Baby Sleep Positions: “The Stalker”

Posted under INSTRUCTIONAL DIAGRAMS

Baby Sleep Positions: The Stalker

 

It can be a little startling… You’re sleeping (at last) and you wake up for some reason. Even if your baby has the most beautiful eyes, when you wake up all groggy and see those eyes, wide open and inches from your face, drilling calmly into your soul? You might not say it, but maybe you think, “AH!!! Heh heh! Hey there, little one! Heh heh. Aren’t you supposed to be asleep? Uhhhh. How long have you been there… uh, staring… at me?”

Some sleeping situations can be scary, like finding that someone is awake when you thought they were asleep. C’mon. How many times has THAT bit been used in horror films? A scene showing a close-up of a sleeping or apparently unconscious face, and then suddenly ““POW!!!”“ eyes pop open with some freakish, loud sound. Scary stuff. I’m not saying that co-sleeping is like a horror film, but I’m sure some parents would.

It’s got its good side though. When parents watch their kids from the door at bedtime, it’s a Hallmark moment. You may even hear the comforted sighs from a crib or giggles from a bedspread. Very sweet. But being watched when you sleep has a line that can be crossed where it gets creepy. If you woke up with someone and they told you that they’d been watching you for hours and hours while you slept? Or all night long? Yeeeeeah, sweetness and romance just left the building. Just saying’.
 



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Other Sleep Positions
There are so many ways to not really sleep with your baby in bed.
 

73 Comments

  • Liesbet says:
    at 6:23 am

    If I’ve ever felt the urge to try co-sleeping with my second child, I lost it along the last couple of “baby sleep positions” posts on HTBAD. Thanks Andy 😛

    I’ve never really REALLY considered it, though. The first child grunted and snored too loud and even the second night after she was born – we were still in the hospital – I have shoved her, bed and all, into the adjacent bathroom so I could sleep. I’m a really good mom, me 🙂

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:14 pm

      Without any judgement for any cosleepers (including myself), you’re welcome. 😉 It’s like Hockey, Dubstep and Teletubbies: it’s not for everyone.

      Reply
  • Monica says:
    at 7:02 am

    To make this one even scarier, is when I open my eyes and my son is on all four’s with his face so close to mine. Eyes wide open and a hand in the air b/c I am pretty sure he was gonna slap me in the face to wake me. It’s just a small step to having a plastic knife (toy) in his hand and then really screaming. Haha.

    We don’t co-sleep anymore since he moves around so much, but sometimes on a weekend when I am so tired, and he wants to wake at 6, then I put him in bed with me to try to get another hour or two of sleep. These are the mornings when I have “The Stalker” sleep position. Hehe. Keep up the great work Andy!!!!!

    Reply
    • Heather B says:
      at 8:21 am

      We’ve totally experienced that, too! Only half the time we’re so tired, we don’t wake up in time to grab the hand before it connects with our face. Ouch!

      Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:16 pm

      Ha ha! I’ve been there. The plastic shiv would definitely be time for screaming.

      Reply
  • Rebecca says:
    at 8:05 am

    My cat does this one!

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:18 pm

      When we had cats they did too. Lots of pillow time as well, so even when they ventured off somewhere else in the house, flipping over in bed would result in face-planting into a small shed-fest. Waking up with a mouthful of cat hair is … unique.

      Reply
  • ana {bluebirdkisses} says:
    at 9:09 am

    haha My son sleeps in his own room but at 5am he’s ready to start his day so I bring him into our bed so hopefully we can snooze for another hour or two. Sometimes he falls asleep, but other times he entertains himself by staring at me, poking me in the eye, or trying to rip off my nose. 🙁

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:19 pm

      Ha ha ha ha ha! I’m pretty good at sleeping through all my son’s wakeup tactics up to the “nose ripping off” level. Once we get there it’s better than the smell of coffee brewing for pulling you out of the depths of sleep. 😉

      Reply
      • Kimberly says:
        at 8:13 am

        I have been laughing for an hour straight as I have journeyed from post to post. Then I found this one… clearly you haven’t met our daughter. She is a true monster.

        Her way of waking you up. In one very quick precise movement, she jabs a single finger up to deepest recesses of your nose cavity. There is no going back to sleep after that. Not only are you awake, but you have been violated. Sometimes I have nightmares.

        Reply
  • Alan says:
    at 9:12 am

    The first time this happened, it was our 2yo at the time who wandered into our room and was standing at the side of the bed, motionless and silent, just staring at me. Freaked me out so much it took me an hour to go back to sleep!
    Now it doesn’t bother me so much. I just tell myself they are trying to perfect their Jedi mind trick..

