Bedtime upgrade
Once you are a parent, there are many things that you give up and sacrifice for your children.
I have no problem giving up things, like making it all the way through a movie without nodding off (perma-tired doesn't begin to cover it), having conversations that don't involve references to bodily functions, using the bathroom without an audience (or heck, holding a child while using the restroom), spontaneous happy hours, spontaneous nights out...or pretty much spontaneous anything.
In case you were wondering (which I'm sure you weren't): spontaneity goes out when a baby comes out.
I actually have no problem giving up all my spontinatiey. I have fleeting moments of missing it, but I can live without it.
What I really miss is sleep. All-the-way-through-the-night-wake-up-when-you-are-well-rested kind of sleep.
People told me that I should try to log as many hours before the baby came as possible, but of course, sleep doesn't work that way. You can never build up a sleep reserve.
I'm now in a 17 month sleep deficit, with no way to dig myself out of that hole.
Hunter is pretty much amazing in every aspect of life, except he REALLY sucks at sleeping.
You can't be great at everything.
Sometimes I think of what it would have been like to have a baby whole slept through the night starting at 3 months old (or heck 9 months, or even 12 months).
But then I'm sure I would have had to trade one of his amazing qualities to get a better sleeper- and I'm not sure I'd be willing to give up his chillness or his friendliness or his cuddliness.
It's kind of like how I always wanted to have curly hair, but now that I've grown up I realize that I could have never handled curly hair, it would have been a nightmare.
It's not been ideal, but his poor sleep habits are what we've tackled for the last 17 months. He finally started sleeping through the night (consistently without periodic wake ups) only 2.5 months ago, and I think it's finally here to stay (knock on some serious wood for me).
So, since he's finally consistant, we thought we would throw a wrench into things.
A wrench in the form of a big boy bed.
That may be fluffing it up a bit, it's more a mattress on the floor than it is a true bed.
Since Hunter is on the smaller side (read short), and has never been very interested in climbing, we thought putting a mattress on the floor would be the best thing for him to get on and off easily.
Obviously I was not wanting to invest a small fortune in a bed for the little guy, so I looked into a few mattress options.
I checked craigslist, but spending $100 on a twin mattress that may or may not have been peed on by a stranger doesn't seem like a good deal, even if it is advertised as "super clean- no smells or stains."
I also wasn't interested in heading to a mattress store and being sold a $500 mattress that I didn't really need.
I ended up at Ikea playing Goldilocks with my friend Liz.
We laid on pretty much every mattress in the store; only pausing briefly to consider that there may be lice living on the mattresses. Ewwwww.
After agreeing that we most likely hadn't gotten lice, I laid on a few more mattresses. I was particularly drawn to the tempurpedic mattresses rather than the coil ones. We have a tempurpedic topper for our mattress and we really love it.
We found one that was on sale for $175, the Sultan Fidjetun and decided to take it home (it has a 30 day return policy, so we have an out if it isn't as great as I thought).
There is nothing more strange than buying a mattress that comes rolled up.
Oh Ikea, you are so weird, but I still love you.
While we were there, I also picked up a duvet with a striped cover and a waterproof/allergen-proof mattress protector. I think all in, I spent just about $250.
Well, then of course I picked up a few other "must haves" so I think it came to more like $300, but who's counting? It's Ikea, you can't just buy one thing!
When I got home with loot in hand, I spread it all out in Hunter's room and he helped me assemble and open the packages.
Clearly, he was a huge help.
Luckily, I was able to rearrange his room to fit all his current furniture as well as his new bed.
So now, we have a bed and a crib in his room, with high hopes to downsize the crib in a month or so.
We are NOT pushing the bed thing. We figured, he LOVES sleeping in beds, so why not get him one and let him transition naturally to it when he is ready?
So that is where we are at.
He has slept one partial night in his crib and one nap so far.
Chris slept with him one night, but got uncomfortable on the twin mattress and abandoned ship at 1am and came back to our bed. He ended up putting Hunter in his crib that night because he didn't want to wake him up in the middle of the night and freak out.
If he had of left him, I think he would have been fine, but you never know. So, that is why I only count a partial night.
So, each night, we go to his room, read books and lay down in bed together and I wonder if tonight is going to be the night.
He wants to sleep in his bed. He LOVES his bed. When I ask him where he wants to sleep, he says "beh" and gets into it each night.
He wants to jump on it, lay on it, lay under the covers, surround himself with stuffed animals and pretend to go to sleep in it.
But, when it comes the time for mommy to vacate the bed; to give final kisses and shut the door, he is less inclined to be in his bed.
