please help with my rolling lo

[micah'smom]

hi everyone,

my 4 month old just learned how to roll over. he's a tummy sleeper and rolls over by pulling up his knees into his chest. very cute. the problem is that he only rolls when he's just about to fall asleep. he struggles and thrashes around. sometimes wind-down time is up to an hour and a half :shock:

i give him plenty of tummy time during the day but he just refuses practicing when awake. so not only is getting him down frustrating, but he wakes up several times at night on his back or side.

several questions:
1. do i roll him back onto his tummy when he wakes or should i try to train him to sleep on his back and side? how do i train this?
2. the main problem with getting him down are naps. i used to give a paci and that calmed him but even that doesn't work anymore. i dont know what to do! any suggestions on how to calm him down?

thanks!
selena

[piggywig]

Hi
My 4 1/2 month old just learned how to roll over too which is great but a little stressful at sleep time. He's always slept on his back but lately he will only go down for naps if I lay him on his side. The last two nights have been pretty awful as he keeps waking!
He'd just started sleeping through, so this is quite annoying for all of us.
Does your little on sleep on his tummy during the night? I'm considering doing this, but am a little anxious of him suffocating! (silly I know!)
I think he wakes in the middle of the night and feels a bit lost, so tummy sleeping could well make him feel a little cosier in his cot?
I hope someone can offer us some advice!

[micah'smom]

hi, yep my lo is a tummy sleeper. for the first 2 months he was a side sleeper and swaddled, but he had such gas problems that we just put him on his tummy. he was strong enough to lift his head and side to side so i risked it. he slept much better after that! now we just have to conquer this....

[a_astorga]

Hi,

My son is 6 months old and has slept on his tummy for months and he sleeps much better this way. However, since birth we bought a product called Angel Care which monitors his breathing, it's a device placed under his mattress that sounds an alarm if it oesn't feel any breathing from the infant. You can check out something like this, I don't worry at all at nite.

[micah'smom]

just an update,

it's been about 3 weeks and my ds is rolling even more than before. i give him lots of practice during the day to roll back onto his tummy but he still won't do it at night when he wakes. tonight i put him down at 7:30. it's two hours later and he's already woken 4 times.  :shock:

my dh is considering just training ds to sleep on his back. dh will be out of town for a couple days and i don't know if i can handle this on my own.

please tell me any suggestions you all have for getting over this rolling thing. i've been trying to wait it out but i feel like it's getting worse and i'm losing my patience and getting upset easily

[Paulsmama]

Hi Selena,
Did you ever resolve the rolling over problem?  DS and I are going through this very same thing now and DH is out of town (lucky him :-)).  DS is also a tummy sleeper and rolling over most often when he is trying to get to sleep -- it took him an hour last night rolling over 5 times, then he woke up 4 more times over the course of the night on his back and fussing/crying because he can't get back.  It has only been three nights now and already I am exhausted.  I can't imagine how you handled it for so long.  He is doing it for naps too!
Please tell me it eventually stopped.

[micah'smom]

hi cynthia,

well sorry to say, but micah is STILL rolling  :shock:  BUT, the nightwakings have gone down. it used to be almost every hour, and now he wakes maybe 3 times a night. he falls asleep as soon as i roll him over so i've just gotten used to it. for about a week, really thick rolled up towels helped to block him. but his tush is getting big and mows em right over now.

as for going down for naps, he still rolls around. i don't know whether to start pu/pd with him or what! i just think that would be cruel so i'm waiting for him to get really proficient at rolling back easily. i think the problem is that i've been giving him practice to roll on the floor, but the crib mattress is much softer so it's harder to roll. i'm going to try to give him practice time in the crib. other than that, i just make sure his wind-down is really long and boring so that he isn't agitated before naps. if i catch him at the right time, he's easy to put down for naps. otherwise it's the rolling derby. if it gets really bad i give him his paci and massage his legs and that calms him down a lot.

a lot of women on these boards say that their babies just "get used to it", but that's b.c they have back sleepers. i think it's harder for tummy sleepers to "get used" to sleeping on their backs.

at this rate your baby will probably get over this before mine!!    let me know how it's going for you. i will say that i made the mistake of rushing him and rescuing him every time. maybe give your ds some time to fuss (not all out cry) and see if he can settle himself?

[Paulsmama]

Selena,

I am so very sorry to hear that.  You must have the patience and strength of a saint to go through this.  How do you keep your sanity?  Last night Paul went down like a dream just before 8 pm, but an hour later it started and he had already rolled over 10 times before his dreamfeed at 11.  After that I stopped counting.

I ended up spending the night in his room rather than go back down the hall every half hour.  It is possible that the crib rolling is related to tummy troubles.  Paul has been rolling front to back during tummy time since 8 weeks but this is the first time he has been doing it in the crib.  During tummy time he rolls over leading with his head and shoulders and in the crib he leads with his bottom.

We are going to try stopping solids for a few days.  Even though he is only having a tsp in the morning, day 3 of solids is when this all started (5 days of rice cereal then switched to sweet potato).  Prior to that we had just had the first good solid week of no or only one night waking for gas.  He also started pooping 3x a day instead of 1 and he's been very regular for months.  He was 3 weeks early so his system may just be sensitive and not ready for solids yet.  I'll let you know if that makes a difference for us.

In the meantime, I think I am going to continue to rescue him because he does not whimper/fuss, now as soon as he rolls over he screams (I think after a few nights of this he is quite tired) and if I get him before he fully wakes I can rub his back and he'll settle, if not he escalates so fast that I have to pick him up and it takes a while to soothe him and he is 20 lbs now and my arms/shoulders/back are killing me.  DH says I should just let him CIO -- another couple of nights and I may really be tempted to.

Anyone else have any ideas?

[MyBella]

Hi ladies,
My dd went through this as well (but from her back to her belly).  I basically I gave her play time in her crib so she would get accustomed to rolling in there just like she does in her play area.  I think it was also strange for her to wake up in the middle of the night turned around and having a completely differnet view of her environment.  And until she got comfortable with that I used a positioner that kept her on her back which cut down on the number of night wakings due to rolling and not being able to get back.  Within a couple of weeks she got used to rolling in the crib, started playing with the positioner at which point I took it away.  She still preferred to sleep on her back, but by then she could do it by herself without needing me unless she got stuck.  And one night I put her down and she fell asleep on her tummy.  Just like that.  It was the cutest thing.  Hope this helps.

[finleyfoo]

Hi ladies. I have the opposite problem. My 4.5 month old learned how to roll from back to tummy about a month ago (I always put him on his back to sleep before that). You might think he would start sleeping better on his belly, but no. He wakes up 2-3 times a night after having slept on his belly and starts screaming bloody murder. He gets worked up thrashing his arms and legs about and I go in to flip him. But he just rolls back over. The thing is, when playing on the floor he doesn't show any interest in rolling (either way). This only happens at night in his crib. What happens is that when I put him down on his back, he rolls onto his side, and then either sleeps that way, or rolls onto his belly and sleeps that way. He is fine until he wakes up, then he starts crying and thrashing. During tummy time I try to teach him to roll from belly to back (he can push up onto his forearms) but he shows no interest in it.

He likes to wiggle in my arms and stand up on my lap, but shows very little interest in rolling (either way) on the floor during play time.

Any suggestions? It's been a month of going in and flipping him (sometimes for up to an hour).