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:21 pm

      LMAO! It’s true! You’ve got to hope its something rad like Jedi Mind Trick practice rather than them figuring out what will scrape into the paint of your car the best or something.

      Reply
    • Emily says:
      at 10:10 am

      That reminds me of the first zombie in Dawn of the Dead – little blond girl. Freaks me OUT when my kids stand there, motionless and silent. *Shudder*

      Reply
  • Lori says:
    at 9:41 am

    My sisters kid use to flick army men in her face from the side of the waterbed to wake her up.

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 10:47 am

      Personally, I think that’s kind of rad. But maybe that’s because I’ve not yet been woken with a piece of angular and pokey plastic launched at my sleeping face. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

      Reply
  • Km says:
    at 9:51 am

    Even better when you wake up and there is a tiny finger in your nose.

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:22 pm

      So true! All way in. Those little vienna sausages can fit in to the hilt.

      Reply
  • Michael Gray says:
    at 9:58 am

    Loved it. Shared it.

    Reply
  • Jelisa | Blogging Ever After says:
    at 9:58 am

    Hahaha! We don’t co-sleep, but when our almost 10-month-old wakes up to nurse at 4 or 5 am, I’m too much of a zombie to do anything but bring him into bed with us and nurse him lying down. I have a feeling my husband has woken up in the wee morning hours to that stalker stare on more than one occasion.

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:26 pm

      It’s a good thing that our babies are the nicest stalkers lurking out there. I’m sure your husband has, I’ve woken up to see my wife passed out with her boob out and my boy latched on. I’d hear the smacking sound of him latching-off and then slowly turning his head to look at me. Sometimes it was a little surprising.

      Reply
      • Lisa says:
        at 9:24 am

        I’m imagining him turning his head 180 degrees without moving his body at all…

        Reply
  • Samantha says:
    at 10:13 am

    I have one even better. My barely two year old (12/23 bd) stands in the room on my side of the bed and stares at me until I wake up! UGGGGGH!

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:29 pm

      YES!!! We get that too. Once we woke up with him sort of shifting around, like some kind of Turrets dance. He was trying to make sounds with his motion so he could wake us up without actually doing so by direct means, to make it seem like it was an accident or something. Wild. 🙂

      Reply
  • J.D. Bruewer says:
    at 10:39 am

    My youngest is my brother’s granddhild by birth. (Flow chart to follow) She used to look like a miniature version of him. It was uber-creepy to wake up in the middle of the night with a miniature version of my brother’s face staring at me.

    Reply
  • Krista from The Playdate Crashers says:
    at 11:18 am

    Oh man…Kids are creepy, aren’t they?! Add in some heavy mouth-breathing (from my kids, not me) and I’m having flashbacks. *shudders*

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:32 pm

      I don’t like it when they use demonic kids in scary films. I don’t watch them, but even catching a trailer with some 2 year old with whited out eyes and black veins pulsating in a bleach-white face… c’mon, Hollywood. Shut it the f##k up! Parenting has enough terrors.

      Reply
  • MotherDuck says:
    at 1:05 pm

    Yes but still sort of cute, much scarier when it’s your 9 year old, standing next to you while you’re sound asleep because she can’t figure out what’s scarier; the shadows in her room or waking up mom in the middle of the night to comfort her. In the end I was the one that was the most frightened. I thought there was an intruder standing there and I was about to beat her to death with my pillow. What? It would have deterred them for a minute if it was an intruder.

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:32 pm

      LMAO!!! I can’t get the picture of you beating the s##t out of an intruder with a pillow out of my head! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

      Reply
  • daddrinks says:
    at 1:26 pm

    I love it when the kids sleep with us…for about 11 minutes. After that, the bed is just too small. My daughter is a bossy sleeper, and my son definitely qualifies as a creepy sleeper. Sometimes, he’ll just lie there and twirl my hair. WTF?

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:35 pm

      Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Lucas woke me up by drawing lines on my face once, which I would normally have like because I like that sort of pampering and futzing stuff. But I like it when I’m not trying to scrounge enough sleep that I don’t walk into poles the next day.

      Reply
  • Bruce Michaels says:
    at 8:24 pm

    Perhaps it’s strange, but I always wonder how long they’ve been staring at me, and what is so fascinating about watching dad sleep?

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:36 pm

      EXACTLY!?! And because you’ve been asleep, you’ll never know if they’ve been doing it for a minute or a few hours or something!

