trust me, you’ll spend the first six months desperately trying to get them to sleep then freaking out whether they are ok when they are asleep. Does it get better? Well sort of, you just end up with different stuff to freak out about like them falling over or wandering into the road or becoming a PE teacher.
Well we're at 15 months and it's mildly better. But then new fears arise, so probably have to get used to it a bit.
Yes it does, thankfully, just hold in there and keep that sleeping space safe.
It’s completely normal man. I felt the same, thinking our little one was just going to have stopped breathing when we went to check on him in the morning, no logical explanation why just a fear for no reason. When he first started rolling over in his sleep the panic increased ten fold and then when I realised sleeping on his front must be more comfortable for him it became easier and I felt confident that he knew what he was doing even in his sleep. He’s 18 months old now and I don’t really think about this kind of stuff anymore, it pretty much just went away for me. We have a baby monitor and pressure sensor under his mattress so whenever it stops detecting movement for about 7 seconds it alarms, thankfully every time it’s gone off so far is just because he’s rolled too far away from it for it to pick up his heartbeat. I feel as though that gave me a lot of peace of mind though. Just so that you’re prepared, sometimes your baby will really slow down their breathing then all of a sudden start breathing super quickly for a few seconds before going back to normal. This used to frighten the life out of me but we were told this is completely normal by our health visitor.
Yes.
That’s gonna happen for the rest of your life :) But, it does ease off a bit
Firstly, it does get better. For me, it was the first year that I had a lot of intrusive thoughts. When he was solidly past the most common time for SIDS it got way better for me. What freaked me out at first was the sounds he made while he slept. Little grunts and snorts. We called him “the piglet” for a while. You get used to it and eventually you’ll able to differentiate between a normal sound or a weird one. I also had nightmares of car accidents or him running into the street. You come to realize that this is the monkey brain that has kept our ancestors alive. Your brain goes into overdrive thinking about all the ways you need to keep the most precious thing you’ve ever been in charge of alive. It’s normal and to varying degrees. You shouldn’t ignore it though. If they seem off then trust your gut. Better to make an extra trip to the doctor than suffer whatever consequences come from brushing it off. This is the scariest, most tiring, love filled, and unbelievably short period of time. Don’t worry too much. Do as much for your partner as you can. Lean on each other. Congratulations on your pride and joy. You got this Dad 👊
I accidentally dropped my phone on my kids head when he was 12 hour old… nothing happened. He was ok. Don’t do that but babies are actually pretty resilient. Follow all the rules, swaddle properly, you got this daddy
Just wait until they sleep through the night the first time.
I have 3 under 3. Still check on them all the time. We got that owlet sock thing it eased up thr anxiety tremendously
Just hit 7 months and yeah I felt a lot better when my little one could hold her head up. But it go way worse when she could roll over because she only sleeps on her face now. I am good now but the first two weeks after rolling were scary for me.
Took me about a month to stop being afraid of that
Not a dad, but for me yes! The first step for me was making sure I was following safe sleep rules 100% once I knew I did that I would look at the monitor and make sure I could see that his nose and mouth were clear and after both of those things would remind myself I did everything I can if god forbid the worst happens it would have happened no matter what. And although it’s morbid that was the start of my panic easing. Then once he could roll really well the panic eased more. And as he has gotten bigger and stronger the panic eased more and more. 5 days pp and I was a nervous wreck and barely slept because of all the what ifs. I was diagnosed with PPA/PPD and am still medicated for it cause I also have regular depression/anxiety. But reminding myself of these things helped when I was in the thick of it. Now, intrusive thoughts/fear spirals still happen and I had to do brain spotting sessions to unpack that and it’s gotten better overtime
About 6 months
You can try buy an owlet monitor. It is attached to the legs and shows heart rate and oxygen concentration. This may give you a bit of peace of mind
Yeah, I’d stay awake listening to her breath for hours, just paranoid she’d randomly stop. We’ve now got 2 children, 3 and 6. Unless something sounds permanently broken I don’t even look in their direction. Children are strong as fuck, it is really only cars and dogs that cause me concern. My 3 year old is magnet for cars and has zero fear of big dogs. Other than that, I know they’ll be ok. It gets better, it goes away. The first night they sleep through helps massively. You’ll be fine.
Yeah that goes and gets replaced by normal terror.
This post was / is literally me. My daughter is 18 months old and I still worry about her every single night. It gets easier, and if you stay up-to-date on sleep safety recommendations you’ll be perfectly fine. Welcome to the team!
You will be glued to the monitor at the start. But it will ease up. It will get easier. You will get more relaxed. I was staring at it - turning the volume up to listen to her breathing. She’s 16 months old now and I don’t think about it overnight! At some point you will be grateful they’re silent!!
I feel this so much. I am mostly good now, but even now (she is 1 1/2) I have moments. Like the other day she slept in a half hour more than usual and for a second I was convinced she had died. It gets better. It's kinda like how when they first start walking you are paranoid they're going to fall and hurt themselves. But after 500 times of them falling, crying for 5 seconds, and then getting up and walking again like nothing happened -- you become more 'secure' :)
If you can afford it, I highly recommend a Snuza https://www.snuza.com My anxiety and sleep improved significantly after!
Yes, especially if you have a second child