The Calm Before the Storm (or...it CAN'T be this easy...)
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Sunday, April 01, 2007
Elnora moved bedrooms today.Short story long...
Our house has four bedrooms...two upstairs and two downstairs. (I know, how weird is that?) When we moved in, we figured we'd put the kids upstairs and we'd put our bedroom and the guest room downstairs. After all, it would mean that we could enjoy the house sans kids after bed time, right?
Well...a few months ago I realized that the day was coming when Elnora would climb out of her crib. What awaited her after she did the climbing was a very steep set of hardwood stairs with a door at the bottom.
I like Elnora's neck and back without any breaks in them.
So I got to thinking...what if we moved the kids downstairs and moved ourselves and the guest room upstairs. We'd still have our own space, the kids could play in their rooms during the day, and by being downstairs, they'd get used to sleeping with a little noise around.
We decided to swap the guest room and Elnora's room. I figured that when we moved her, we'd turn her crib into a toddler bed and we'd have a month or so before we moved upstairs to corral her and teach her to stay in her bed. (After that, we'll put a gate up at the end of the hall...she'll only be able to get to her room, the bathroom and Emmitt's room....no wandering into the kitchen at nght.)
Earlier this week my mom came to visit. While she was here, we moved everything out of the guest room. Then we got adventurous and ripped up the carpets. (Beautiful hardwood floors under there just ready to go...didn't even have to sand!) This afternoon, Greg and I moved everything down to the new room and converted the crib.
Elnora liked it. She spent the early evening going back and forth from her room to the living room. She'd go in her bedroom and lay on the bed, then she'd get up and come sit with me and read a book. Back and forth, back and forth.
Bed time came and we did our usual ritual. I closed the door and she immediately started to yell. By the time I got to the couch, she was at the door.
I picked her up, said "Shh....it's bed time" and went and tucked her back in.
I closed the door and she started to pitch another fit.
I waited for her to open the door, but she didn't. About four minutes later, it was silent.
An hour later she woke up from a bad dream crying. I went and got her and we rocked for a few minutes before she pointed to the bed, wanting to go back to sleep. I tucked her in again and left.
That was 2 hours ago...she's still in there.
I figured I'd have to pick her up and put her back in bed about eleventy billion times.
So be honest with me guys...could it be this easy or is she going to get us all comfy and then spring an all-night "out of bed" fest on us in a few days?
Labels: All About the Kids, Life as a Mom
Don't watch SuperNanny before you go to bed. You'll have bad dreams :)
Oh man, that could go either way, sadly. We didn't move rooms but we changed the oldests bed from a crib to a toddler bed at 2. For a month and a half we could put him in his bed, kiss his lil head, cover him up and walk out and he would put himself to sleep. Then one night came the fits and then two weeks later sheer terror of being left in his room alone. We tried laying on the floor and tried just gating him in and it would go on. for. hours. So we put him in our bed and snuck off after he fell asleep. Yay!
Once we moved to the new place (I was 5 mos preggo at the time) he got a new bed, a twin size. We let him stay in our bed for 2 mos after we moved in to let him get used to a new place and then switched him to his own bed. So we would read a book in bed with him and then lay with him until he fell asleep. We also had to lay with him if he woke in the night. Soon we weand him off of needing us to lay with him in the middle of the night.
He is to the point now where we can leave after story time and he will fall asleep on his own and stay in bed.
Your mileage may vary, as you know. Lol Good luck! ;)
My experience with 2 kids that I've weaned from my bed to their own have been if they are going to resist they will do it right away. I say be consistent. I did have one child who liked her crib and transitioned beautifully to her big girl bed. I never thought that it could be that easy. She never got out of her bed really. Just don't question, just thank the good Lord above that it was so easy!
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