baby travelling around cot in sleep

[littlestrawby]

Hi everyone

My 10mo is an absolutely terrible sleeper and always has been. Recently she has started to (occasionally) link together sleep cycles in the evening so that after the first 45 minutes of sleep she will stir, have a wriggle around, then get back off to sleep without any help from me or DH. This may happen once every other night so its very much in its infancy!

The problem is I can see from the monitor that each time she stirs she command crawls about a foot and a half up the bed. So she runs out of space very quickly and ends up with her head rammed up at the top of the cot, which obviously leads to her waking up the next time she tries to get moving.

I don't think it's anything to do with practicing skills as she's been crawling for months and has been walking for about 5 weeks. She is just a wriggler!

I dont see how she is ever going to sort herself out if she is getting stuck at the top of the bed within 1.5 hours of being put down.

Any suggestions or tips for how to tackle this?! Is this just another of the endless phases?!

My DD does the same thing and has done for months (14 months old now). Shes given herself a few bruises by hitting her head on her travels in her sleep which is a nightmare for everyone!

We put her in a sleeping bag, attach men's braces to the bottom of the sleeping bag with the clips and then tie the braces around the wooden slats at the bottom of her cot.

It looks and sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it stops her from travelling up to the top of her cot where she repeatedly bangs her head, but still lets her roll over, turn around etc. Plus the baby sleeping bag means they're always warm even if they do end up at the top of the cot so you don't have to worry about them being uncovered or having blankets over their face xx

Hi mother thanks for your response. Sounds like you have an interesting method!!! How does your DD roll over if there's clips attached to the bottom, don't they get twisted around each time she rolls? I think I'd be a bit worried about them somehow becoming a strangulation risk, but probably because I can't quite picture how you do it...

My DS did this. Then shortly after he learnt how to turn round rather than just go forward. So he still roams around the cot in his sleep but now he turns round when he reaches an edge. I’m guessing your DD will figure it out soon too.

Mine did this. But we only had a canvas travel cot, not a wooden one, so they just squirmed around but didn't bang their heads or wake up when they hit the end. Do you have cot bumpers, would that help?

Egremont good to hear your DS worked it out himself! At what age was that?

Mesmeri I can see how a travel cot would be much better in this scenario! We don't have any cot bumpers, I'm too scared to use anything in the cot in case she gets tangled up with all her wriggling. I think the issue is her having no space left to move how she wants to when it's time for her next wriggle, rather than the surface against her being hard vs soft.

I've just gone upstairs and dragged her down to the bottom of the cot again to give me some more time before next wake up

My DD used to do this but has slowly learnt spacial awareness. I wouldn't use anything to tie her or bumpers to the cot, bruises are preferable to strangulation. I think you can get breathable mesh bumpers that aren't a strangulation risk though.