Actually, I know exactly where the week went. Last Monday Daughter's Big Girl Bed was delivered. We shopped around and discovered that we could get the best combination of price and quality by ordering the same bed we recently purchased for ourselves (but in a twin size). This is the platform portion, and this is the mattress. We have the exact same thing for ourselves but in queen size, and I cannot recommend these beds highly enough. Great price, super comfortable, fast shipping, and easy to assemble.
So we put the bed together the day it arrived, rearranged the room to accommodate it, and pretty much told Daughter the crib is now off-limits. I know it sounds really weird that we had to do that, but we have the one kid in the universe who never once attempted to climb out of the crib, and in fact has been quite happy in there for 3+ years. So we had to kind of insist that she use the big girl bed now (with a rail, and pushed against the wall for safety and security). In order to make it happen, I have had to lay there with her, chatting, rubbing her back, and singing to her. Hubs also comes in to sing some songs and make her feel comfortable.
She hates it.
At least she says she does. She keeps asking to sleep in the baby bed, but we have now told her about her baby brother and that we will eventually be needing to 'share' the baby bed with him, and now she is a big girl of 3, and big girls who are 3 sleep in big girl beds, etc, etc. So it's going ok, and though I have been laying there for less and less time each night, I still do have to snuggle with her a bit so she will not feel scared or uncomfortable.
That is not the real issue, though. The real issue is that she has figured out she can get out of bed herself now, and she has been doing so...earlier and earlier each morning.
Look, I try to keep it real on the blog, and I try to always be honest, so I will go ahead and admit that my family routinely gets out of bed between 8 and 8:30 each morning. I know that is ridiculously late to most of you, but Hubs works a later schedule than his boss so they can cover the whole office day, meaning his boss goes in at the crack of dawn, and Hubs rolls in between 9 and 10 but stays later in the evening. This is the schedule that Daughter really set when she started sleeping through the night, and it's been just fine with us for 3 years. She would always hang out in her crib, talking to her stuffed animals or whatever, until we came for her, and often would be just opening her eyes at 8 or 8:15.
Now, for reasons I cannot understand, she is waking up super duper freaking early. It started a few nights into the big girl bed experience...first it was 7:25, and I took that shift, then it was 7:01 yesterday morning, which Hubs took on, and today? Today it was 6:30. In the A.M. I haven't seen that hour since Daughter was a nursing infant, and I have been very happy with that situation. I made her get into bed with me for a half-hour, because what am I going to do with her at 6:30?!? I even pointed to the alarm clock (useless device these days) and showed her that the '6' means it's too early to get up. We had to wait for it to be a '7'.
Now I know well-meaning folks will suggest that we close her door (nope, she can open doors), or put a gate in the doorway, or just tell her to stay in her bed until we get her. Well HAHAHA, don't you think we've tried that sort of thing? The problem is she wakes up frightened to be in a dark-ish quiet house, and when she appears next to the bed, and I suggest she go back to her bed for awhile or even come into our bed, she quite literally bursts into tears, telling me the sun is up, it's not time for sleeping anymore. She begs us to please, please wake up now, and what are we supposed to do with that? Our bedrooms are on the first floor, and I can't have her just wandering out into the rest of the house alone...so we do want her to come wake us up. We just wish it wasn't so blessed early. This morning I told Hubs it won't be long till we're getting up at 4 a.m., like old people.
Oh wait, pretty soon I WILL be getting up at 4 a.m. And 3 a.m. And 2 a.m. and every hour of every day because hello, I am having a baby in, like, ten weeks. Aaaaaak! Maybe this is just Daughter's way of helpfully preparing me to be awakened from a lovely sleep on a near-constant basis. Woo hoo.
Anyway, I am not really looking for solutions here, because we don't really think there are any. I am just hoping she acclimates a bit better to the new bed and sleeps in a bit more once she is more comfortable, but whatever. If she doesn't, she doesn't. Our awesome sleep schedule couldn't last forever, I guess.
But it is my excuse for being away from the blog for a week. I've just been tired and pouring lots of energy into these bed issues (and also lots of cleaning...summer in an ooooooold house in the woods means extra vigilance about bugs 'n stuff, which requires a lot of constant wiping/laundering/mopping/etc). I continue to slog through the end of the blue shawl - 10 rounds to go, but at 1320 stitches per round, it is slow going. One or two rounds per day at best. Today is a nice, cool day, so perhaps some sewing will take place during naptime and I will have something new to show tomorrow.
