Bluebird's Nest

Ikea 3 stage bed

Around the time that the wee babe turned 2 we transitioned her into the teenager’s big girl bed. I had many reservations around this. The main one being: how many times a night is she going to get out of the bed and annoy us.

Here’s what happened.

We set the bed up in her bedroom AND kept the crib up in her room too for a week. Her room is tiny so this left it very cramped.

During that week, I got some books out from the library about kids sleeping in big beds now. We talked about the bed and every night we gave the option for her to sleep in either her crib or the big bed.  The first couple of nights she slept in her crib. Then she said she wanted to sleep in the big girl bed! Success! Something we didn’t anticipate was the fact that she would want her stuffies to sleep in the crib and not with her.

In the beginning she didn’t really realize that she could get out of the bed. But that didn’t take long  for her to figure out.

There were two bonuses to having this bed.

1. You could get in the bed with her and read her a story. And fall asleep for a bit with her. (Also a downfall. More on this later.)
2. She can get out in the morning and come to your room to snuggle. (You don’t have to get out of your bed to get a crying baby).

Of course the obvious happens: she gets out of bed in the middle of the night. Not very night, but some nights. And sometimes multiple times stating “I told”. Translation: “I’m cold”. We just take her back to her room and climb back in bed with her until she falls asleep.

Some tips that we’ve had to learn the hard way:

1. Don’t fall asleep with her and stay with her until she falls asleep. We’re now stuck in this trap and if we were to leave before she’s asleep it would be a war of her not staying in bed for probably 2 hours until she’s so exhausted she’ll fall asleep. We’ll have to do this soon, but I’m going to put aside a weekend or so to get ‘er done..
2. Don’t make the room pitch black. Then when they wake up in the middle of the night and cant see anything, they scream bloody murder until you come and get them.
3. Our bed has sides so you might want to invest in sides for a bed. Ours cruises around the bed all night long sometimes fully inverted.

After 6 months almost, we have no qualms about our transition to the big girl bed.

As for when the right time to do this is? The perfect time for your child and you to be ready.

You’ll know when that is

Have you transitioned your child to a big kid bed? What was your experience? If not, what are your concerns? Do you have any other tips?

So, I said I was going to blog about it and now I am staying true to my word. You got the idea from my previous blog that the flight went not well right? It was horrid.

This is how I thought I would feel the whole trip long

Let’s start with what I was thinking leading up to 3 flights, 26 hours in motion and a 9 hour time change. I was a bit worried as every time I had ever flew with the wee babe, she was breast feeding and that went really well. She breast fed almost the whole trip over to Switzerland, (which kinda sucked as I was tied to a chair) and she bit me once but it was good for going up and coming down. When we took this flight, she wasn’t breast feeding anymore.

I had been reading up that I should pack several different “new” toys so when the one year old got bored, I could pull out a new one and PRESTO! She was distracted again.

She wasn’t quite walking yet so I was worried that she would spend a lot of time on the floor and in the aisle of the airplane. Not one of the most sanitary places you’ve ever seen.

Ok, so those were my worries leading up to it and I tried so hard to figure out how I could make the best of this situation. I failed. Miserably.

We woke up at 6:30am that morning and headed off to the airport in Geneva. So far so good. We checked our 5 full suitcases (at no charge I might add, pat, pat, pat), one car seat, and put the babe in the stroller. We each had a bag including the baby. We were loaded.

The day before, I had asked the hubby to get some formula to get us through to Canada since we were almost out. He decided to try something new. I should have known better and send him right back out to get the stuff we normally get. Anyway…

I wish we had one of these. Just one.

Onto the plane one hour late, and up we go. 6-7 hours later we start our decent. The wee babe starts puking and puking and puking. I’m covered. Plastic cups that you haven’t given in to the flight attendants come in pretty handy when the 1 year old doesn’t want to puke into the puke bag, let me tell you. It gets better: just as we’re about to land, the pilot pulls up and we’re going up, up, up again. Almost scared the shit out of me. He comes on the PA system and tells us that a plane hadn’t cleared the runway in time. Splendid. And down we go again. It’s like an over priced roller coaster ride.

