When Simon wakes up from his naps and nighttime sleep, Matt and I let him talk or sing to himself a bit, then go in to get him once we hear crying. For several weeks, we reliably heard a bit of happy babbling before Simon grew tired of being alone and started to whine. Then, a few weeks ago, the pattern changed. Simon would begin to cry quickly, and when we arrived in the nursery, we’d be greeted by watching Simon struggle to get out of a belly-down position.
Typically, we’d see him prop up on his arms and wriggle a bit, then give up, flop face down, and wail. I understand why he’s not crawling in his crib; he can’t crawl, and he has nowhere to go even if he could. What I don’t understand is why he isn’t rolling over, since he’s been able to do that for ages. He doesn’t even try to roll over. He just gets up on his arms, struggles like a 90-pound weakling doing a push-up in gym class, and then collapses in despair.
It’s disheartening. Even more so is that sometime during this drama, he inevitably hits his head on his crib aquarium and thereby sets up a multimedia show in the middle of the night.
Matt and I decided to investigate a few nights ago, and what we found surprised us. One late night I tip-toed into the nursery around midnight because Simon was crying. I found him tummy down and still half asleep. I gave him his pacifier (we call this “re-corking”), walked out, and he fell right back asleep. A few nights later, it was Matt’s turn to investigate. Matt walked in to find Simon making noise and “swimming” in his crib. He tip-toed out without taking any action, and again Simon went to sleep.
Clearly, Simon is now sleeping tummy down. That being the case, I am perplexed as to why he is so unhappy waking up that way, why he won’t right himself, and why he’ll do anything to prevent being tummy down when he’s awake. It’s a mystery.