Monday, March 9, 2009

A crib-jumper and the time change

Spring time change is never fun. You lose and hour of sleep and your children take an extra hour to fall asleep. My routine-oriented mind loses it about a week before the time change trying to strategize moving them up an hour to make the transition smoother. (Angela is rolling her eyes at me right now, and many others may be too. Call me neurotic, whatever.)

But....alas, I did not go into crazy, organized Kate mode. I just let the transition happen and knew that in a week, we would be back on track.

Night #1 - I had Dave home and Lily barely took a nap. Dave put Lily down and Eloise and I, as previously posted, had donut night.

Night #2 - I'm on my own and we now have a crib jumper on our hands. "This is serious" (quote from Wonder Pets that I've been hearing all day. Emphasis on no 'r' in serious and that's how the duck says it).

Today she woke up from her nap and I had just come home from cooking. I heard a bit of rummaging around in there and then she's out. I asked Dave if he had put her to sleep in her big girl bed. Nope. Crib. She got out.

I was impressed, that was the first time. She has successfully mastered how to get down off the bunk beds, so I guess it was just a matter of time.

Tonight, she was screaming hysterically b/c she didn't want to go to sleep. Then...the hush. Was she asleep? No. She was standing behind me when I was on the computer. Creepy. Yes. Infuriating, even more so. I swiftly corrected her that it wasn't okay to be crib jumping, especially at night. This did not go over well. She screamed for another 30 minutes. I even tried to barter with her that I would leave the door open if she stopped crying. No luck.

So the mama who has a hard time with transition is now dealing with two transitional things, time change and a crib jumper. Fantastic.

4 comments:

Julie said...

Oh no! She's just over 2 right? I'm not looking forward to Stella being able to get out. Right now she goes to sleep like a DREAM - I was just saying how lucky we are last night... I guess I really need to be greatful for it while it lasts!

Anonymous said...

Sad as it is for you -- thanks for making me laugh this morning. Just what I needed!!! Will be praying for your little "crib jumper" and the mamma who needs a break at night! Love ya, Betty

TcH said...

the only good thing about this is she will be ready to leave her crib when the new baby comes right????

I hope this is short lived
hang in there mama!!!!

amy said...

Our third became a crib jumper right after we had our fourth. I was NOT ready to deal with the constant correction needed to teach him to stay in his crib and he was not ready for the lack of boundaries the "big boy bed" would give him.

Our solution: a crib tent.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=6372421&sourceid=1500000000000003260330&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=6372421

It gave us until baby number four needed to move out of our room into the crib before we moved him to the bed. Which meant more sleep. Because once they have the big-kid bed freedom, they seem to be in bed less.

Also, it was interesting to us that he really, really liked the tent. We talked up how cool it was. But I think at that crazy age of just 2 some of them feel safer with a clear boundary. Without it they don't know what to do so they choose disobedience.