Adventures in the Big Boy Bed (part 3)

I realized its been over a week since I posted on Jack's transition into his twin bed.  If you're interested in reading the first two posts you can do so here and here.

Things have been getting better for the most part!  Jack has only fallen out of bed once since the last post.  He has been sleeping through the night... but instead of sleeping until 7:30-8 a.m., he's waking up at 6:30 and coming to our room.  That's ok... I can handle that, especially since I usually try to wake up to get ready for work around 6:45-7 a.m, but I feel bad for Matt who has to get up earlier in comparison.  On the weekends he will still come to our room, but we can convince him to lay in between us for a bit longer!  The things I'm still not that crazy about, but am not willing to disrupt at this point, are:

1. He still wants someone to lay with him as he falls asleep (usually Daddy), which typically means one of us ends up falling asleep with him.  He's still our little boy, what's wrong with getting some snuggles?
2. Pacifiers, he still has two (one in his mouth & one in his hand), but we've at least gotten him to the point that he knows they're only for when he's sleeping.  Sometimes he'll run into his room and climb in bed just to suck on a pacifier for a couple of seconds.  He usually leaves them right on his pillow, so hopefully we can wean him off those soon enough.
3. We still leave each of our bedroom doors open (cracked) and the hallway light on, and I really hate wasting electricity.  I worry that he'll bump into things during the night if he tries to get to our room... paranoid I'm sure, but there aren't any outlets in our hallway that we could put a small plug-in light-sensing nightlight.

We did end up purchasing a Cloud B Twilight Turtle, which is essentially a fancy nightlight, to step Jack up from the music/light combo crib noisemaker.  He does really enjoy it now, but the first night I wasn't so sure it was a great idea.  He thought it was a great toy and just giggled and kept pressing buttons to change the color of the lights or turn it off & on. 

Pros:

• Plush for the most part (the shell that the stars are cut out of is thin plastic).
• Easy for Jack to turn on (in case he wakes in the middle of the night) and off... and change the color lights.
• The timer; it automatically shuts off after 45 minutes so it doesn't run the batteries down.
• The stars actually form constellations, so we can start showing him those when he's a bit older (right now he just likes to find the moon out of all of the stars)

Cons:

• No white noise/music... and I think this is just because Jack really liked the noise, but I didn't find anything I liked that wasn't meant for a crib.
• Kind of pricey for what it really is (a nightlight); I suppose we could have found another nightlight for a cheaper price, but I got kind of desperate when he kept waking up at 2 a.m.

Disclaimer: The brief review of the Cloud B Twilight Turtle was not solicited in any way.  The information is this post is based only on my experience.

Adventures in the Big Boy Bed (Part 2)

(This series is kind of a selfish one of mine because I really want to remember how this goes for our future children; you can read the first post here.)

Day/Night 4 (June 22):

Jack did end up sleeping the remainder of the night in our bed, but had no qualms about taking a nap in his bed today!  Matt was off work today and said he had to cuddle him a little bit, but that he was willing to go to bed.  Jack is so funny during the day about climbing in and out of his bed.  He still has a pacifier and we really try to limit it naps and night time, but they sit on his bed when he's awake.  He will go into his room and climb into bed suck on his pacifier for a few seconds, spit it out and climb out of bed... usually running into the hallway laughing or saying "good job" to himself!  It really is quite hilarious!

Jack went to bed just fine with Matt snuggling him/falling asleep with him.  We've been putting the gate up in the hallway so he can make it to our room but not wander the house.  Well, last night we got our first night time visitor!  Matt woke up to Jack standing next to our bed (around 2 am again)... he took him back to bed and ended up falling asleep there.  I remember waking up and realizing that Matt wasn't in bed, but didn't say anything until the next morning.

Day/Night 5 (June 23rd):

My mom said he napped just fine, about 3 hours!

We went over to some friends' house for pizza and to visit some friends who were in town from Florida.  Well, that resulted in Jack and I not getting home until nearly 10 p.m. (there goes our goal of 8:30 pm bedtime, oh well), but he was so cooperative for bedtime!  He came in the house and went straight for his pacifiers, but came out so I could change his diaper and put on PJs.  I went to snuggle him up in bed and I quickly realized that he was not going to notice me being there or not, so I slowly backed out of the room and he didn't even notice. (Can I admit I'm a little disappointed since he always wants his Daddy to snuggle him at night before bed?  Ah, to be the mother of a Daddy's boy!)  Jack ended up falling out of bed once, and waking up crying twice after that.  I was already in bed but Matt was still up so he comforted him and got him back to sleep in his bed.

Day/Night 6 (June 24th):

Great nap after he wore himself out playing around lunchtime at the McDonald's play place!

