Hi! I’m Dana Obleman, creator of The Sleep Sense Program. If you’d rather read than watch, I’ve transcribed the text of this video below.

This week’s question is from Kim, who’s son likes to practice his newly-learned skill of rolling over at bedtime. She writes:

“My son has learned to roll from his back to his belly and decides to practice it at bedtime, in the middle of the night or in the early morning and sometimes he will yell when he is on his belly and he cannot get to his back. Sometimes he has one arm stuck and the leg hanging out of the crib. Is this normal for them to practice tricks when they should be sleeping and is there any way I can stop him from doing this?”

That is a great question Kim and it happens a lot. In fact usually around every developmental milestone, whether it is learning to roll, sitting up in the crib or standing up in the crib, is a bit of sleep disruption — and really it is almost like they are compelled to keep trying. The only way you master a skill is by practicing it, and when they are learning to roll, they just keep rolling. It even sometimes seems like they do not really want to be rolling — and often they do not like to be on their stomachs once they get there — but they are just compelled to keep practicing!

There really is no way you can stop him and it is very normal. If he is stuck on his stomach and he does not like it there, you really have no choice but to go in and roll him back.

The good news is that it usually only lasts a couple of weeks. Once he has mastered it and you see him roll from his back to his front and his front to his back through the day and he can do it on his own, then you’ll need to let him do it himself. He’ll roll around and find positions that are comfortable and maybe he’ll even decide that his tummy is not a bad place to actually sleep part of the night.

In the meantime, if he is awake, calling you and stuck, you are going to have to go in there and roll him back. Hopefully, this started after he had mastered the skill of getting himself to sleep. A lot of times, clients of mine were right in the middle of teaching the child how to fall asleep on his own and all of a sudden he is now rolling to his tummy all over the place! You could also try getting the sleep wedges that you can buy at Babies R Us or something like that and positioning him so that he cannot roll.

That might work for awhile but once he is big enough, he might just roll right over top of it and you will have to go through it anyway. The same thing goes with sitting or standing. Unless they can do it all on their own, up and down, both ways, you are going to have to help. I can remember my son sitting up in his crib and being stuck there crying. We’d go in and lay him down and he would do it again. This went on for a week or two until he mastered the skill so gave up practicing and he stopped doing it.

So the good comes with the bad I guess, Kim, and it’s something you are going to have to go through again down the road. You don’t want to become inconsistent or start doing things radically different. You just have to keep your consistency strong and any regression will blow over pretty quickly.

Thanks for your question, Kim! Good luck and sleep well.