Is it okay to take my baby for a walk at night?

Is it all right to go out at night?

Yes, and on the evenings when nothing indoors is working it's often the thing that does.

Movement, fresh air, a change of scene. It also gets you out of a room you've been failing in for an hour, which is worth something on its own.

The vibration question

We asked whether a bumpy road could cause reflux, which is a more sensible question than it sounds.

Jostling straight after a full feed can make posseting more likely — the same reason you'd avoid vigorous bouncing after a bottle. It isn't causing reflux as a condition; it's making an existing tendency more visible.

If you're going out after a feed, a smoother route and twenty minutes upright first makes a noticeable difference.

Dressing her for it

The mistake we made repeatedly: dressing her based on how hot we felt while walking.

She's sitting still. You're moving. She needs more than you and you'll be too warm to judge it.

But don't cover the pram with a blanket to her warm — it traps heat badly, and overheating is the thing worth avoiding. A proper pram cover designed for it, or a footmuff, rather than something draped over the top.

The awkward bit. She's finally asleep, and a pram seat isn't a safe place for unsupervised sleep.

Move her to a flat firm surface, on her back. There's a guide next to this one on doing that transfer without starting the whole evening again.

And if she'll only sleep in a pram or car seat and hates lying flat, that's worth mentioning — it sometimes points at reflux rather than preference. We used to tilt the cot a bit to control the reflux, something we learnt at a later stage we shouldn’t do but it worked wonders for her reflux.