Baby Sleep Positions: “The Roundhouse Kick”

Posted under INSTRUCTIONAL DIAGRAMS

Baby Sleep Positions: The Roundhouse Kick

 

The nighttime abuse we take as parents is a testament to how much we love heading to bed with the baby on board. Co-sleeping is special or at least necessary for some, but a lot of people don’t know that it can also occasionally be a good way to get a bloody nose or an impressive black eye. You don’t need a kick to head to figure this one out, but it would help to illustrate the point.

Because I get such a kick (pun intended) out of all the joke Chuck Norris expressions on the interwebs, I have to add that if the baby depicted in this Instructional Diagram were actually a baby version of Chuck Norris, instead of waking up abruptly, this roundhouse kick to the head would have put him to sleep forever. Ha ha! Okay sorry, I’m done.

My wife and I have loved having our little one in bed with us. Despite all the punches and kicks and scratches we’ve received from our little sleep-fighting lad. Hmmmmm… That makes me think of something: remember, parents, sleep safely with your baby. I’m not just talking about your baby, I mean you as well! Maybe if you slept with a helmet that has a face-shield? It might not be as uncomfortable as you’d think! Maybe.
 



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66 Comments

  • Jack says:
    at 6:22 am

    In the Bart Scott voice – “Can’t Wait!” My better half is 17 weeks preggo, with our first, and as much as I look forward to throat chops and eye gouges from the little man, I’m really going to miss her somersaulting through the night and leaving me alone, blanket-less, cold and in the dark thinking to myself, “Sex, why have you left me so!? We used to be such great pals. The cologne is suppose to attract you to me – not make you want to vomit.”

    I love the support for what to expect when baby makes landfall – but WTF am I suppose to do for the next 5 months????

    ~ Jack
    BusinessBeeKeepersandPorkBellies.blogspot.com

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 11:29 am

      Ha ha ha ha ha! Amazing. Wow, congrats! i always get a thrill when someone mentions they’re expecting. Yay!

      WTF to do? I’ve heard that some martial arts masters hit their forearms and shins repeatedly with a stick made really dense wood… Ha ha! You’re going to worry, everyone does, so I’ll say don’t worry about it too much.

      Reply
  • Brimag says:
    at 6:31 am

    I’ve been waiting for this one! Except Dad never seemed to get kicked in the face at our house, just Mom. A helmet would have been a good investment, I think.

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 4:33 pm

      Ha ha! Right!?! There’s a whole group of assault and battery related sleep positions that need to be detailed out. 😉

      Reply
  • Annie says:
    at 8:43 am

    One time I got kicked so hard I had a bruise on my face. I woke up screaming. She woke up crying. Oh the fun.

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 4:34 pm

      Oh man! We had one reader comment in that her nose had been broken in her sleep! Yikes!

      Reply
  • Lauren says:
    at 9:33 am

    This totally happens to be almost every night and last night as a bonus bit me in stomach. Oh the joys of co-sleeping.

    Reply
  • Kristen says:
    at 9:38 am

    You must do something to pay homage to the fact that sometimes in the middle of mom has to move to the other side of the baby so that the baby can nurse on the “other boob”. You can’t simply move the baby because that would put the baby too close to the edge of the bed and in an unsafe spot. For our family, that puts two large people on one half of the kingsize bed and the 5 month old in the middle. It’s tight quarters for sure.

    Reply
    • Kristen says:
      at 9:39 am

      … in the middle of the night… not the middle of mom.

      Reply
      • Andy says:
        at 4:35 pm

        Ha ha! I kinda llike that the way it was though. I speak sleep-deprivese. 😉

        Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 4:36 pm

      I’m familiar with this human spacial puzzle of co-sleeping and breastfeeding. Soooooooo familiar!