Since we are not pushing the bed on him, I'm not going to let him cry it out or be upset about it. So, he ends up in his crib, happy as a clam- sleeping through the night.
I'm sure that one of these days, its going to click for him and all of a sudden he's going to want to have nothing to do with his crib and everything to do with his bed, but that day is not today.
We may try again this weekend to get him to go through the night in his bed, but that will probably mean a sleepless night forus me.
It's ok, sleep is a luxury I have learned to live without.
I have no problem giving up things, like making it all the way through a movie without nodding off (perma-tired doesn't begin to cover it), having conversations that don't involve references to bodily functions, using the bathroom without an audience (or heck, holding a child while using the restroom), spontaneous happy hours, spontaneous nights out...or pretty much spontaneous anything.
In case you were wondering (which I'm sure you weren't): spontaneity goes out when a baby comes out.
I actually have no problem giving up all my spontinatiey. I have fleeting moments of missing it, but I can live without it.
What I really miss is sleep. All-the-way-through-the-night-wake-up-when-you-are-well-rested kind of sleep.
People told me that I should try to log as many hours before the baby came as possible, but of course, sleep doesn't work that way. You can never build up a sleep reserve.
I'm now in a 17 month sleep deficit, with no way to dig myself out of that hole.
Hunter is pretty much amazing in every aspect of life, except he REALLY sucks at sleeping.
You can't be great at everything.
Sometimes I think of what it would have been like to have a baby whole slept through the night starting at 3 months old (or heck 9 months, or even 12 months).
But then I'm sure I would have had to trade one of his amazing qualities to get a better sleeper- and I'm not sure I'd be willing to give up his chillness or his friendliness or his cuddliness.
It's kind of like how I always wanted to have curly hair, but now that I've grown up I realize that I could have never handled curly hair, it would have been a nightmare.
It's not been ideal, but his poor sleep habits are what we've tackled for the last 17 months. He finally started sleeping through the night (consistently without periodic wake ups) only 2.5 months ago, and I think it's finally here to stay (knock on some serious wood for me).
So, since he's finally consistant, we thought we would throw a wrench into things.
A wrench in the form of a big boy bed.
That may be fluffing it up a bit, it's more a mattress on the floor than it is a true bed.
Since Hunter is on the smaller side (read short), and has never been very interested in climbing, we thought putting a mattress on the floor would be the best thing for him to get on and off easily.
Obviously I was not wanting to invest a small fortune in a bed for the little guy, so I looked into a few mattress options.
I checked craigslist, but spending $100 on a twin mattress that may or may not have been peed on by a stranger doesn't seem like a good deal, even if it is advertised as "super clean- no smells or stains."
I also wasn't interested in heading to a mattress store and being sold a $500 mattress that I didn't really need.
I ended up at Ikea playing Goldilocks with my friend Liz.
After agreeing that we most likely hadn't gotten lice, I laid on a few more mattresses. I was particularly drawn to the tempurpedic mattresses rather than the coil ones. We have a tempurpedic topper for our mattress and we really love it.
We found one that was on sale for $175, the Sultan Fidjetun and decided to take it home (it has a 30 day return policy, so we have an out if it isn't as great as I thought).
There is nothing more strange than buying a mattress that comes rolled up.
While we were there, I also picked up a duvet with a striped cover and a waterproof/allergen-proof mattress protector. I think all in, I spent just about $250.
Well, then of course I picked up a few other "must haves" so I think it came to more like $300, but who's counting? It's Ikea, you can't just buy one thing!
When I got home with loot in hand, I spread it all out in Hunter's room and he helped me assemble and open the packages.
Clearly, he was a huge help.
Luckily, I was able to rearrange his room to fit all his current furniture as well as his new bed.
So that is where we are at.
He has slept one partial night in his crib and one nap so far.
If he had of left him, I think he would have been fine, but you never know. So, that is why I only count a partial night.
 |
| He's a horizontal sleeper |
He wants to sleep in his bed. He LOVES his bed. When I ask him where he wants to sleep, he says "beh" and gets into it each night.
He wants to jump on it, lay on it, lay under the covers, surround himself with stuffed animals and pretend to go to sleep in it.
Since we are not pushing the bed on him, I'm not going to let him cry it out or be upset about it. So, he ends up in his crib, happy as a clam- sleeping through the night.
I'm sure that one of these days, its going to click for him and all of a sudden he's going to want to have nothing to do with his crib and everything to do with his bed, but that day is not today.
We may try again this weekend to get him to go through the night in his bed, but that will probably mean a sleepless night for
It's ok, sleep is a luxury I have learned to live without.
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