I'm losing my mind

A

aussiegal

Registered User
We have a 5 month old who has never slept more than 3 hours at night. We just came back from a holiday and our life has become hell. Our baby finds it really hard to fall sleep and won't sleep on his back at all. I don't mind him sleeping on his side except that now he can't stop rolling in his sleep. When he's awake he does the same thing, no matter what position you put him in, back or side, he rolls immediately onto his tummy. At night this means he wakes himself, and us up constantly and we need to get up to try and reposition him. Because of the trip our older son is also not sleeping as well so now we have two kids who wake often at night, every time one cries the other does too. Does anyone have any ideas about how to get the baby to stop rolling? We are EXHAUSTED. We're lucky to get two hours sleep in a row and we both work long hours so we need to resolve this.
 
Let baby sleep on his tummy if that's what he prefers. I know the whole sids thing is that we should sleep them on their backs but the risk is still fairly low. For peace of mind you could buy a monitor that has sensor pads to detect breathing. Really feel for you. Hope you get some sleep soon.
 
Unfortunately he won't actually sleep on his tummy so when he rolls he ends up holding himself up and then starts crying because it's uncomfortable to do when you're asleep! It means one of us has to go in every time and put him back on to his side.
 
being a housewife i feel exhausted getting up at night.I can understand what you are going through....try using some pillows or cushions on the sides so that if baby turns he doesnt roll..its just a suggestion..try it if it works.
good luck
 
I think five months might be a bit young to start putting pillows and cushions in with a baby....I would be too worried about suffocation!

I think five months is ok to let baby sleep on his tummy...I was told if they can roll onto their tummy in the night, then it is safe to let them sleep on their tummy.

But it sounds like your son is not quite rolling onto his tummy, is that right? He gets stuck? Maybe you could (in the day) help practice with him rolling all the way onto his tummy, that way when he does it at night he will roll onto his tummy by himself, be comfortable and hopefully fall back to sleep. Maybe let him spend a lot of time on his tummy during the day and then he's more use to it....and just thinking out loud...!

I am feeling for you...my son didn't sleep for more than 2-3 hrs at a time during the night until he was nine months old! And there were times when it was very difficult! The only thing that got me through was that eventually he would sleep through!!!!!
 
i wouldn't use a pillow either.

what i did for my two though was roll up a towel and fix either end with an elastic band. you can use them as positioners, just make sure that they are not near the face.

good luck, i hope you get some sleep soon!
 
He does roll onto his tummy but the problem is he is used to propping himself up with his arms so he does it automatically the minute he rolls. This means he can't sleep on his tummy because he's too busy holding himself up. If he'd only relax and put his head down i'd be fine but he won't do it so i have to put him back onto his side. Someone told me to just leave him holding himself up til he gets tired and is forced to find a comfortable position to sleep in. SOunds harsh but i'm desperate :(
 
When we moved to HK, bub was about 5 months and had the sleep trouble (without the night wake). But we were concerned with SIDS. So we bought the Safe T Sleep Sleepwrap
He slept and my worries dissipated.

If you can't find one in HK nor order it from Oz, I can loan you ours to see how it'd go with your baby.
 
We put our baby in a grobag at 3 months and this solved a lot of our turning worries because we tucked the end of the grobag under the mattress at the bottom of the cot so he couldn't really turn all the way across. My husband thought it was really awful as we were 'restricting his freedom' but I needed to sleep :haha: We then untucked the bottom when he was around 8 months and could sort himself out. Baby is 23 months old now and has done fine so I'd do it again!!! Hope this helps..
 
I second the idea of tucking the grobag under the matress so they can't roll, that's what we did and it worked beautifully.

A friend of mine also used large nappy pins to directly pin the grobag to the mattress as her grobags weren't long enough to tuck.
 
Thanks for your really kind offer Spockey. We'll be in Oz in a couple of weeks so will get it then.

We put him into a grobag last night and it stopped the rolling but he still woke three times and was ready to party at 4.30am!
 
Aussiegal,

We have a 5 month old with exactly the same problem. I bought a 'sleep positioner' from Eugene, which does the same thing as pillows or rolled-up towels, but feels safer. It stops him from rolling but he often wakes because he's trying to roll in his sleep and the frustration of not being able to, wakes him !

It has improved things a little for us, so might be worth a go.

Vix
 
Babies who are fond of sleeping on their tummies usually have breathing problems as a cause.
Try to check if he snores, breathes through the mouth, falks a lot.. He could be rolling over to overcome a blocked airway.
My little one used to be like yours. And my ped finished off my problem with simple nose sprays!
 
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