Monday, April 4, 2011

Bed Troubles

The beauty of little kids is that when you think you've got things figured out, they change the rules on you. As if the week long birthday celebration wasn't enough to keep us busy, A decided to literally throw himself out of his crib this past Thursday. I knew he wouldn't stay in the crib for ever, but he was still wearing a sleep sack, and I thought that would prevent him for jumping overboard... I was wrong. Since the crib was no longer safe, I decided to go in search of a toddler bed rail Friday, to no avail. Apparently you have to order it from your crib maker and I just can't wait that long for it to get here. Thankfully, A's babysitter's son recently decided he didn't want to sleep in his toddler bed anymore, so she offered to let us have it. Hallelujah!
I thought I had solved our problem, but that was only the beginning...For all of A's sleep problems, going to bed had never been one, until now!

The first night in the new bed, A got back up several times, eventually falling asleep while SleepyPapa sat next to him. When he woke up two hours later and didn't really fall back asleep right away, I decided to go sleep in his room with him, but he still woke up multiple times. We want him to like his new bed, so we don't want to make him cry, that's why on the second night, I tried to stay until he fell asleep. Several times, I could have sworn he was sleeping, but the minute I got up, he woke up. After an hour of this little game, I gave up and sent SleepyPapa up, but A played the same game with him. It was getting close to 9:30pm (waayyy past his bedtime) so I finally decided to put on my PJ's and sleep in the room from the start. A fell asleep pretty quickly after that, and stayed asleep until 3am. When I told him to sleep some more, he went back down for an hour, after which we both migrated back to my bed.
I'm hopeful that things will get better, since there's already been some improvement, but not quite sure how long I should keep sleeping there. Besides, what do you do to have them stay in the bed and sleep at bedtime?

How did your toddler deal with the bed transition? Do you have any tricks?

4 comments:

  1. I wish I had some great advice for you but it was trial and error for us. E. was jumping out of her crib by 2 so we also had to make a much sooner than anticipated transition to a bed.

    Surprisingly, the transition went pretty great at night. Sure, she still comes into our bed every now and again. But there was one terrible side effect -- it was the end of naps for us. E also fought us tooth and nail on naps and once she didn't have the crib to contain her, naps became extinct.

    Hopefully that doesn't happen for you! Good luck!

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  2. Ugh this is tough! Margot will get her toddler bed in a few weeks... and I complain about waiking up at 7 for charlotte.. I don't know how you can cope with 3 am.. does he fall back asleep in your bed afterwards? do you get some sleep?
    brave maman you are!!!!!!!!

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  3. Jackie and Pauline, thank you for your comments! I should say that this past night went much better, we didn't have to do anything special at bedtime, he was ok when I left him, went to sleep on his own, and I got to sleep the whole night in MY bed.

    He woke up several times throughout the night, but each time fell back asleep as soon as we told him it wasn't time to get up. Yes Pauline, he does fall back asleep once he's in our bed, which is why it's so tempting to take him there right away. You don't know how lucky you are with a 7am wake up call. For us, an uniterrupted night usually ends at 5am (but he does fall back asleep with us until 7-8am).
    As for the naps, Jackie, he takes those with me on our bed, so hopefully, things won't change in that department for a little while longer...

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  4. well now he can get out of bed maybe you will get uninterrupted night until 7-8, he will just get out of bed and into yours without waking you up! silver lining to the cloud!!!!

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