Sleep Inertia

You know that groggy and general crappy feeling you have sometimes when you wake up? Well that is sleep inertia and it occurs with babies too. It is worse when a baby (or adult) is overtired or has just taken a long nap, and occurs most often with naps. In fact, sometimes your child may awaken from a nap, which might be extra long, and scream as if
in severe pain. It can be that uncomfortable. My son definitely does this. Even tonight he missed his afternoon nap and woke up about 35 minutes later screaming like crazy. I've got my son pretty figured out by now and was pretty much expecting it to happen so it didn't' startle me at all. He was fine a second later. He just needed a little pat on the back before he drifted into deeper sleep.

If you haven't ever had sleep inertia you are in luck. It can be absolutely terrible. I used to sleep only a few hours a night in high school (for one reason or another) and would try to catch up occasionally by taking a nap. When I would wake up from these naps I would feel so horrible it was like having the flu times five. I would feel nauseous, have a horrible headache, have a stomachache etc. I'm actually still nervous to take a nap to this day because of how I used to feel after them.