      Reply
    • Lisa says:
      at 8:17 pm

      Here’s something I didn’t figure out until the second baby (and have since learned lots of moms do this). Start with baby on the outside in the “unsafe” spot – while you’re still sorta lucid – and keep your hand on baby. A few minutes later, when it’s time to switch, do the “hug-and-roll” maneuver. Just cradle baby close to you and roll with baby on top to place baby in the middle of the bed. Then you’re all set to nurse on the other side. Baby gets to nurse to sleep; you get to go to sleep while baby nurses; and daddy doesn’t move at all: win, win, win! 🙂

      Reply
      • Andy says:
        at 1:44 am

        You’re a pro. I love it! I am familiar with all of this baby technique through my wife of course, but I am fascinated and awed nonetheless. 😉 WINNER!

        Reply
  • Meg says:
    at 9:42 am

    *sigh* I will not miss being kicked in the face when my son decides he would like his OWN bed instead of forcing me to sleep on the floor after a long night of abuse.

    Reply
  • Michael Gray says:
    at 9:57 am

    And as they get older, their range of attack increases.

    On the rare occasions that our son crawls into bed with us, I just turn my back toward him. Though a crane-kick to the spine still has the potential to send you through the headboard, it sure beats an on-the-money groin shot.

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 4:39 pm

      Yeah, the groin shot is coming up soon in the series. It’s a whopper of a sleep position candidate. Man or woman. As Folger’s coffee put it in their jingle, “The best part of waking up… is not a foot in your nuts.” Or something like that.

      Reply
  • Manda says:
    at 9:59 am

    I’m still waiting for the head-butt position. My toddler is like a friggin’ billy goat. Not the kindest of alarm clocks. 😉

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 4:41 pm

      But waaaaaay more effective than an alarm clock, right? I’ve had some serious blunt force trauma at night and find it a little difficult to just roll back into slumber.

      Reply
  • Bill says:
    at 11:07 am

    I’m with Michael Gray, I’ve never been kicked in the head, but I’d have to say from the Dad perspective, nothing beats the groin kick as a quick way to wake up in the middle of the night!

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 4:43 pm

      It is a singular experience to wake up that way. Especially because of the wave of ache that follows the initial impact. Totally on it’s way in a future diagram. 😉

      Reply
  • Ollie says:
    at 11:18 am

    My offspring has a new one as well. I call it “Face/Off”: perfidiously, he waits until I am in deep (haha) sleep. Then he slaps my face with all his little might, squeezes like a maniac and tries to rip off my face. Nice kid…

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 4:44 pm

      Holy crap! Ha ha ha ha! Sometimes they do just seem like they’re out to get us don’t they? 😉

      Reply
  • Christina says:
    at 11:40 am

    Not a big fan of co-sleeping, but we haven’t really been able to avoid it since baby made her debut. 2 year old woke me up with this one this morning…

    As to the bf-ing in bed, I just give her one boob all night long and chain feed the other in the morning =p

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 4:50 pm

      LOL! That why I wrote “necessary” in there. To my wife and I, it was both, special and necessary.

      LOL! @ “As to the bf-ing in bed, I just give her one boob all night long and chain feed the other in the morning =p”

      Reply
  • luba says:
    at 1:11 pm

    Agh, I remember my first trying to re-arrange herself on the pillow around 1 1/2 yrs old and head-butting me in the eye. She never felt a thing, but I woke up with a nice shiner the next morning.

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 4:48 pm

      In the morning: “Mommy what happened to your face?” Oh man! Ha ha!

      On our other Facebook Page My Kid Just Said a woman wrote in that she had an accident that broke her nose and while it was healing, her daughter ran up to hug her and head-butted he in the nose. She bit back her scream and her daughter said, “Mommy, are you crying because you love me so much?” the woman said she just nodded. YIKES!

      Reply
      • luba says:
        at 10:42 am

        OMFG – ouch! Kids have very powerful skulls – I can only imaging the eye watering pain of that one.

