Helping your baby learn to roll

Since the Back to Sleep campaign began in 1994, parents have been taught that the safest way for babies to sleep is on their backs.  As a result, we swaddle them up in the hospital and they often continue to sleep swaddled until somewhere around 3 or 4 months of age (give or take).  Inevitably though, the day comes where your baby is busting out of the swaddle and can no longer be contained in their straight jacket swaddle and it’s time to take them out.  This can be a terrifying day for parents for several reasons:  1) many wonder if their baby will ever sleep without being swaddled and 2) babies tend to be rather “flaily” when they are used to being contained and now have arms going every which way.  The best way for babies to start to become better at containing their limbs and, by extension, start to be able to regulate better is to be able to roll onto their bellies.

Once babies can roll themselves onto their stomachs and do so in their sleeping space, it is safe for them to sleep in that position.  The challenge is that many babies these days have never slept like that and many also don’t spend that much time on their bellies during the day so they may end up on their stomachs and be MAD to be there.  Especially if your baby is between 4 and 6 months and isn’t happy hanging out on their stomach, I encourage you to work on increasing the time in this position so that when they do end up here at night, they aren’t quite as unhappy to be there. 

Check out these videos on ways to help your baby increase the amount of time on their bellies that they may not hate quite so much:

Beyond increased tummy time, there are a lot of great ways that you can start to work with your baby to help them start to roll onto their bellies.  For babies, sleeping on their bellies puts a lot of pressure on their body since the firm mattress pushes back against them and helps to them to be able to regulate themselves.  This can improve sleep tremendously.  Also, if your baby has reflux, sleeping on their stomach often helps them to be more comfortable as it puts the contents of their stomach lower down.

This video has useful exercises that can help your baby start rolling more:

This video uses a different approach, involving a mat that helps your baby become familiar with the rolling sensation: 

A couple of last things to remember about rolling and sleep:   Like with any movement milestone that your child learns, it has the potential to disrupt their sleep due to the increased level of brain activity that takes place in preparation for learning such a big, new skill.  That disruption often comes prior to mastering the skill which is always confusing because it is hard to know that this is what is truly happening before you see your child accomplish the task.  And, since we have had so much fear put into us about tummy sleeping, it is likely that you as parents may not sleep the first night your child rolls onto their belly and falls asleep.  It can take some time to be comfortable with this as a parent!