Thar he rolls!

Instead of waiting until he’s 16 and learning to drive, my son has decided to start giving me heart attacks now at only 4 months old.

He has discovered rolling over.

For the past several weeks, Buddy has been seamlessly rolling from back to front.  Nearly every time I put him down on his back, he winds up his little legs and throws himself onto his belly.  At first, he hated being on his belly; he’d roll over, discover his new position, then start crying.  I imagined the internal dialogue to be something akin to, “Hey! Look what I can do!  . . . oh crap.”

He’s better on his belly now, in fact, he’s pushing up, sticking his butt in the air, and quite frankly becoming awfully close to crawling.

This isn’t what causes me concern, however.  When he’s doing this by day, it’s exciting, and fun!  When he does it at night, it’s a different story.

This started about 2 1/2 weeks ago.  I put him in his crib, he wound up his little legs, and fell asleep on his belly.  With all the “back to sleep” initiatives, of course, I’m pre-programmed to freak out if he sleeps on his stomach because of SIDS.  The first night, I literally sat next to his bed for 45 minutes making sure he kept breathing.

Then he took it one step further.

On a trip to NJ last week, Buddy  slept in a hotel crib and decided he wanted to face-plant the crib!  I tried turning his head to the side a number of times, but he just shoved it back directly into the mattress.  Ugh.  So another few nights were spent staring endlessly at my son to make sure he was breathing.

There is no longer a question of whether he’ll roll over and sleep on his face; the question now is:  in what position will he end up? Sprawled flat?  Or this new position:  fists tucked by his cheeks, knees curled up under him, and his butt sticking straight up!

Crazy kid.

I’ve become more used to this now, but I still check on him multiple times during the night.

I remember thinking, when I was pregnant, that once Buddy came out, I’d stop worrying about him because then I’d *see* him.

Right.

I fear that pregnancy was just the tip of the iceberg.