Baby rocking/head banging to sleep

[Echocave]

Dd2 is coming up to one. For the last month she rocks on all fours and bangs her head quite hard on her cot bars to get to sleep. She does this during daytime naps and at night.

I'm finding this quite worrying. She rocks hard and the thudding noise sounds like she is hitting her head hard. Also, as she is on all fours her head is pointing slightly downwards and she's actually banging the top of her head not the sides or front.

I am worrying about it and don't know what to do. If I stay in and assist (move her back from corner of cot), she will eventually drop off but it takes her longer to get to sleep this way.

She has been ill lately with colds and I wonder if she's got headaches/sinus problems. Equally she might just like rocking. As a baby I did something similar but I was a very premature and sickly baby and always thought that was why I did it.

Can anyone share any advice? I'm getting her checked out at the GPs next week but would still be very grateful for any advice/experience.

Sorry I don't have any advice, just wanted to say it is relatively common to head-bang, some children get comfort from it. My DS2 head bangs a lot, to the extent that his forehead is always bruised. It's awful to see but we've been told by his paediatrician that he'll grow out of it - he does it more during the day than at night so I just try to distract him when he does it. He's also got a cold at the moment though, and I've noticed he's being doing it a lot more in bed since he's been bunged up, so maybe it helps to relieve the sinus problems. I hope the GP can offer some advice next week.

Thanks for this. It does sound like it's fairly common but it's still quite hard to watch!