We arrive in Montreal with what was supposed to be a couple of hours of layover but now that we wasted an hour on the tarmac waiting and then the almost landing and circling – we’re late. I think to myself – screw it. I stink and they now expect me to get all of the luggage again, walk it through customs and check it all back in again. They’ll hold the plane for me right?

So we grab the luggage and head to customs. Get through customs, and then try to check the luggage back in. We get there and the person for Air Canada is panicking that we’re going to miss our plane. She’s freaking out, counting the luggage, it’s not computing that we have 5 pieces but there’s only 4 of us. After she finally figures it out (of course I’m wondering if it’s all going to make it to Victoria, I’m most worried about the car seat. Wouldn’t that be just peachy after 26 hours and no car seat waiting for you in Canada and it’s 10pm at night).

She yells at us “run, run, run Forest run!!” I’m like, you’ve got to be freaking kidding me. So we run (hobble) to the gate. They are still loading. We get on the EXACT same flight number and fly to Toronto. But not before we have yet another puke fest preparing to go up.

The wee babe unleashes what she has left in her all over my chest. You can tell we’re about to start taxiing but I absolutely needed a different shirt. Stupid me didn’t bother to pack one in the carry on luggage. I was about to ask the tweenager who is about 7 sizes smaller than me if I could borrow one of her shirts when the hubby pulls through with a shirt he tucked into the carry on last minute as he would have been over on the weight of his suitcase. Thank the lord. I don’t even go to the washroom to change, I just ask him to make a wall with his body in the seat and I strip down right then and there.

While I’m in mid-strip, the flight attendant comes over and says that my hubby will have to sit down as they are ready to take off. Hold you’re freaking horses lady.

So we go up and we go down. The wee babe’s not eating much and randomly puking. I’m worried that she’s getting dehydrated but she’s still cruising around on the floor crawling on the disgusting carpets. Ugh… What’s a woman to do? Oh and let’s not forget she’s tired, it’s probably around 10pm, wellll past her bedtime, her tummy hurts, she’s not feeling well and she’s – yup you guessed it – crying. You know how you read all those magazines about how people who don’t have kids, wonder why people who do have kids, bring said kids on the plane? I’m surrounded by those knife throwers.

And this is really what we looked like.

Anywho, we make it to Toronto. Thankfully it’s a quick flight. 1 hour I think. And then we have a nice long layover for 4 hours. So we’re in Toronto, it’s like 2am for us and the wee babe isn’t sleeping. I’m so confused. I’m wishing I was still breastfeeding – I was even contemplating whipping it out to see if that might work… I didn’t but I thought about it. I hit up a little airport store and they were selling newborn formula in a can for like $20 each so naturally I bought two. The wee babe wasn’t drinking water and I was really worried she was going to kick it on me, so I thought I better get something even if it was intended for a 0 month old.

We get on the next plane finally. Another 5 hours I think. I’m delirious, I want a divorce (you can imagine how loving my hubby and I were towards each other at this point as I completely blamed him for the baby puking for the last 20 hours – which the words still out on if it was a reaction to the formula but I tried to give the same stuff to her one month later and 2 days after giving it to her she randomly puked. So we immediately stopped) and I smell purty.

We finally arrive in Canada, immigration is a breeze and I see my parents. So nice to see a familiar face and someone who loves me even if I stick so so so bad. It’s about 9pm Canada time, noon Swiss time and I can hardly contain my excitement to see my house that I left 6 months ago. Actually, all I really know is that it was dark when we got in and it was morning for us normally. Other than that I was way too tired to do the math.

We made it safe and sound. The wee babe didn’t die due to dehydration, but she did pick up a nasty cold/flu somewhere (can you say airplane carpet much?) and then we all come down with it shortly after her – except for the tweenager. Welcome to Canada eh?

Many many lessons here but the one thing I will NEVER cheap out on again is taking many many flights to save a few bucks and adding in picking up luggage in the middle of it to recheck it and then hop back on the exact same flight number. Come on – there’s got to be a better way people.

