Little big man
It seems like from the time I was very young, I always wanted to be older.
I wanted to be with the adults all the time, do cool things like my older sister and basically grow up as fast as possible.
It seems that I have passed that trait onto Hunter.
To compound the issue, is seems that his powers of manipulation are astoundingly advanced even at his young age.
A month or so ago, we transitioned him from his rock & play sleeper into his crib.
I was so excited to get him into his crib, because to me, it felt like that made it all real.
Chris had built that crib when I was 9 months pregnant, and it felt like that is what made his nursery real.
That crib meant that we were about to have a baby (ignoring the diapers, changing table and copious amounts of tiny things).
In fact, he hates it.
He can sense that he is in the crib within 1.5 seconds of laying him in it- even if he is out cold.
He arches his back, flails his arms, kicks his legs and screams.
He HATES it.
And so do we. No one wants a night of sleep deprivation.
Mid-night screaming is our kryptonite. We will give him anything he wants if he will just go back to sleep. Dance puppets, dance!
After a few nights of torture, trying to get him to sleep in it, we finally let him sleep with us in our bed.
Of course, he slept amazingly well, which made me happy because I finally got some sleep too. But, it made me nervous because I didn't want to create a habit.
Since I'm not inclined to share my bed with a very tiny puppet master, I knew that this wasn't a permanent solution.
So, we decided that obviously he likes beds....so lets give him one.
Thus, Hunter commandeered the guest room.
We have an extra queen sized bed in our guest room, and wouldn't you know- Hunter LOVES it. We put him down for naps and night time in there all tucked in and he is in heaven.
Seriously you guys, this is NOT normal, I fully realize this.
Before anyone gets cray-cray thinking that he is going to roll himself off the bed and die, or suffocate with pillows and blankets- chill out.
First off, he HATES rolling. He barely moves at all during the night, and I put pillows on both sides of him in case he gets antsy and starts moving. AND, I swooped up some bed rails at a garage sale last weekend, so I'll be installing those shortly (so the pillow worries will be gone).
Second, he is not going to suffocate. I promise. He is quite adept at moving if he needs to, and we give him plenty of space to breath freely.
OK, now that that is settled, back to the issue at hand.
Our 8 month old is sleeping in a queen sized bed!
Sorry house guests, hope you can fit in a crib....
We kind of love the new set up because it makes it VERY easy on us. If Hunter wakes up at all (which happens about once a night around 3am), we can just go lay down next to him and he falls back to sleep instantly. If we happen to fall asleep, no biggie (there's plenty of room), and we get out of the pacing-the-room-rocking-him-to-sleep-scenario that we were salves to for the previous 7 months.
Now we get sleep and so does Hunter. It's a win-win.
Yes, I do worry about the future when he is big enough to crawl/walk out of bed, but I think we are going to cross that bridge when we get to it.
Our more immediate choice is whether or not to just ditch his crib all together and convert it into a twin bed (we bought a convertible model, so all we need is a new mattress). I would be sad to see the crib go, especially since he only laid in it a handful of times, but I would not be sad to have a full night's sleep every night.
If we make it into a twin bed, Hunter would be in his own room, we could have guests again, and we wouldn't have a sad an lonely crib sitting in an empty room, but we give up the crib all together, and I'm not sure I'm ready to throw in the towel.
Luckily we don't have any house guests planned until September, so we have a few months to figure this whole thing out.
So what would you do? Feel free to judge away. Is this bad parenting? Good parenting? Maybe I am incredibly innovative and this whole baby-in-a-queen-sized-bed thing is going to be all the rage next year. Just you wait and see.
I wanted to be with the adults all the time, do cool things like my older sister and basically grow up as fast as possible.
It seems that I have passed that trait onto Hunter.
To compound the issue, is seems that his powers of manipulation are astoundingly advanced even at his young age.
A month or so ago, we transitioned him from his rock & play sleeper into his crib.
 |
| Dang I loved that rock & play. It was sleeping magic. |
That crib meant that we were about to have a baby (ignoring the diapers, changing table and copious amounts of tiny things).
 |
| That Husky mobile is going to waste! |
Unfortunately for us, Hunter doesn't feel as connected to the crib as we do.
In fact, he hates it.
He can sense that he is in the crib within 1.5 seconds of laying him in it- even if he is out cold.
He arches his back, flails his arms, kicks his legs and screams.
He HATES it.
And so do we. No one wants a night of sleep deprivation.
Mid-night screaming is our kryptonite. We will give him anything he wants if he will just go back to sleep. Dance puppets, dance!
After a few nights of torture, trying to get him to sleep in it, we finally let him sleep with us in our bed.
Of course, he slept amazingly well, which made me happy because I finally got some sleep too. But, it made me nervous because I didn't want to create a habit.
Since I'm not inclined to share my bed with a very tiny puppet master, I knew that this wasn't a permanent solution.
So, we decided that obviously he likes beds....so lets give him one.
Thus, Hunter commandeered the guest room.
Seriously you guys, this is NOT normal, I fully realize this.
Before anyone gets cray-cray thinking that he is going to roll himself off the bed and die, or suffocate with pillows and blankets- chill out.
First off, he HATES rolling. He barely moves at all during the night, and I put pillows on both sides of him in case he gets antsy and starts moving. AND, I swooped up some bed rails at a garage sale last weekend, so I'll be installing those shortly (so the pillow worries will be gone).
Second, he is not going to suffocate. I promise. He is quite adept at moving if he needs to, and we give him plenty of space to breath freely.
Our 8 month old is sleeping in a queen sized bed!
 |
| Oh yeah, we have an 8 MONTH old. How did that happen? |
We kind of love the new set up because it makes it VERY easy on us. If Hunter wakes up at all (which happens about once a night around 3am), we can just go lay down next to him and he falls back to sleep instantly. If we happen to fall asleep, no biggie (there's plenty of room), and we get out of the pacing-the-room-rocking-him-to-sleep-scenario that we were salves to for the previous 7 months.
Now we get sleep and so does Hunter. It's a win-win.
Yes, I do worry about the future when he is big enough to crawl/walk out of bed, but I think we are going to cross that bridge when we get to it.
Our more immediate choice is whether or not to just ditch his crib all together and convert it into a twin bed (we bought a convertible model, so all we need is a new mattress). I would be sad to see the crib go, especially since he only laid in it a handful of times, but I would not be sad to have a full night's sleep every night.
If we make it into a twin bed, Hunter would be in his own room, we could have guests again, and we wouldn't have a sad an lonely crib sitting in an empty room, but we give up the crib all together, and I'm not sure I'm ready to throw in the towel.
Luckily we don't have any house guests planned until September, so we have a few months to figure this whole thing out.
So what would you do? Feel free to judge away. Is this bad parenting? Good parenting? Maybe I am incredibly innovative and this whole baby-in-a-queen-sized-bed thing is going to be all the rage next year. Just you wait and see.
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