April 1st seemed like a good day to finally pull the trigger on converting Claire's crib to a toddler bed. She did pretty well with it the first week. She did start a new morning ritual upon waking. She would toss all her stuff over the rail (pillow, sheep, and blanket), climb out, carry all her stuff to the door and rattle the knob while crying. So when we tried to open the door to get her, she and all her stuff was in the way!
Then after 6 days, she decided she didn't really want to be in her bed anymore. This was after a stay at my parent's in a pack n play, so maybe she thought this new bed wasn't all it was cracked up to be. After we put her to bed, she got out repeatedly and would stand at the door crying. She would ask for more "rock, rock" or a book or a song. Jeff and I took turns going up there and we each gave in to those requests once or twice. She would calm down while we rocked her and even drift off, but after we put her in bed, she'd be up again in 10 minutes. Finally I realized this was just prolonging the issue. At a previous nap time when she has trouble, I had just stood in her room for a few minutes to get her to calm down and lay down and she quickly drifted off. I tried that again, but I couldn't stand there long enough for her to fall asleep and I didn't really want to be starting that bad habit anyway. So after 2.5 hours, I pulled out a "supernanny" technique (like the TV show with a nanny who comes in and fixes dysfunctional families). I just stood outside her room and kept putting her back in bed. So I laid her down, closed the door, listened for the thump of her getting out of bed and went back in to lay her down again. Each time I said something like "It's time for night-night. Mama loves you. See you in the morning." Lather, rinse, repeat 4 times. And then she was down and out for the night.
I had to do the same technique for a couple nap times and one or two more bedtimes, but with less repetitions. Some nights her sleep was a little more interrupted and she'd wake up once or twice and need a snuggle and rocking before going right back to sleep. And some days she was getting up earlier in the morning or at the end of nap. But overall, the transition was not nearly as bad as I feared, except that one night.
No comments:
Post a Comment