Problem:

“Thanks to Babywise, my baby has been doing very well with his naps, until this week. He’s recently learned to roll over on his own but now he’s rolling over during his naps and at night, gets stuck and won’t go back to sleep unless I go and roll him back over. This is happening at nearly all his naps and several times throughout the night. Help!”

Answer:

“This problem will come up whether your baby started out as a tummy sleeper or a back sleeper. There will come a day when he learns to roll over and will get stuck and not be very happy about it.

Basically, you can tackle these two ways. One is the “wait it out” approach. Work with the baby during playtime, helping him learn to roll over both ways, then when he gets stuck during naps or at night, get up as often as needed to play “roll over patrol” putting him aright, until he finally figures out either how to get use to the new position, or he figures out how to roll back the other way. The down side of this approach is that it can take a couple of months before this skill takes place!

The alternative is to combine working with the ‘roll over skill’ during waketime and also teach baby how to be comfortable sleeping in any position he happens to find himself. Some may ask ‘why not start baby out on his preferred side and then when he wakes up and rolls over, let him work out on his own getting back to sleep?’ The potential problem with this approach is that once baby has had even a little bit of a “power nap” he’s often good to go with some fussing, just about as long as it takes for you to finally rescue him! So while this may work if done at nighttime, it is usually not as successful during naps. In the long run, it seems to be better to start baby out on his unfavored side at the beginnings of naps and nighttime.

It really comes down to personal choice and weighing the pros and cons: either intervening while working during wake time or allowing baby to adapt at his pace for however long it may go. Should the choice be putting your baby down for every nap and nighttime on the unfavored side, the process usually takes anywhere from 2 to 4 days. If the choice is to vary the nap process, sometimes placing him on his favored side so he can get a good nap, other times on his unfavored side, it may take a bit longer.”