why did i put my child in the toddler bed?

[chilibeansm0m]

I'm so exhausted. Sleep is still crap. I'm going to try and make this post make sense but I'm so over it at this point.

Like i don't even care what time she goes to bed now. I put her down every.single.night between 730 and 8 depending on the day. She does her own thing as far as what time she wakes up. It could be any time between 445am and 745am. ANYTIME. Her fave thing to do is to wake up when dh and i do and insist on snack and barney and leche while we are trying to get ready for work. This makes for a grumpy toddler and parents.

She naps after she plays in her room for 30 to 90 minutes and it'll last ANYWHERE from 20 minutes to 2 hours. There's no tellinG.

Laatly i have to pee. A lot. Obviously. The bathroom is dead middle in the hallway between our bedroomS. No matter how quiet i try to be she gets up every time, stands at the gate and thinks it's time to get up. Um I'm sorry it's 1am, or 3am or 12am and no you can't get up yet.

I'm just done i don't know what else to do. It seems like no matter how consistent we are she will do her own thing every tiMe.

Maybe I'm just extra hormonal today but i don't know what else to do and it's making the whole house short fused and exhuasted.

How's sleep going for you ladies this week?

[decaflife]

I don't think we'll have a crib when we move so I really need to start working on getting DD into a toddler bed. We're going to be in 3 cities in two months between visiting my parents, in-laws and then moving to DC so we can't haul around a crib. I keep trying to figure out the logistics though because I really don't want to move her.

I wanted to battle the paci before the crib but I don't think we have enough time to do both.

[TheEleventhHour]

Hugs chilibeansm0m! We still have DS in the crib and hopefully can keep him in there until we move this summer. He's quite the climber though so I am not 100% sure he won't figure out how to climb out before we move. When we go up to visit our new house he sleeps on a queen size air mattress. We have to lay with him until he falls asleep though. That can take anywhere from 10 minutes to over an hour and can be an exhausting process. And it pushes his bedtime really far back but of course he still gets up at the same damn time. Because of this I do not have high hopes for a smooth transition to a permanent big boy bed!

Bathroom wise - both of our bathrooms share walls with DS's room. We don't flush in the MOTN and that seems to help but DH showers at 5am every weekday and it is hit or miss whether DS will wake up from hearing the shower. If he does wake up he will stay up until like 7am and then pass out but I can never get him right back down after he wakes. It is annoying!

[chilibeansm0m]

I should have been more specific. Sorry i was whining. It's not necessarily the flushing waking R. The SECOND i get out of bed by the time i reach our doorway (which is open) i hear her get up! It's like she knows! I don't like to sleep with our door closed cause dh gets too hot and I'm afraid i won't hear her. We can't close her door because her room gets too cold. It only has a crappy baseboard heater that looks older than me and i don't trust it. I keep the gate up because I'm afraid she'll get up and roam.

I just didn't think 6 weeks in she'd still be destroying her room for so long before napping.

Also she recently decided not to stay in bed at night either. Before she'd at least pass out in bed when we put her down for the night. Now the second i close the door (since dh and i are still up, even if i don't close it, she'll get up and close it!) she gets up and passes out right behind the dooR and when we go in to move her she wakes up and cries because we lay her back down.

privacy i was doing the say notbing and keep going in and putting her back in bed but i feel like i was only tiring and frustrating myself out, not her. How long did you do this for?

Maybe i just need to suck it up and get strict and even more consistent. I'm so worried we will still be doing this when A arrives.

[TheEleventhHour]

Have you ever watched Super Nanny? I haven't seen it for years but I just thought of that show. She would always have the parents go in, place back in bed, leave. Repeat over and over until child is asleep in bed. And it does look stressful and exhausting with lots of tears from both parties but it always worked within a few days. Maybe try being more consistent for a week? It will obviously be tiring and I could not imagine being pregnant while doing it but it might be worth a shot especially to try to get a better schedule before A is here.

I give so many hugs on the door thing!!! DS would be up all the time if we weren't able to close his door!

[TheEleventhHour]

Ohhhh also! Sound machines! Do you use them? Even if you can't close doors a sound machine in R's room and one in the hall (or even the bathroom) may cover the sound of you getting up in the MOTN. DS has had one since birth and DH and I got our own a few months ago. We usually keep our door open so the dog can go in and out but my mom lives with us now so the sound machine definitely helps block noise because she has to walk by our room to get to the bathroom.

[decaflife]

I feel like DD can smell me/DH when either of us gets too close to her door. Not that we're particularly stinky… just she knows when we're near even when we don't make a sound. She has an air purifier and we play lullaby Arcade Fire and she wakes up early if we're up but she'll sleep in if we sleep in. DH got up early this morning for basketball and sure enough she woke with him at 630 instead of hanging out until 7-730.

