Bed Time

 

I sort of skipped over the fact that we moved Bode into a big boy bed. It’s been quite some time ago, but let me just tell you…. It was rough! Bode has always been an amazing sleeper and very much on a schedule. I was really worried he would stop napping and it would ruin everything if we moved him out of his crib. Well, I was kind of right. :( He LOVED the bed. He would jump and play on it and talk about it for days. He never once wanted back in his crib, but wasn’t quite comfortable in his bed. We started him out with a mattress on the floor for a few weeks, then set up the bed.

Bed time used to be putting on jammies, brushing teeth, reading a book, dumping in crib and saying good night. THEN our bed time routine was jammies, teeth, books, lay down by you one minute, rock you one minute, I need a drink, I need to go potty, sobbing don’t leave me..us leaving, 30 minutes later out of nowhere he’s crying so hard he’s about to throw up, one more book, lay down by you one minute, no one more minute, etc etc. It was just awful for that first week or two. He would look up with a quivering lip and just BEG for us not to leave him. I felt so bad!

For about 3 months I thought this big boy bed was ruining my life. I made sure to be a negative Nancy and tell everyone who mentioned Bode wasn’t himself during that time. He was going to bed much later, getting up earlier, not napping.. ugh. We were not used to this at all. He’s the kid that has never woken up more than 3 times during the night and even then he was a baby and it was only for like 20 min each time to eat. He’s never kept us up all night. NOT EVER! Even when he gets sick and throws up for days, he sleeps through it. The kid likes his sleep, so we were shell shocked when things changed after the bed arrived. With the lack of sleep came grumpy, whiney, not nice behavior. He was a wreck. Like I said… rough 3 months.

The crying eventually got less and less. We removed his door knob and put it back on backwards, so we started locking him in there. Clint hated doing that, but I hated him opening the door and coming downstairs a hundred times even more. Once he knew he couldn’t get out, he would calm down and go to sleep. I started mentioning in his nightly prayers for him to be happy and not cry and for heavenly father to help him fall asleep. This actually helped! He tried so hard not to cry even though I know he wanted to break down. The little feller was trying to be strong and he got better and better every night. It really helped if we left his light on too. When he first asked me to, “Leab the yight on mom, please.” I thought he was nuts. Now it’s on every night and I don’t even care. I figure it helps him to sleep and on the nights we put him down before the sun sets, he doesn’t know the difference because of his light. We tried turning on his lamp and even got him a super cool fish night light that projects onto his ceiling. He doesn’t care and wants the big light, as he calls it.

He still wakes up some nights around 1am and makes his way into our room. He used to hop right in bed with us, but now he knows that if he gets in I am just putting him right back in his own bed. Now he comes into our room and falls asleep on our floor! He is the craziest kid. I’m usually awake around 1 when he comes in, so I will scoop him up and put him back in bed. Now if I’m asleep and Clint is the one that wakes up to a Bode in the bed/on the floor – he is a sucker and takes Bode back to bed and sleeps with him! Like for the rest of the night! I think Clint secretly loves it because we never did the co sleeping thing, and Bode has never been comfortable to sleep with us in the bed until recently. I can’t say much because I have been napping with Bode in my bed everyday for months now. If he’s with me in my bed, he naps for like 3 hours and I’m always tired by the afternoon anyway so it’s a win win. I’m worried for when I have this baby and I’m not able to just take a 3 hour break from the day and nap with him! Maybe we’ll be back to square one and have him not nap. OH WELL! Life goes on right.

Here are my boys getting ready for bed. I’m happy to say things are much better and bed time is easy again. (Most of the time… :) Bode is sweet, loveable, nicer to friends, listens better,  and all around back to his happy self! (Like I said, most of the time.)

Oh and he never fell out of his bed! Yay! I was really worried about that.