“What’s Lily up to this week?” I text my friend while pumping at 2 a.m. She had a baby three weeks after I did, so we spend a lot of time swapping late-night photos, stories and Oh God, why won’t she sleep past 5 a.m.?!? pleas.
“Lily’s AMAZING,” my friend texts back. (Whoa, all caps. Lucky her.) “And she’s sleeping so much better now that she can finally roll from her tummy to her back.”
Wait, what? My baby was already 6 months old at the time, and she was still spending the majority of her nights trying to roll onto her stomach, and then, when she succeeded, wailing for me to flip her back over. Like a screaming little turtle, only reversed. Lily was three whole weeks younger than my baby—and she was premature, while mine was late. The text sparked a deep fear: Is my baby developmentally behind?
So I did what any relaxed, completely not-panicking mom would do at two in the morning: I started frantically searching the internet for answers. And when do babies start to roll over? Well, it depends.