[jcar]

We've coslept DS' entire life so transitioning to a toddler bed (or in his case, a full size bed) was a bit scary for us not knowing what to expect. We're doing things our own way and is not the norm from what I've read, but it's been working. To put him to sleep for either nap time or bed time, I give him a countdown saying like 5 minutes until nap/bed time and count down for him. Then when it's time we go to his room and either DH or I will sit next to him in the bed until DS falls asleep. He's never been much of a sleeper so his naps last anywhere from 20 minutes to 1.5 hours. At night, he wakes up but will attempt to go back to sleep on his own most of the time. If he doesn't, either DH will go in and sleep next to him or we just put him in bed with us.

[chilibeansm0m]

privacy decaflife got me turned off from wake clocks. She said they were bright.

TheEleventhHour yes i did watch super nanny. When we were doing the put down method i was telling dh I'm going super nanny on her. It shortened her play before nap to 30 minutes but never took it away. And when i would go in and not say anything she'd get really upset and essentially cry herself to sleep. Which i didn't love. We've never tried a sound machine but maybe i need to look into them and the clocks a little more.

This morning she woke up at 640 and i just ignored here. I'm not sure if she went back to sleep or just laid on the floor but i didn't hear her again til 740 when i got up and went in.

Dh also thinks that she's too hot in her sleepers. But when i go in its cold. Even with the door open. I also like putting her in sleepers because that way when she ends up on the floor with no blankets she isn't too too cold. So i don't know that he'll convince me to try different jammies or not tonight.

privacy would you go super nanny if she gets up and lays on the floor to go to sleep? She's probably been doing this for 2 weeks. Doesn't play. Just talks to herself and passes out on the floor. We move her because i feel like you're not going to sleep on the floor all night.


Eta had to fix all the tags!

[TheEleventhHour]

Yeah, I have never loved letting them cry themselves to sleep but sometimes nothing else works with DS and I just have to let him do it. Especially during MOTN wake ups because sometimes it is the only way for everyone to get sleep. I would totally let her sleep wherever too. What is comfortable for LOs is so different than what is comfortable for us! When I was little I preferred sleeping on the floor for a good chunk of time.

What are the temps like where you are? We are in New England (so ... freezing) and we do not keep the house very warm. I think if they are truly too cold they wouldn't be able to sleep. Most mornings DS has no blankets on but during a few really chilly nights he has cocooned himself in a blanket! I might try different jammies on her. She may be more comfortable if she is barefoot and she can go find a blanket if she needs it. I put DS in footies just because it goes below freezing every night now but I usually go in to find him naked because he has gotten too warm!

[decaflife]

DD has never had a nightlight and so her room is usually dark, has blackout curtains so maybe that's why the light seems so bright in her room. We play with the clock sometimes but I unplug it at night because it lights up her whole room even with the wake up light off.

[JJsMum]

ChilibeansmOm, DS#1 slept on the floor right behind the door too! We just left him. Sometimes when we went to bed we would shuffle him back to his bed, sometimes we just left him. I think it took somewhere around 6 months (?) before he stopped sleeping on the floor and slept in his bed.
All I can say is, kids are wierd, and sometimes you just have to let them figure things out. If she is happily sleeping on the floor, then she is obviously comfortable enough temperature wise. I don't know about your LO, but DS#2 is pretty good at letting us know when he is uncomfortable.

[dckate]

I could have written this myself a few weeks ago! DD is in a convertible crib, but she had the same sleep pattern, where we didn't have a schedule, I was exhausted and we all felt broken.

I got really strict about her schedule, and we use a sound machine. We are also in an apartment setting, and need to still be able to watch Tv like adults for an hour before going to bed. The sound machine really helps block out the noise.

I know that there is also a really bad sleep regression around the time they turn 2. Ours didn't last forever, but it really felt like it did. I was a total zombie and had no idea what time nap should be her bedtime or wake ups.

See if putting her in a cooler set of pajamas and maybe some background noise doesn't do the trick. So sorry you are dealing with this.

[b0710]

chilibeansm0m -I love background noise! We use plain old box fans to help. We even bring at least one when we travel. I feel like it helps drawn out all the other stuff, especially for light sleepers. We own 3 of them, and they cost anywhere from $15-20, so definitely not breaking the bank. They also double for air circulation. You could even put it on the hallway right outside her door if there's a plug. Good luck! Sleep issues are no joke!

[jobiann]

I'm officially scared to switch to a toddler bed. J has made no attempt to escape his crib....so I'm going to enjoy that while I can....