Oh and a big shout out to my tweenager for helping as much as she did. She was a trooper through all that puke.

And that’s it. The car seat made it. Hallelujah.

I’m sure glad I wrote that last post about the wee babe’s issues with sleeping. I received some nice words of encouragement and some ideas that other mother’s had tried.

I received an email from my cousin suggesting that I just let her cry it out. At first, to be honest, I just didn’t think I had it in me. Not enough sleep and feeling a little tender didn’t make for a good mix when I was going to have to go through the agony of letting her cry for who knew how long.

The day after I wrote that post, she was awake for 2 hours from 12-2am and I’m sure her teeth were bugging her. The way she was crying was more like a moaning. I put oragel on her, tried Tylenol all while snuggling her and singing to her in our kitchen. Finally, I breastfed her as I was at my wits end and she fell fast asleep until the morning.

The hubby and I talked about it and we decided that we couldn’t take it anymore (no less after fighting between us ensued due to lack of sleep). That night we were going to try the ‘crying it out’ method. I was nervous and very worried for the people who were in the apartment beside us.

She went to bed as normal (breastfed to sleep) and then she woke up at 12:30. We let her cry, and cry and cry. And I cried and cried and sobbed. I rubbed her back. She settled a little bit but never stopped crying. After 2 hours I couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t do it. And I was so worried about the people next door and her of course. I would have to see these people at some point! What were they going to say to me?!? And in French no less….

So I broke down and breastfed her. Fast asleep almost immediately. I got 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep that night. The most I’d had in weeks.

That morning there was more discussions about what we were going to do. I voiced my concern about the noise in the apartment. Should we put her in the tweenager’s room temporarily. My mother had suggested we put her in a different room than us. Maybe that was the problem.

We talked about her staying in our room and us moving into the living room. We talked about her going in the living room… The deciding factor for us was when I ran into the neighbour in the hallway (I knew it) and he said he had heard it all. My nightmare coming true. He said he had been worried for her as she cried so much and wondered if we should take her to the doctor.

At that point we decided to put her in the living room. She couldn’t stay in our room and ‘cry it out’ anymore.

But first we had her nap to get through. She went to bed in our room for her nap. The crying lasted a half hour. We had to go in every 5-10 minutes to put her back down in her crib as she kept standing up. Then voila! She stopped crying after 30ish minutes. My heart lept for joy. She completed a hour long nap and when she woke up there was lots of kisses and happy words for her. Good job my little baby!

Then bedtime came around, we moved the crib into the living room, nursed her a little bit so she was sleepy but not asleep, put her in her crib and said good night and then we all went to our bedrooms. She cried for 5 minutes!!!! 5 minutes! I was overjoyed. And it gets better. She slept until 5:45am.

Oh. My. God. Heaven.

Up until her morning nap this morning, there was a little bit in me that kept saying that this was just a fluke. That she was just going through another phase – albeit a great phase but still a miraculous phase… I think now after her nap this morning, it was the perfect time for her to try this strategy.

So we moved the crib back into our room for her nap. I breastfed her to a sleepy state and then put her to bed. She cried for…. drumroll please…. 3 minutes!!!

Now I’m simply over the moon. The only thing that I need to worry about now is where she’s going to sleep ever time she needs a nap or bedtime. I think for a while it will be musical rooms. And when my mom comes hopefully we’ll have a good nighttime pattern established so she can room with us again or maybe we can put her in the kitchen. LOL!

But I especially want to give a big shout out to my cousin, Josephine, for suggesting to cry it out and also to say that I’m sorry for doubting you (after all I did the same thing for the tweenager when she was 6 months old!).

It’s amazing how much your life revolves around sleep when you’re not getting enough of it. Thanks to everyone for the words of encouragement. It meant a lot to me.

<3

I awoke at 6 am after waking briefly throughout the night wondering how she was. When I awoke at 6, I woke my hubby and asked if it was too early to go and pick her up. I wanted her in my arms.