      Reply
  • Russ says:
    at 9:17 pm

    Oh my god this one’s my favorite. This has happened to me! Scared, the, BEJEEZUS, outta me. Probably from all those horror movies I’ve seen with the demon children and their freaky faces.

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:40 pm

      Science has measured, in circumstances like The Stalker, that Bejeezus particles can travel at velocities approaching the speed of light when they leave a person. Ha ha! So glad you not only liked it but that it was your fave. Means a lot for me to hear stuff like that.

      Reply
  • Hubby says:
    at 9:30 pm

    Andy, you forgot the long camera moves, the foreboding deep cello music and then when you open the eyes the high-pitched violin screeching (as in Psycho).

    We are not co-sleeping but our little 8 week-old stays in her cot in our room at the moment. We actually have difficulties falling asleep, because she’s so vocal with all sorts of noises ranging from the sounds of little sheep to some dude lifting heavy weights to heavy smoker type. Keeps us entertained and laughing.

    Waking up is a different story with mom mostly already up. Waiting for those ‘creepy’ wakes.

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:41 pm

      That’s hilarious. I suggest you record some of the sleepy-time sounds, it will make you laugh to your toes or get all misty eyed in a few years when you replay it. Trust me. 😉

      Reply
  • DadOfTwoBoys says:
    at 10:04 pm

    This one has been my reality quite a few times!

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 4:43 pm

      It’s one of those truths that no one talks about. Try to find a description of something like this in What To Expect. The index does not have a listing for “When your child scares the s##t out of you…”

      Reply
  • Erich says:
    at 3:53 pm

    Didn’t co-sleep with our first but with our son we didn’t yet have a room ready for him so for the first 2 months of his baby life he slept with mommy and daddy. There were H night, soul sucking eyes night, snoring nights, baby likes to rotate all night nights… Yeah, glad we bought this new house with a 3rd bedroom.

    Reply
  • Brandee says:
    at 8:35 pm

    We needed giggles over here tonight and this did it! For the first time this week I’m crying from laughter and not sadness. THANK YOU!!

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 9:20 pm

      I so know those moments. I’m so so so glad, I can’t yell you how much a comment like this means to me. I’m honored and, in a close a way as can be managed through the impersonality of the Internet, I’m there with you, happy I made you tear with laughter. You are always welcome and THANK YOU!

      Reply
  • Lisa says:
    at 9:27 am

    My 17-month-old is going through a night-waking phase and almost every night I wake up to see him sitting next to my head, swaying ever so slightly with his eyes half-closed. Doesn’t help that I just finished watching the first two Paranormal Activity movies…

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 7:29 pm

      Ha ha ha ha ha ha! We stay away from ANY film that has creepy/demonic/undead kids. They’re scary enough. 😉

      Reply
  • Susie says:
    at 6:33 pm

    I got one for you… I woke up in the predawn hours to find that our 16-month old had shifted over in the bed and placed her face on my pillow with her nose mere millimeters away from my nose. The scream I swallowed would have been epic enough to wake the neighbors…

    To make matters worse, she giggled and rolled over, most likely to do the same to my husband.

    Reply
  • Diane says:
    at 7:13 pm

    Our 16 month old definitely does this, mostly to my husband. She most recently added a whispered “Dada” as she leans in towards his face. Not creepy at all there, kiddo.

    Actually, we both find it kind of adorable. She is just so happy to roll over and realize that he’s there too.

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 11:22 am

      Amazing. It can be the cutest thing in the world. Ugh! My little one’s whisper wake ups could power a country with sheer cuteness.

      Reply
  • NJJ says:
    at 2:17 pm

    DD#1, our 2-1/2-year-old, co-slept with us, and I’ve seen my share of The Stalker. She also tends to pluck our arm-hairs until she falls asleep — does anyone else’s kid do that?

    DS and DDs 2 and 3 are triplets, and bed-sharing just wasn’t feasible, so we room-share. Folks, I’m here to tell you that if you think one stalker is creepy, just imagine three. You awaken in the middle of the night, glance at the babies to see how they’re doing, and find six glowing orbs fixated on you, cold and emotionless. Add a little Tubular Bells to that scene and you have a box office hit.

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 11:24 am

      Lucas is a bit of a squeezer and Cody was a hair stroker. I could never sleep through it, but I loved being futzed with.

      Wait whu!?! Triplets!!! Go you! Wow though, you’re right! I just imagined waking up to a pack of eyes staring at me in the darkness. Ha ha ha ha!

