"THINGS THAT GO "OUCH" IN THE NIGHT"

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"Dear Dr Sears,
Our 14-month-old baby sleeps soundly and quietly for several hours, then in the middle of the night -- still soundly asleep -- he will reach for our hair (or my husband's beard!) and pull on it.
When he was smaller, this action was more of a gentle stroking, and it did not wake us up. Now that he is older and stronger, the hair stroking has turned into hair pulling, and it hurts! We remove his hands from our hair, cuddle him, and try to keep his hands away from our heads. It seems that when he passes back into the deeper (or lighter, perhaps?) portion of his sleep cycle, he relaxes again and sleeps deeply for the rest of the night.
Have you heard of this nighttime behavior before? The baby is sound asleep when this happens, so I'm not sure how to discourage this. We don't want to sleep apart, but we need to keep the hair on our heads!"

This is one of those problems where I would say that you are smarter, stronger, and faster than him, so the solution shouldn�t be too elusive. Of course, I�m sitting here trying to think of a solution and am drawing a blank!

A shower cap or space helmet would probably work, but they can be expensive (space helmet, that is).

Instead of getting rewarded with a cuddle when this happens, I might try discouraging this behavior by seeing that �something bad� occurs when your hair gets grabbed in the middle of the night. That �something bad� could be anything from a YELP, to a NOOO!, or however you tell him no during the day. Some sort of physical barrier between his hands and your head will probably help.