        Reply
  • Mel says:
    at 3:47 pm

    While I’ve never gotten a kick to the face (every other part of my body, though) I think you need to do a post warning of the dangers of baby headbuttsvdt, once that soft spot closes, it sets off a chain reaction that instantly turns the skull into some sort of stone/steel hybrid super-hard substance, which is at best dangerous, and at worst, potentially lethal. I’ve been head butted in the throat, and my then 15 month old son put me in hospital by head butting me just in that soft spot behind the jaw, and below the ear, after waiting in agony in the emergency room for hours (might still be waiting if I hadn’t cried) was poked by 4 doctors, sent for X-rays, to be told, ‘your jaw’s not broken, but we don’t know what’s wrong, take these anti-inflammatory’s and see your doctor in a few days’ My doctor took one look and said ‘if both sides were swollen I’d say you had mumps, he must have gotten you right in the salivary gland.’ it took a month before I could chew properly, unfortunately I didn’t lose any weight

    Reply
    • Mel says:
      at 3:47 pm

      Oops, my 10 month old is helping me type today

      Reply
      • Andy says:
        at 4:50 pm

        Yeah, my kid just broke wind at home. It’s funny that my co-workers can smell it. 😉

        Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 4:57 pm

      Ha ha! I’ve been pretty well tenderized, too. A baby’s head can be like a club. It’s the surprise factor that make it worse. Pain is pain, but pain mixed with shock and surprise seems to amplify it some how. I’ve had the throat headbutt and was astonished at how painful my windpipe getting battered in by my little munchkin’s skull turned out to be.

      Reply
  • bambisia says:
    at 8:01 pm

    been there. done that. 🙂

    Reply
  • Sahib says:
    at 10:39 pm

    While I recommend quality headgear, please please please dont forget the importance of a quality cup.

    Reply
  • Niki A says:
    at 4:55 am

    This makes me think of the product that my husband and I think would sell well with the co-sleeping crowd: a night-time protective cup for daddy.

    Reply
  • Eman says:
    at 12:06 pm

    My daughter’s legs seem to respond to any kind of stimuli; anything so much as touches it, they start flailing about. Last night she was like Liu Kang kicking the wife and I when she ended up in the ‘H’ position.

    Reply
  • Paul R says:
    at 6:47 pm

    LOL I’m surprised my wife and I didn’t need massive reconstructive surgery after all our girl’s kicks.

    Reply
  • Katharina says:
    at 2:10 am

    We tried this last night, but it seemed too easy. So we rose a level: Same position with leg-in-a-plaster. It worket well, dad looks like after a fight against Chuck Norris 🙂

    Reply
  • Mom of 2 says:
    at 5:07 am

    Next sleep position should be the cock block

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 11:42 am

      Ha ha! I’m putting it on the list right now! But in the interest of shareablity, I’ll give it a euphemistic name. “The Chastity Belt” perhaps.

      Reply
  • lynn says:
    at 5:15 pm

    My favorite position lately is similar, except it’s her headbutting my face as she falls back asleep. How it doesn’t phase her, I have no idea. What I also don’t know is how I haven’t woken up with more blackeyes (just one in a year’s time!)

    Reply
  • Chris says:
    at 4:27 am

    We call this the “Sleep Ninja”

    Reply
  • Brian says:
    at 7:24 pm

    Oh – the times that I have been woken up by a round house kick to the eye. Go to work, everyone asks what the other guy looks like (the first time), tell them that is was my 18 month old daughter. They laugh, I cringe in pain.

    They kick hard …

    Reply
  • Kristina says:
    at 7:46 pm

    I found your website by accident, and it’s truly AMAZING! I figure I would share the “situation” I woke up to this morning. I should prob give you a smidge of backround information: I’m going through a divorce I left my x-husband about 2 1/2 yrs ago, I moved in with my Mother which was supposed to be very temporary, but then my father was dignosed with lung cancer so they asked me to stay to care for him. That said I have a single bed. I woke up this morning with my almost 8yr old who is the Size of a 12 or 13yr old, my 4yr old twins, My mothers 2 “Jugs” Jack Russel Terrior and Pug mix, and her Jack Russel Terrior and myself all shoved in a single bed, and mind you I’m 5’11 so I barley fit in the damn thing! I don’t mind the kids crawling in bed with me due to a bad dream or they just wake up and need a snuggle, or even a dog once in while fine.. BUT DO THEY HAVE TO ALL COME VISIT THE SAME NIGHT? Needless to say no battle wounds, but from the position I was forced with I woke up walking like a 92yr old!

