SO. Last night. Yes, the night of nights in which my dear son decided to try to jump out of his crib. Would’ve made it to, but I found him clinging to the side. I think he freaked himself out. He’s started to wake up at different times of the night demanding to sleep with us, and just the last two nights he wouldn’t go to bed on his own at ALL. That’s right, just after I wrote this post about our ideal bedtime routine and his exquisite cuteness, he called it quits. And John and I were left, sitting on the floor of his room, wondering if the time for a toddler bed had arrived.
We were freaking out. Panicked.
I want you to understand, I think we’re good parents. We talk to Camper, play with him, he’s is never out of the care of someone who loves him. (That one is not necessary to be a good parent, it’s just a choice we make because we have people around him that love him that can also babysit sometimes). He’s well adjusted and happy. And I think, even with all the shitake we’ve gone through this last year or so, we’re pretty happy to.
But that happiness is waaaayyyy dependent on sleeping.
And my sleeping well is contingent on NOBODY TOUCHING ME OR LOOKING AT ME OR BREATHING IN MY DIRECTION (and if you think I’m exaggerating I’m really not just ask John) and John’s good night’s rest depends on being able to wear the CPAP machine. Neither of these things can happen when Camper is in bed with us, because a) he likes to smash his skull into John’s and b) he likes to kick me in the, well. In a place that girls don’t like to be kicked.
ALSO, when it took 15 minutes to put him to bed (and that included PJ’s and tooth brushing) I had blissful unwinding time. John would come home and we could eat, or chat, or go for a run or watch TV or I could clean if I needed to or do the laundry or go to book club or go to bed early or watch a movie or talk things out that needed to be talked out or answer the phone when a friend called or…you get the picture.
But last night he didn’t go to bed until after 10. And by then it was a frantic dash for bed ourselves, just to make sure we got some sleep in. 4am he woke up freakity freaking out and I went in to sleep with him and he woke me up at 5, his nose pressed to mine, saying “Mom-ee?”
Holy crap we needed a solution.
We did brainstorming while we driving around last night trying to get him to chill the frick out. We though about a new nightlight, in case he was afraid of the dark. The one we’ve used his whole life is suddenly dead, which makes me sad because it is the light up globe I’ve had since I was a wee girl. We got a new nightlight and also picked up a bedrail, because our other “brainstormed ideas” included converting his crib to a toddler bed and then sitting in there as he fell asleep until he learned to stay in it, or putting the rail on the twin bed and cosleeping in his room with him. Other ideas included tying his legs together (WE WERE TIRED PEOPLE, AND OBVIOUSLY WE WE NOT GOING TO DO THIS ONE! Remember the rules of brainstorming? You’re not allowed to veto illegal ideas until a later stage!)(this by the way was very much like the time I thought we should medical tape his pacifier to his face. I was really tired, then, too, and quickly saw how that was a bad plan) and creating various barriers around his crib with walls, dressers and then covering the floor with pillows, etc. None of that had to happen, though, because he did fall asleep in the car and slept til 4am and THEN, TODAY, we came up with
THE SOLUTION.
We lowered his crib. Now I know what you’re thinking. “But Erin, his crib was on the lowest setting already. You blogged about that when you went through the recall last year” and yes, it was. (And wow. Not only did I blog about that but I REMEMBERED that I blogged it. Pathetic.) But I wondered if the floor would work, and it does. I’ll have to take pictures to show you how NON GHETTO it looks, but it turns out that the wooden platform that the mattress sits on could be lowered completely to the ground and didn’t slide out from under the crib, and the mattress can sit on it without and dangerous situations happening. I even jumped my own butt into the crib to check it out, and it passed muster. I’ll get around to taking a few pictures, and if you can see any potential dangers you’ll have to let me know.
And then he cried again. He cried at naptime and then he cried at bedtime, and I’m left a little confused. I’m into the whole attachment parenting thing, but in my experience we’re ALL HAPPIER and ALL SLEEP BETTER (even Camper) in different rooms. We’ve had a couple rough spots in the past, usually after he’s been sick, but there has been maybe one night of fussing and then he’s back to blowing kisses and snuggling in. But I think I’ll watch closely this time to make sure he’s not feeling too alone. It’s hard for me to think of sacrificing MY alone time, but if he needs me to sit in there with him while he falls asleep, we might have to consider it. We shall see, we shall see.
All I know is that once we finally got him to fall asleep this afternoon, we couldn’t get him OUT of his crib. After three hours John and I took turns trying to get him to wake up, and he’d open an eye at us and then snuggle back in. Maybe he’s just trying to prepare us for teenagerhood?
Sigh.
Tags: oh man.
Thanks, Erin. After reading your post, my husband has decided we will never have children.
So I had to laugh while I was reading your a couple weeks ago I decided to try Boo in our version of the toddler bed (we used this with Stew and it worked like a charm. We took the siderail off the crib then took a bed rail we had and slipped it on in place of the crib siderail.) Needless to say she took her nap in it like a champ but when night time came she thought it was a game even after me laying in the bed with her. Needless to say I don’t remember it being this difficult with Stew but I know it was one of the harder transitions we had to make. Good Luck.