So we put the bed together the day it arrived, rearranged the room to accommodate it, and pretty much told Daughter the crib is now off-limits. I know it sounds really weird that we had to do that, but we have the one kid in the universe who never once attempted to climb out of the crib, and in fact has been quite happy in there for 3+ years. So we had to kind of insist that she use the big girl bed now (with a rail, and pushed against the wall for safety and security). In order to make it happen, I have had to lay there with her, chatting, rubbing her back, and singing to her. Hubs also comes in to sing some songs and make her feel comfortable.
She hates it.
At least she says she does. She keeps asking to sleep in the baby bed, but we have now told her about her baby brother and that we will eventually be needing to 'share' the baby bed with him, and now she is a big girl of 3, and big girls who are 3 sleep in big girl beds, etc, etc. So it's going ok, and though I have been laying there for less and less time each night, I still do have to snuggle with her a bit so she will not feel scared or uncomfortable.
That is not the real issue, though. The real issue is that she has figured out she can get out of bed herself now, and she has been doing so...earlier and earlier each morning.
Look, I try to keep it real on the blog, and I try to always be honest, so I will go ahead and admit that my family routinely gets out of bed between 8 and 8:30 each morning. I know that is ridiculously late to most of you, but Hubs works a later schedule than his boss so they can cover the whole office day, meaning his boss goes in at the crack of dawn, and Hubs rolls in between 9 and 10 but stays later in the evening. This is the schedule that Daughter really set when she started sleeping through the night, and it's been just fine with us for 3 years. She would always hang out in her crib, talking to her stuffed animals or whatever, until we came for her, and often would be just opening her eyes at 8 or 8:15.
Now, for reasons I cannot understand, she is waking up super duper freaking early. It started a few nights into the big girl bed experience...first it was 7:25, and I took that shift, then it was 7:01 yesterday morning, which Hubs took on, and today? Today it was 6:30. In the A.M. I haven't seen that hour since Daughter was a nursing infant, and I have been very happy with that situation. I made her get into bed with me for a half-hour, because what am I going to do with her at 6:30?!? I even pointed to the alarm clock (useless device these days) and showed her that the '6' means it's too early to get up. We had to wait for it to be a '7'.
Now I know well-meaning folks will suggest that we close her door (nope, she can open doors), or put a gate in the doorway, or just tell her to stay in her bed until we get her. Well HAHAHA, don't you think we've tried that sort of thing? The problem is she wakes up frightened to be in a dark-ish quiet house, and when she appears next to the bed, and I suggest she go back to her bed for awhile or even come into our bed, she quite literally bursts into tears, telling me the sun is up, it's not time for sleeping anymore. She begs us to please, please wake up now, and what are we supposed to do with that? Our bedrooms are on the first floor, and I can't have her just wandering out into the rest of the house alone...so we do want her to come wake us up. We just wish it wasn't so blessed early. This morning I told Hubs it won't be long till we're getting up at 4 a.m., like old people.
Oh wait, pretty soon I WILL be getting up at 4 a.m. And 3 a.m. And 2 a.m. and every hour of every day because hello, I am having a baby in, like, ten weeks. Aaaaaak! Maybe this is just Daughter's way of helpfully preparing me to be awakened from a lovely sleep on a near-constant basis. Woo hoo.
Anyway, I am not really looking for solutions here, because we don't really think there are any. I am just hoping she acclimates a bit better to the new bed and sleeps in a bit more once she is more comfortable, but whatever. If she doesn't, she doesn't. Our awesome sleep schedule couldn't last forever, I guess.
But it is my excuse for being away from the blog for a week. I've just been tired and pouring lots of energy into these bed issues (and also lots of cleaning...summer in an ooooooold house in the woods means extra vigilance about bugs 'n stuff, which requires a lot of constant wiping/laundering/mopping/etc). I continue to slog through the end of the blue shawl - 10 rounds to go, but at 1320 stitches per round, it is slow going. One or two rounds per day at best. Today is a nice, cool day, so perhaps some sewing will take place during naptime and I will have something new to show tomorrow.
3 comments:
there is no shame in sleeping til normal hours of the day. I used to indeed think 8:30 was the crack o' dawn. Now I don't need an alarm clock because should the baby actually sleep past 5am, I'm wide awake at 6 anyways. Motherhood is doing a number on me thataway. :)
I used to be that person that would automatically wake up at 4ish in the morning when the sun came up and just get my day going - but as I get older, how do I put this...there is not FREAKIN' way my body is getting up at 4ish without an alarm clock:)
My oldest used to do this. A lot of times I would give him a cup of cheerios and a sippy of milk and snooze on the couch with him while he watched cartoons.
I'm with you, though. It was impossible to get him to sleep longer or stay in bed when he was wide awake and ready to start the day. My condolences.
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