    Reply
  • Daddy by Default says:
    at 7:48 pm

    seriously, how funny is that chuck norris site? This one is my favorite: Chuck Norris makes laxatives get diarrhea.

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 2:05 pm

      Fantastic! I love making them up myself too. Fun stuff

      Reply
      • Daddy by Default says:
        at 5:40 pm

        Totally agree. But everytime I think I have a good one, I go to the site and see all the really good ones and then i get discouraged and dont submit. It’s a chuck norris mind F#@!

        Reply
  • DigitalSocrates says:
    at 11:33 pm

    Hi, spotted this comic on Fatpita and had to drop by. I’m part of a company that is promoting a Safe-Sleeping campaign http://ican4kids.org/issues_Safe_Sleeping.asp which is trying to raise awareness about the dangers of co-sleeping. It’s difficult to tell from the comic what age the child is, but I notice from the comments that there are still many people giving anecdotes about nursing in bed and similar stories. An infant should /never/ be in bed with a sleeping adult, because of the danger of an adult rolling on top of them, or from them rolling onto their stomach where they may suffocate.

    Reply
  • Nannet says:
    at 2:12 am

    & what about the babies that wake up in the middle of the night and then they suddenly fall off to bed by giving (and receiving) a big bump in our bumping head >_< Maybe head-nose, nose-head oowww!

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 2:07 pm

      Oh man. That’s a double whammy because you’re in crazy pain and freaked out for the little one. YIKES!!!

      Reply
  • Jenny says:
    at 12:15 pm

    These have to be made into a book. I’m laughing my ass off, and I can’t wait to share this with our husband. Our only hope of reprieve is when our youngest (7 months old) gets old enough to stick in bed with our oldest (3-1/2 years old).

    As an aside, one of her favorite positions is to heavily drape her arm across our throats. And she used to cry, as a wee one, when we’d try to protect ourselves and turn our backs to her in bed 😀 It was so pitiful that we’d just suffer through the abuse. How on earth they can flip 180 degrees in their sleep to be able to kick you in the head is beyond my sleep deprived comprehension!

    Reply
  • Matt says:
    at 7:42 am

    If this baby is supposed to represent Chuck Norris (as a baby) shouldn’t it already have a full beard?

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 10:25 am

      I guess you didn’t read the post. But THAT would have been a funny visual. Problem is, there are a LOT of people from all over the world who come to this website and as much as I love the Chuck Norris meme, it falls flat with some people who aren’t in the Chuck know.

      Reply
  • Diane says:
    at 6:47 am

    I kept trying to look at this diagram in public places but kept laughing so hard and so loud that I just had to wait until I got home. Co-sleeping with bambino numero dos I can relate to EVERY SINGLE one of these!

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      at 10:27 am

      I love that! Our website disrupts parents’ sleeping kids and the general public piece with LOLs. Amazing.

      Reply
  • Ron Manila says:
    at 2:23 am

    Awesome post… Me and my wife go through this alot, its nice to see where not the only ones.. ha ha.

    Reply
  • Baby Sleep Positions : Corner Stork Baby Blog says:
    at 6:19 pm

    […] “The Roundhouse Kick” […]

    Reply
  • Vacationland Mom says:
    at 5:24 am

    @ Kristen- you could try a bedrail, that’s what we do so we can “switch sides” without too much chaos.

    This morning my 16 month old slammed the back of his head (which I was explaining to him is like a ROCK) into the top of my ear. It hurt wicked bad, guy(s). Your next one should be when you wake up and the kid is literally at the edge of the bed fast asleep. You’re like how did he get there??!!

    Reply

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