Monday, March 5, 2012

Big Girl Sleeping

Friday night - Night 1: I had spent the day talking to Smug-Baby about how that evening we were going to sleep in her big girl room all night long. I told her that mommy was going to sleep with her and she wouldn't be scared. I got her to help me move the mattress from the floor of our room into her room and help me lay out the blankets and get the futon mattress set up for mommy to sleep on. Well, it was about 8:45 when we laid down and she flopped around a bit, sticking her feet into the slats on the converted crib and pretending that they were stuck and she needed help to get them out! All in all though, she settled down and fell asleep fairly quickly.

I tried to get comfortable and did sleep on and off, but I was on the freaking floor! It was hard and my hips were screaming by midnight. Smug-Baby stayed asleep except for a few mumbles and she kept trying to fall off the bed. I was so awake and aware that I was able to just move her back onto the bed without her ever waking up. By 4am, I had had enough and headed back to my own bed. Smug-Hub was so warm and comfortable that I was sure that I was fall asleep within seconds. No such luck! I never did fall back asleep!

Smug-Baby on the other hand, slept until 8:15!!!! When she did wake, she cried out for me and I scooped her up and we all had some cuddle time in the big bed and we told her over and over how very proud of her we were!!

Saturday night - Night 2: We had a busy and fun day on Saturday and Smug-Baby took her 90 minute nap in her own bed in her own room without issue. Saturday night, however she had a harder time falling asleep and it was after 10 before I was finally able to make my escape. Smug-Hub and I had decided that my sleeping on the floor again wasn't a good idea, so I put up the bed rail that we used on our bed when she was a baby. It is too big really and I need to get one designed for a toddler bed so she can get out of the bed easily if she needs to, but I wasn't able to find on locally and don't have the funds to purchase one right now anyway, so this will have to do for the time being. Anyway, we also decided that he would be in charge of soothing her if/when she woke up before he came to bed and after he was asleep I would take over.

She must have woken about 11:30, because he was in the process of coming to bed and I woke to see him scurrying out of the bedroom to her side, but I fell back asleep before I really knew what was happening. The next thing I heard was her call to me about 1am, I ran in her room took her hand and said that mommy was here. She was back asleep within seconds and slept until 7am!

Sunday night - Night 3: She again napped for about 90 minutes during the day on Sunday and woke in a happy mood. We have kept telling her how proud of her we were that she is such a big girl! Sunday night, she again took a good while to fall asleep, but was sleeping by 9. I don't recall what time she woke up, but I heard her crying and Smug-Hub soothing her. She woke again about 1:30 and it took me until 2 to get her deeply enough asleep to leave. She was up again at 2:45 calling to me and again it took some time to get her back to sleep. When she woke again at 3:45 I took her into our bed, hoping that she would sleep, but at the very least I would be more comfortable than is realistic when half my body is wrapped around a bed-rail and the other half is on the floor. She never went back into a deep sleep and neither did I. She was fully awake and waving good-bye to me from daddy's arms as I drove off to work this morning.

I could be discouraged that the first two nights seemed to go so well and the one night where getting some sleep was really important to me she was up a lot, but I know that this will be a process and she does have these nights where she isn't able to sleep well and I think that being in her own room didn't really have anything to do with that. Those nights seem to be getting more and more infrequent, but she still has them. Today will be a challenge, but we will get through it and perhaps she will sleep more soundly tonight.

I think that it is a good sign that she was able to sleep as well as she did the first two nights. I think that perhaps my getting up to pee and Smug-Hub coming to bed late and his CPAP machine noise really were disruptive and having her own space is nice for her. I hope that last night was kind of a fluke and she will have more and more nights of sleeping soundly in her own room.

I find it wonderful that she is OK with all this. I think that it says something about how secure she is and how safe she feels. She knows that we will be there for her if she calls and she isn't banned from our bed. She isn't left to feel scared and alone when she wakes feeling vulnerable in the night. I think that we waited until she was ready for this change instead of insisting on it when it was convenient for us. Of course, we are only 3 nights in, so I may be singing a different tune in a week :)

2 comments:

  1. I think it is wonderful that she is transistioning so well. My girls always slept in the crib and I didn't hold them alot, but they had PLENTY of affection. My son on the way we didn't know if we would have him we were so scared. I didn't move left or right until the seventh month. He slept in bed with me almost every night as I was a single parent. It's a ten year age diffrence with my oldest and Steven Kyle. She was never jealous of the affection I showeed on him and she did to. I held him, my family use to say the boys feet never touched the floor until he was three which is probably two. He didn't adjust well sleeping alone. I didn't either. I had got use to my little baby boy breathing on me and under my arm. I'm crying as I write this because he never wanted to leave me. What I do now with ALL my children is give them a night on the weekend. We talk about there week, eat popcorn, and sleep together. My youngest is six, my two boys are seven and eight, and my oldest will be seventeen in a few months and we all do it. I love it and they love it. Sorry for the long comment just reminded me a special time. Stay sweet Ryan.

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