      Reply
  • Meggan says:
    at 10:01 am

    last night our ten month old gave us our very first stalker baby experience (with her, not ever) and she sat between our pillows singing and talking. I tried to nurse her which resulted in a few satisfied burps when she resumed sitting. after crawling in circles for a while, babbling the whole time, she became a neck scarf and eventually became the crossbar of the h with her feet in my neck and her head at my husbands side then allowing for two more hours of sleep. I guess not really an H as my husband and I always try to keep our feet touching since not much else gets too. 😉 more like an upside down A. We have to as we are entering our twelfth year of cosleeping. thank goodness, our older three are on their own at night, with the four year old wandering in occasionally. thank you for the accurately hilarious diagrams.

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 11:26 am

      LOL! You are most welcome and THANK YOU. It’s very flattering and we appreciate all the comments we get from the our readers. 🙂

      Reply
  • Lexi says:
    at 6:18 am

    Loving your whole site, but I can’t help but notice that none of your diagrams involve waking up covered in someone else’s pee. Surely this is worthy of consideration. Heh.

    Reply
    • andy says:
      at 11:27 am

      It’s on the list. Among other things a parent can get covered in. Ha ha ha! Stay tuned.

      Reply
  • Angela says:
    at 3:12 am

    Another one my husband can relate to, for sure. We have seen our son sitting up in bed, sound asleep, which is also pretty weird. Eventually, he lies down again. The cutest was when I awoke to see baby sitting up, looking at his own shadow on the wall (cast by a light from some electronic device in the room), touching it and trying to figure out who/what it was. Another precious cosleeping moment!

    Reply
  • Sabrina says:
    at 6:03 pm

    I just discovered all of these and I am dying laughing because I can relate to each and everyone. The stalker is my favorite because as it is, we call our kid “The Creeper”. He just loves to stare at people. So yeah he creeps and stalks us when he sleeps with us. His big eyes just hovering over my face… watching.. .waiting.

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 12:23 pm

      That’s rad! The Creeper has a special place in my heart because I’m a Minecraft junky. It’s a building/survival video game, which has monster type called a Creeper. It explodes and ruins what you’ve built. And kills you. 😉

      Reply
  • Jo says:
    at 1:02 pm

    Our son sleeps in our room in his crib, which is directly next to our bed. There have been many occasions when I opened my eyes and found him sitting up with his tiny face watching me through the bars of the crib. Very creepy! On one occasion I opened my eyes and saw him standing up staring at us over the top of the rail, I didn’t move and watched him for about 5 minutes while he just stood there staring. Finally he sat down closed his eyes and fell over, falling back to sleep on his own! I was more upset to discover that the little stinker can soothed himself back to sleep! We sometimes spend hours rocking and holding him to fall asleep not knowing that all along he is able to do it on his own!

    Reply
  • Sam Hamilton says:
    at 2:42 pm

    The other one that my son does is what I like to call the “Pimp Slap”..If I move he thinks in his little asleep brain I am abandoning him or something and backhands me in the face to make sure I’m still there! Always gets me right in the nose! But then he kicks my husband in the crotch all the time so I would take the Pimp Slap anyday!

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 12:20 pm

      Priceless! Someone else actually wrote in with the suggestion of “Pimp Slap.” I said that title might be too edgy, but…. I dunno. Maybe not. 😉 I’ll put in on the list.

      Reply
  • juliaopal says:
    at 10:02 am

    I think the creepy staring is one of the least terrifying ways to wake up with your child…

    I mean… getting slammed in the eye with an entire treehouse made for weebles is probably my favorite way to get up in the morning. No coffee needed! A big thank you 22 month old son! 🙂 I don’t even have to wear eye makeup thanks to that one, the blue tones from his various toys are fabulous!

    Reply
  • Hele says:
    at 3:18 pm

    My favourite was when I woke up with my one-year-old’s teeth around my nose. Luckily he didn’t clamp down on it though.

    Reply
  • tricia says:
    at 11:15 am

    Andy- Thank you so much for your quick response! Your post is hilarious! I have linked your funny image back to your post if anyone clicks on it in mine! 🙂 Thanks, again- Here is the C&C humor post on co-sleeping that contains your image…. http://crittersandcrayons.com/2012/10/02/how-to-get-kids-to-sleep-in-their-own-beds/

    Tricia

    Reply
  • tab says:
    at 11:31 am

    Omg that has been happening to us alot,even weirder since you put this up that drawing looks like us too.ha! 🙂

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 9:18 am

      Ha ha! That’s rad! And totally justifies all of the time I’ve spent lurking in the bushes outside your house. 😉

      Reply

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