Troubled Sleep
We are trying to “teach” five-month-old Guppy to fall asleep on his own. He did this very well for his first four plus months, and then he learned to roll over. We’d put him in bed on his back, he’d roll over to his tummy, and scream. We’d flip him back, he’d roll over and scream. Lather, rinse, repeat. He was and has been adamant about not learning to roll from his tummy to his back, though that is supposedly (according to the oft-cursed, oft-wrong baby books) easier and learned earlier. So we had a choice–either we keep up the flip-n-scream till he finally fell asleep before he could flip over, or we encourage him to sleep on his tummy, since he’s no longer a newborn and the SIDS risk is lower. The problem with the former option was that even when we did this–because we tried–when he woke in the night, he’d automatically roll to his tummy, so we’d have to go through the flip-n-scream multiple times in a night. After a few nights of that, we decided that we’d all be happier if he learned to sleep on his tummy, with the hope that he’ll eventually learn to roll the other way. But this option is still a lesser of evils, and there’s has been much more crying at nap and bedtime, which puts us all on edge.