Things People Never Tell You

There are things about babies that you hear over and over again, certain things that are just common sense if you've ever been around kids. Then there are the things no one tells you and you find out on your own, this is a story about one of those things. The other night after soccer I put Addison down in her crib - she was close to being asleep, and I went to shower. I came back to check to make sure she was asleep and that she had enough blanket, and she was staring up , I said "Hi" thinking she was awake, but her eyes were glazed and she didn't move at all. I panicked, completely freaked out that she was not moving, and laying there with her eyes open I plucked her out of bed, thinking that there was something seriously wrong. She kind of startled awake and started crying. I cozied her back down and got her back to sleep. This was not just eyes kind of open a la Owen, this was full on eyes open, deer in the headlights stare that made her look dead. Well come to find out that sleeping with eyes open isn't that uncommon in babies 12 to 18 months, they have much longer deeper REM sleep than adults so eye open sleeping isn't abnormal at all. No one told me this! Maybe it's not a common thing in our family, but I know lots of people with babies, I would think that I would have heard about this at least once before. Anyway, there's my story about how I almost had a heart attack - Addison probably did too considering how quickly she was pulled out of bed.