Flip Side
Henry's rolling over is pretty adorable, but we've had two rather rough nights. My parenting books warned me that babies sometimes sleep poorly for awhile after they learn a new skill because they practice in their sleep and wake themselves up. Turns out those books are right. Crazy.
On Friday night he woke up about six times between 4am and 6:30am, having flipped himself over and sometimes spun around to mash his head into the crib rails. Now, babies are supposed to sleep on their backs to cut the risk of SIDS, but I suspect there's very little SIDS risk when your kid shouts MOMMYI'MONMYTUMMYANDIHATEITRESCUEME every time his belly hits the crib mattress. I finally gave up and got him out of bed at 6:30 and let Karl sleep in. Hal and I made some tea and played for an hour, then went back to bed in the guest room -- then Karl woke us up at 10:00 with breakfast in bed! So that actually turned out rather awesomely, now that I think about it.
Last night we had the opposite problem. Karl went to the bathroom at 4:00 and checked on the man, and found him sleeping soundly -- on his belly. He flipped the baby onto his back and woke me to tell me about it, so then we laid awake for three hours listening for the sound of Henry rolling over, afraid he was going to die in his sleep.
I faintly recall that I used to sleep well before I had a baby. There's really no better way to keep yourself awake at night than thinking of horrible things that can happen to your kid, huh?
But the rolling . . . it sure is cute by daylight.
On Friday night he woke up about six times between 4am and 6:30am, having flipped himself over and sometimes spun around to mash his head into the crib rails. Now, babies are supposed to sleep on their backs to cut the risk of SIDS, but I suspect there's very little SIDS risk when your kid shouts MOMMYI'MONMYTUMMYANDIHATEITRESCUEME every time his belly hits the crib mattress. I finally gave up and got him out of bed at 6:30 and let Karl sleep in. Hal and I made some tea and played for an hour, then went back to bed in the guest room -- then Karl woke us up at 10:00 with breakfast in bed! So that actually turned out rather awesomely, now that I think about it.
Last night we had the opposite problem. Karl went to the bathroom at 4:00 and checked on the man, and found him sleeping soundly -- on his belly. He flipped the baby onto his back and woke me to tell me about it, so then we laid awake for three hours listening for the sound of Henry rolling over, afraid he was going to die in his sleep.
I faintly recall that I used to sleep well before I had a baby. There's really no better way to keep yourself awake at night than thinking of horrible things that can happen to your kid, huh?
But the rolling . . . it sure is cute by daylight.
Charlie started sleeping on his stomach as soon as he learned to roll over. There was nothing I could do to prevent it. If I turned him over, he would either wake up or immediately roll back to his stomach. It was scary at first, but we all got used to it. Once they can lift their heads well, the SIDS risk from stomach-sleeping is way lower.
ReplyDelete