Parenting Fail

I've blogged about my Mommy Fail before (which as I type out the word Fail as a singular word I laugh to myself, realizing it should definitely be a plural word with several posts of that title), but  today I have a parenting fail to blog about.

Our second baby, Molly Mae, is due February 19, 2015. Our plan has been to have Molly sleep in a bassinet next to my bed for at least the first month. After that we would move her to a crib, which would be the crib that Lucy is currently sleeping in. By the time Molly is to be born, our plan was to have Lucy sleeping in a "big girl" twin size bed. We'd planned on moving Lucy into the twin size bed at the first of January, but after talking with Lucy's doctor about this at her 18-month checkup, the doctor said we should start transitioning her now. She said it's not good to make big changes like that two months before or two months after a new baby is born.

I came up with the idea to take the front side of Lucy's crib off so it would be kind of like a big girl a bed to help her get ready for the twin size bed. We never really set a specific date for this change, but a few weeks ago I tweaked my back a bit and it was very hard for me to get Lucy in and out of the crib. We took the crib front off that night so it would be easier for me to put her in bed and also because we needed to do it sometime.

If we only knew then what we know now.............

Lucy is a really good sleeper and she's also really good at just playing in her bed. Our bedtime routine is to take a bath, play a little in her room, I'll sit with her and read books while she drinks milk, and then after about 15-20 minutes she gets a bit restless and I put her in the crib. She will usually play in her crib for about 20-30 minutes - playing with her animals, talking to herself, and lately jumping up and down in her crib. We hear all of this through the baby monitor and it is quite entertaining at times!

With the front of the crib off, Lucy had no problem going in her crib, but she did have a problem staying in her crib! I'll spare you the details of the last few nights and nap times, but perhaps you can see why we were frustrated, worried, confused, clueless, etc., on how to make her stay in bed by the following pictures:

There's no Lucy in this picture because this was from Saturday after her "nap." She never fell asleep for a nap that afternoon and when we decided to just "get her up" she met us at the door and scurried out. It was funny, but frustrating and disappointing because she tore apart her whole room!

 

 

These pictures were taken between Wednesday night before Ross and I went to bed through Monday morning when we woke up. Some were from nap time and some were from bed time. They are quite funny just looking at them, but I felt so bad when I saw her sleeping on the floor! There were two nights when she came into our room and we had to bring her back into hers. And putting Lucy to bed Sunday night was awful! Ross and I decided to just sit with her in front of her bed, trying to keep her in bed, until she fell asleep. We did this together from 8-9:20pm, and then Ross left to study for a test and I sat with her from 9:20-10pm when she finally fell asleep! I was a bit deflated by this, wondering how we were going to ever get her to stay in her bed alone!

 

That Monday morning I was telling some friends about our experience with the front of the crib off and why we were doing this. I'm so glad I told this story because one of the girls gave me some great advice on what to do: keep her in the crib! She said Lucy is too young to understand she has to stay in her crib and to not grow her up too fast. What she said really sank into me and I totally agreed. Especially the part about growing her up too fast! I called Ross and told him about this and that perhaps we should just buy a new crib instead of a new twin size bed and he totally agreed. I was so thankful for that and felt SO relieved that we had a new plan of keeping her in a crib for now.

 

So now our plan is to buy a second crib instead of a twin size bed and I'm just fine with that. I had planned on doing white furniture in Lucy's room, so I plan on buying a white crib. I'm using a white dresser that my Dad made years ago for Stephanie and I. I'm really excited to get Lucy's "new room" decorated and all ready for her!