For the first few months of life this was ideal! He happily slept and played on his back and we all enjoyed it. While doctors recommend that babies sleep on their backs, they also suggest giving them "tummy time" to help strengthen their neck and back muscles in preparation for rolling over, sitting up, and crawling. Asher hated this. He would scream and scream for the whole 10 minutes 3 times a day.
Eventually he learned how to roll over from his belly to back. From that day forward it was a battle to get him to spend any time on his belly at all. He would immediately roll over the second you put him on his belly, the little stinker.
Because of this I never thought we'd get him to roll the other direction {back to belly}. I did everything I could to encourage it, including putting all of his toys out of arms reach. He was totally capable of getting them, if he rolled over...he just didn't want to.
The great stand off of 2010.
Asher just stared at them for a long time, then looked at me, then back at the toys. Then he sighed and started playing with his toes. He would not give in! Stubborn little bugger.
Then, one day, like flipping a switch he started rolling onto his belly! You might remember, the first time was when we were visiting Drew's grandparents. After that day he started doing it more and more.
Now he takes every nap on his belly and often spends part of the night there. This wouldn't be a problem at all, except that when he wakes up on his belly he is disoriented, can't roll over, and screams bloody murder for me to come help him. What should I do? I don't want to start running to him every time he cries {especially since I know he can roll onto his back...if he wants to} but I hate to hear him cry!
The good news is that Mr A is doing 100% better at spending time on his belly! His neck and back are getting really strong.
Now we just have to work on sitting up! I'm sure this will be the same kind of situation where he refuses and fusses until one day it clicks and all he wants to do is sit. Wish us luck!
LOL... good luck! And he'll get it soon enough! It felt (to me) like it took Eli a long time to master the back to belly roll too, but now he rolls and scoots all over the place! I guess the next thing he'll do is learn to get in a sitting position by himself? Or maybe learn to get up on his knees and start rocking back and forth?
ReplyDeleteSince this is a new thing for him, I would go to him when he wakes up crying, but not pick him up. I would just pat/rub his back or roll him onto his back if you think that's what he wants. I think Jack sometimes rolls in his sleep from his belly to his back, and it wakes him up. Occasionally, he will cry for no apparent reason and I just go in there and flip him onto his tummy, rub his back, and he's right back to sleep. This happened more when he was first starting to sleep on his tummy. He's much better now and easily rolls to whichever position is most comfortable for him. I'm sure that Asher will be the same in no time at all. Good luck!!
ReplyDeleteI love reading your posts with all the pictures of each story :) It's too cute!!
ReplyDeleteI don't have any advice really. Lillian loves rolling around all over the place. As you can tell already, the more time they spend on their belly, the stronger they get so I'm sure he'll be rolling all over the place soon and not yell for help so much.