This is How We Roll...

Albert Einstein famously said once: "The definition of insanity is: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different result. ... " Countless parenting books, magazines, doctors, nurses, friends with kids, and just about any reference we could find say "put an infant, up to the first year of age, to sleep on his back.

Call me insane, but don't say I didn't have the best intentions. Budlet has been on a roll lately. Literally rolling around the floors of the house practicing his moves and trying to crawl. He gets his arse up in the air just fine sometimes and gets up on his arms often also, but hasn't quite mastered the art of putting those two skill sets together to actually begin to crawl. But he is getting awfully close. It is a bit humorous to see him try to crawl with his back end up and his face still planted on the carpet. I am surprised he doesn't yet have a rug burn on his nose.

Anyway, all this leads me to my delimma last night. After a good hour and a half of sleep on his back, Lukas decided it was time to practice his rolling and attempts at crawling. It apparently wasn't successful since he started to cry and when I went to check on him he was on his hands and 180 degrees rotated in his crib looking quite desperate. I rolled him over and turned him then tucked in his cover to the sides of the crib and comforted him. All seemed well for maybe a minute and I was ready to slink out of his room when over he went again. I again went through my motions of getting him settled and over once again he went. Well, this happened about 10 times with me attempting to lay a firm hand on his chest to keep him from rolling over (more cries until I removed said hand) but in the end Luke ended up where he intended which was on his stomach and asleep soundly.

What to do? I stood there in a state of delimma for a few moments until I decided to do what my gut instinct told me to do. Yes, I went downstairs and asked Mrs. LIAYF if I was being safe to leave him that way. I thought it was ok, and she did as well, but we were both (as new parents) struck with that lingering doubt that comes with bucking what all the expert advice tells you to do. It was the 'What if....?' That is a pretty strong devil on the other shoulder, so... needing assurance, Mrs. LIAYF called her younger sister who has the expert experience that we needed in just such a situation. She has 4 kids! She assured us to our relief that we were doing the right thing in leaving him to sleep on his stomach, since he can and will let us know if and when he needs rolled back to his back. We left him that way and that is the way he woke up this morning at 6:30. It seems that Budlet will be a side or stomach sleeper and we can't do a lot to prevent it. Que Sera, Sera!