Back on the Rollercoaster

I mentioned last month that we were preparing to move all the kids around in the coming months. Well, we took a first step Sunday night...albeit an unintentional one. {grin}

How cute is this face? And YES we went swimming on Sunday!

And we went on a golf cart ride.

I showed you those pictures because Paige is the sweetest, most content, happiest, joyful little girl and pretty much always has been...except for 1 category: SLEEP CHANGES. {Remember some of her terrible infant sleep regressions? Yeah, they haunt my dreams still!}

She has started getting a little harder to get into her crib over the last few weeks. Wants an extra hug, fusses a little, cries after I leave to where I have to come back. But she had stopped climbing out of her bed and was mostly okay, so we kept on with her in her bed knowing we had the big room transition coming up.

Well, Saturday this escalated - she SCREAMED and CRIED when it was time to get into her crib - so hard and much that it was like she was scared of her bed. It took me quite a while to get her in her bed Saturday night and Sunday for her nap, but I got her down! Unfortunately, it quickly escalated at bedtime Sunday night to her being basically hysterical. And of course Brent had been gone Saturday - Sunday getting his deer stand and some of our family land ready for deer season. 

I took her mattress out of her crib and put it on the floor but she was still crying. I tried to stay in her room until she fell asleep, she turned her mattress into a trampoline. I finally took the front off her crib and converted it. This was after 9:00 PM which is the perfect time for an unplanned bed conversion, ugh.

My least favorite parenting phase - the converted bed phase!

[well, not counting the newborn phase ha]

I decided to employ an old Super Nanny strategy I remember from WAY back in the day - just walk her back into her room over-and-over without stalling or talking much. That probably happened at least 20 times and I would put her back in bed, tell her I loved her and I'd see her in the morning. Sometimes she was pulling on my clothes before I was even out of her room! But I prevailed and by around 10:00 PM she finally laid down and went to sleep.

Success!

[It never gets old seeing her suck her thumb, ha.]

She woke us up at 6:30 AM because she fell out of the bed, but I mega count this as a success! I woke up probably 5 times and looked at the monitor thinking I heard her waking up, it never happened!

Last night I put a toy bat under the sheet and mattress protector to create a little barrier and hopefully keep her from falling out - I told y'all I wasn't prepared for this transition! BUT I only had to walk her back into her bed TWO TIMES! The second time she kept begging me for a hug, and I got her back in her bed, gave her a hug, and she laid down, inserted her thumb, and didn't make a peep again.

Might I finally have a kid who transitions out of the crib easily?!?! It'd be about time!