What if My Baby Gets Stuck on Their Tummy?
Does your baby roll in the night and get stuck on their tummy?
First, know that this is SO common and SO normal. It’s actually an amazing sign of development! However, waking up and rolling your baby over every 30 minutes in the night is exhausting. So, what can we do about this?
5 Tips for Helping Your Little Roller to Sleep
First and foremost, if your baby is rolling, please make sure they are no longer swaddled. In order to safely lift their head/learn to roll back over, they need their arms to be free. If you still need to transition your baby from a swaddle, see my blog post here and make the transition to a sleep sack!
Practice. Practice. Practice. The best way for your baby to learn to roll back over on their own is to let them practice during the day! Lots of tummy time to strengthen their little muscles and increase their coordination. The more they practice, the sooner they’ll be able to roll back and forth on their own.
Talk to your pediatrician about sleeping on their tummy. Mine always says once they learn to roll onto their tummy, it’s okay to leave them and let them sleep on their tummy. So my babies all became tummy sleepers around 5 months. But please ask your pediatrician for their recommendation for your baby.
Instead of going in 10x a night to flip them over, give them their binky or help calm them while they are still on their tummy! Help them learn to fall back asleep while they are on their tummy (again, if you get the okay from your doctor).
Remember, this is just a short phase! Soon they’ll be rolling all over the place, all night long, and you won’t even notice because you’ll both be sleeping peacefully.