Toddler Bed Drama

(Warning: lots of writing for memory sake, but there are pictures at the end).

People often ask me what I plan to do with Tyler when Clara comes sleeping wise. In my mind it was always an easy solution: keep Tyler in the crib until he's 2 and Clara in the pack and play until she's 6 months, that's how long Tyler was in one. There. Done. Well, Tyler had other plans. Several days ago I heard the "Mama, MAMA, MAAAMAAA!" that means he's awake and in my half sleep stupor went to go lay him back down (he's developed this annoying habit of waking up at 5:30 every morning!) When I walked into his room, there he was straddling the crib rail, hanging on desperately, calling for me to save him. If that doesn't wake you up, I don't know what does. In one of those every second feels like minutes moment, I rushed to him sure that at any second he would lose his balance and fall.

Thus began the toddler bed drama.

His mattress was already as low as it could go and I tested him to see what would happen if I put him back in. Yep, right back up to the rail. I even waited to see if he knew what to do once he got up there. Nope, nothing, just call for help and try to hang on. Now what? I was not planning on having to do the toddler bed transition yet! But it was either make the transition now or sleep next to his crib to make sure he doesn't fall to his death. So Tyler and I got out the toddler bed rail and made the conversion. Tyler thought it was great fun to be able to get on and off his bed. All day he played on or near his bed, brought books and toys up there, and had an all around grand old time. I thought, hey, maybe this won't be so bad. WRONG! That night was a disaster. Mark and I spent 3 hours trying everything under the sun to get him to stay in bed. He didn't just not want to be in bed, he was terrified of being in bed. He screamed and screamed any time he was brought anywhere near it. We laid down on the floor next to his bed, we sat in the chair across the room, we sang songs, rubbed his back, tried the cry it out routine, gave him special toys/blankets, nothing worked. He would not sleep there. I finally just picked him up and rocked him to sleep. The next day I wondered if Tyler was just not emotionally ready. I was not used to this. We have never had any night time drama with Tyler. He moved to his crib without a fuss, started sleeping through the night all on his own. We never had to do the "cry it out" routine, never had to teach him how to do anything when it came to sleep. So this whole thing was new and unfamiliar. I tried to tell myself that most moms feel this way when their kids go to the crib for the first time and they have to sit there and let them scream until they fall asleep. I'm just doing it a bit later.

That night things improved, but only slightly. Thanks to my mom's idea we made his binky and woobie only for sleeping time. Any time he got up to get out of bed we popped that binky right out of his mouth until he would lay back down. He was not very happy about this and we endured another couple hours of screaming, but eventually he got the hint and as long as we were in the room with him he would stay laying down.

The next day the binky trick stopped working. He learned really quickly that to get out of bed all he had to do was hand us his binky. Had I not been so tired and annoyed at this point it would have been quite humorous. He would sit up, hand us his binky and woobie, say thank you, and get out of bed, while we scrambled around to get him back in bed and once again gain the upper hand. Stinker is just too smart. This is the night I figured out that as long as we stayed in the room he would stay in bed. So we began the get up, walk out, get back in bed, come back in routine. More screaming commenced. But, he caught on and when we would lay him down he'd point to the chair to remind us that that is where we belong.

This has been working well for us, except that for some reason it seems to take him twice if not three or four times as long to fall asleep when we're sitting in there and I don't know about you, but I don't have the time to sit there for an hour while I wait for him to fall asleep. Plus, I found out a couple nights ago that when he wakes up in the middle of the night, which he sometimes does, I get to wake up too and stay up too while he SLOWLY falls back asleep. Plus plus, there would come a point, sooner rather than later, that he would have to learn to go to bed by himself without us in there. That point came last night. He would not fall asleep. It was 10:30 and he was still awake, playing the get up, walk out, lay back down, come back in routine - only this time he thought it was a fun game. We were once again losing the upper hand. And so, completely out of ideas, we decided to let him cry it out. First I have to say that the reason I didn't do this earlier was because I wanted to show him that his new bed wasn't quite as scary as he seemed to think it was. I didn't want his first few nights in a new bed to be traumatizing, so I made the decision to stay in there with him and once he started feeling safe and comfortable to make the move out. That still didn't make it any easier. He screamed for a good long while, in my opinion, but eventually I heard him get in his bed and fall asleep. I expect tonight to be somewhat similar, but I'm sure soon he'll be going to bed just like he always has - EASILY! It will happen, just hopefully before Clara gets here!

And so, here are pictures of Tyler in his toddler bed - - - ASLEEP! Miracles do happen!