Evening went about the same as it has been... Jack work up two or three times, but Matt got up and ended up sleeping in bed with him for a couple of hours.  We've noticed that he has woke up around 2 a.m. every night... we really need to get him a music box or white noise maker that he can turn on when he wakes up.  He has had one in his crib that he would turn on in the middle of the night (or day for naps), so he must really need something like that.  Stay tuned for what I find... I've got to read some reviews before we make a purchase!

Day/Night 7 (June 25th):

Jack fought going down for a nap for me a little bit... finally he let me scoop him up and carry him into bed.  He "made" me lay down with him and he was asleep within 10-15 minutes.  He woke up twice during his nap, once I had to comfort him but the second time he fell back asleep on his own (clearly not ready for the nap to end).  Once he woke up he was his usual "happy Jack" self!

Jack went down pretty quickly this evening, but we again wore him out at a summer cook-out before bed!  Imagine that... 2 am and he's awake by our bedside again!  Luckily he's still sleepy so he goes back to his big boy bed with Daddy following for some snuggles!

Day/Night 8 (June 26th):

So this was a bad day for the big boy bed... we had a baptism (and party) to go to that landed smack in the middle of nap time.  It would've been nice if Jack would've decided to sleep in, but alas, he did not!  Needless to say, his nap fell around 4:30 p.m. in the car and finished up around 5:30 after being home (and in his bed) for about 30-45 minutes.  We pretty much expected what came next...

Jack wound up in our bed sleeping the rest of the night.  The worst part?  Neither of us honestly remember when he came in, but only the fact that we woke up with him in between us... taking up the majority of the bed by laying perpendicular between us!  Ahh, parenthood!

Adventures in the Big Boy Bed

I wanted to keep a log of Jack's transition to his new big boy room.  I know the process won't be that easy or even always progress, but it is such a big step for our little man!

Day/Night 1 (June 19th):

We actually had the mattresses the night before, but I don't think Mommy & Daddy were brave enough to try to put him into the new bed.  Also, we wanted him to introduce him to the beds before asking him to sleep there.  Well, on with it.  It was the day of his birthday party, we actually let him take a nap in "Mommy Daddy room" (as he calls it) to avoid any serious meltdowns before his party. 

That evening we decided to try putting him down in his big boy bed.  He had such a fun day wearing himself out and loved showing his friends and family his new room that he seemed pretty comfortable with the idea.  Of course he wanted some snuggles (and he got them of course) and fell asleep easily around 9:30 p.m.  He woke up at 2 a.m. and Matt just brought him to bed with us... we weren't brave enough to push the issue!

Day/Night 2 (June 20th):

Grandma was at our house during the day, and he was good & worn out when he willingly went down for a nap in his big boy bed.  He slept there for over 3 hours, only waking up once in the middle.  She said she easily calmed him down by rubbing his back and shushing him.  When she went in to check on him around the 3 hour mark, he was laying in bed awake.  He asked her to get him out of bed.

After I got home from work that evening, I made sure to help teach Jack how to climb in and out of his bed by himself.  I would never want my child to feel like he can't get out of his own bed, even if that does mean him running into our room at night (plus, we've got a baby gate blocking our bedrooms' hallway from the rest of the house).  That night Matt got home around 8:30 p.m.; we used that time as a little bit of visiting with Matt and then we put him in bed.  He seemed to really need some Daddy time and was really upset when Matt tried to leave.  So, again Matt snuggled him to sleep in his big boy bed.  Low and behold at 2 a.m. (actually more like 1:50 because I remember looking at my phone) Jack woke up again!  This time Matt was able to cuddle him back to sleep, but I had fallen asleep when I noticed Matt coming back to bed... I'm pretty sure he had fallen asleep too, ha ha!

Day/Night 3 (June 21st):

Grandma got him to nap successfully again!  It was a shorter nap but he was in a great mood afterwards, so quality over quantity!

This evening resulted in lots of tears at bedtime (around 8:30 which is our goal), but Matt snuggled with him (seeing the Daddy's boy theme, yet?) and he eventually calmed down and fell asleep.  Since then he had already fallen out of bed twice (all before midnight).  We have chosen not to use a temporary rail, because he's in a twin bed which the mattress is only sitting on a board (not higher on a box spring) and many people I've talked to swear that kids might fall out a couple of times, but they move past it quickly!  We have a full length body pillow laying right next to his bed to cushion any fall and every time he cries out in the night we check on him.  Both times he fell out the crying was relatively short-lived after we cuddled him & put him back in his bed and he fell back asleep in his bed quickly with some shushing and back rubbing.  The second time he had fallen out of bed it looked to me like maybe his feet had gotten caught in the sheets and he got a little more discombobulated when he fell.  When I put him back in I ensured he didn't have any covers on... our house is warm enough anyway!

He's woken for a third time tonight and called for Daddy... he keeps asking to go in Mommy & Daddy's room so the falls might have made him nervous.  We're going to take him to bed with us for the rest of the night, but we'll keep trying to encourage him that his new big boy bed is a very comfortable and safe place for him to sleep! 

There's always tomorrow!