Free will is kind of a bitch…

Posted on Jun 07 in funny posts, Life in Evansville, parenting, personal stories, pregnancyby TalinaPrint

Everly knows how to climb out of her crib, she fell out of it once by mistake. There have been a few instances where she’s fled the crib or gotten herself in. Thankfully, the crib scaling instances haven’t been that common. She either doesn’t have a desire to free herself when she’s put in there or she’s forgotten about her abilities…

Until last night.

Last night was a hellish flashback to the infant days or it could be related the the recent hotel stays we’ve made. She absolutely would not, for anything in the world, succumb to bedtime.

Mistake #1 was letting her stay up for when her dad got home from work. He has some unusual shifts for various events and such, last night he was off just an hour past her normal bedtime (that is not firmly adhered to anyway since it is her only time with dad).

Mistake #2 was breaking up the bedtime routine. Feeding and bathing her before bed apparently must be done in sequence and with no interruptions or breaks in the cycle. Feeding and bathing cannot be done with a pause between those and bedtime while we wait for daddy to come home.

Other dumb parenting moves included:

1. Climbing in to her crib with her to get her to drift off to sleep. Hauling your pregnant ass out of the crib without waking her is basically impossible and she will wake up.
2. Locking the bedroom and bathroom doors to keep her in her bedroom when she flees the crib. It is pointless because you have go go back in and make contact since she’s now stranded on the bedroom floor without a bed to sleep in.
3. Locking yourself in her room with her until she tires herself out and crashes on the floor with you. Their energy is endless, they will not tire out before you do. The fatigue of your ordeal has likely caused you to forget this simple fact but trust me, you will lose the battle.
4. Trying to cuddle up on the 10+ year old couch and spend the night. Your body will hate you, especially if you are very, very pregnant.

We all ended up sleeping in our bed together eventually. Sure, I had jabbing toddler feet in my back the whole time and we were both afraid to move or get up to use the bathroom all night and morning for fear of waking her.

Apparently routines are extremely important to almost two year olds entering the age of independence the terrible twos. Important down to the smallest details. Also asserting dependence is a major cause for power struggles at sleep time.

I state this obvious information because while in the throes of a toddler meltdown or a sleep battle we parents forget the obvious, overwhelmed by the drama of the moment. We often need these obvious assurances to remind us this kiddo madness is indeed normal, common and does not require extreme measures.

Yesterday some unknown routine disruption made nap time a battleground and I broke down and converted the crib to a toddler bed. Now we can begin introducing “quite time” in her room whether or not she feels inclined to sleep at these designated sleep times. With the toddler bed she at least has the opportunity to get herself back in to her bed easily if she wears down and decides to take a rest.

I am still not jazzed about the idea of locking a kid in her room while the “quite time” toddler bed stuff is learned. It makes me feel terrible and seems kind of the opposite of attachment parenting but it seems to be doing the trick without much fuss from her so I am torn.

She slept through the night in her big girl bed last night after only two previous instances of having to lock the doors and keep her in her room (once at night time when we caved and let her sleep with us and once at nap time yesterday).

Talk to me about your toddler bed transition techniques guys.What honestly worked and what didn’t?