Timing

My daughter has never rolled over in her sleep, preferring to sleep on her back, even while she was crying or having a fit in her crib. She didn't move. "Sweet," I naively thought. Earlier this week she started pivoting in her sleep from the traditional vertical position to a horizontal, head and feet against the bars position. After a few nights of her horizontal pivot shift, and too many wakings to check the monitor that no limbs were stuck,  we decided it was time to lower Delilah's crib.

The same night that her crib was lowered she sat straight up in the middle of the night crying because she didn't know how to get back down. Really funny, the first time. Since then, she has started sleeping on her stomach half way through the night, pushing up on her arms in a cobra pose. I spent the first part of this week anally checking the monitor to make sure she was breathing, as this was the first time she slept on her stomach. I've gotten really good at analyzing the night vision on my video monitor. You'd think she could get herself rolled over like she does during the day, but I think that a different part of the brain is active at night and she hasn't figured that part out yet. So I am waking up throughout the night when she fusses to check the monitor and going in at least once to set her back on her back for sleep. I am looking forward to the night she figures it out and I get better sleep again. I am also aware that next she will learn how to pull herself up on the bars of the crib but not know how to get back down and this process will repeat itself. The beauty of parenthood.