I surfed the net and read some email and then drifted back to sleep. I awoke again at 8 am and this time I was excited. I quickly sent an text to my father-in-law asking the status of my wee babe. I sat with baited breath wondering if she awoke throughout the night giving my in-laws no rest or miracle of miracles she slept through the night. No that wasn’t possible.

But, in fact, it was.

He replied that she had slept all the way through the night (I found out later that he awoke in the middle of the night to make sure she was still alive – as I do too) and that she had woken at 6am. They gave her a bottle and then got up.

When we saw her not long later on Skype, she was sitting in her chair, getting ready for bananas. Doing GREAT! We turned on our video and she took a minute as we all said hi and sang to her in our sing song voices for her. Then she started to cry. I think it sank in a bit that she missed us. So we turned off the video camera and all was good again.

We ate breakfast, then ventured over to her. Every light took forever. I couldn’t get there fast enough.

And then I saw her. And she reached for me for a snuggle. Man was that snuggle good. I breathed in her sweet warm smell. I touched her soft hair. And then I received the biggest familiar smile I think I’ve seen.

We were together again. Mama and babe.

Et un grand merci pour mes beaux-parents pour garder ma petite fille.

~~~~~~

Below is the video we took of Papinou and the wee babe on Skype with our Flip camera. The quality is terrible but this is no fault of the Flip camera.

Tonight’s blog is written from a raw place in my heart. Tonight my wee babe went for her first ever sleepover to my in-law’s place. We’re doing this as a trial for her (and me) to see how it goes and get her used to sleeping at their house as we have two upcoming weddings that we are attending and if you know anything about Swiss weddings, they go until around 4 am. No kidding.

So today has been heavy day. All day long I’ve known that around 6pm, I need to part ways with my wee babe and hand her over to her very capable grandparents. I’ve been dreading it. Not because I’m worried about them but because I’m worried about her and how much I know it’s me who can sooth her when everyone else can’t. And trust me, there are times every night that she gets fussy and it’s only me who can calm her down. So what’s she going to do? Explode? I guess in my head, I’ve maybe built it up to be something like that.

So we drop her off. Hugs, snuggles, cuddles, one last breast feed, one last smile, one last giggle. And as we leave she makes a little whine and I make a little whine, knowing that I’m not going to see her until tomorrow and knowing that she doesn’t know that or know what’s in store for her.

I miss her immediately. I don’t know why I’m feeling this way as I’ve already done this once before when my tweenager was a baby but I guess I forget about how I’ve already passed these feelings 11 years ago.

We head home (the 3 of us) and we have dinner. All through dinner I’m thinking about her. But I don’t say anything to my family as I don’t want to seem ridiculous and lame to them. Immediately following dinner I ask my hubby to call his parents and see how she is. Something inside of me is saying don’t listen in case she’s crying. I just don’t think I can take it. And wouldn’t you know it, she is crying.

I think maybe the hardest part was the fact that everything that was said about how she was feeling was said in French, so I’m constantly asking my hubby, what did they say? What’s going on? Did she eat the carrots? Did she drink her bottle? Are her pajama’s on? And the lag in translation was killing me. It seriously was all too much for me and I broke down. Come on. Let’s be honest here. We all knew it was going to happen anyway from the beginning of this story.

We take a break and call them back in a bit. And she’s still crying. At this point I’m wondering if maybe it was too early for her (and me). Should we go over there and pick her up? What am I feeling about that? A failure? What’s going to happen on Saturday night when I NEED them to look after her? Am I just being a pussy and over reacting? Maybe I just need a good cry.

And then she stops. Ok, she stopped enough for the tweenager to break into “Baby Beluga” and wouldn’t you know it, she’s looking for the voice that’s coming from the computer. (By the way, we’re skyping so we can see her but we haven’t turned on our camera so we don’t scar her by seeing us.) She was still a bit whiny and so I decided to add my voice to Baby Beluga but when I started singing it, more tears came. Then the hubby started crying so that got me going even more (I might be crying while I write this).  Then the part in the song where they say “Is your momma home…” I can’t even get through it without crying. The look in her eyes is priceless. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so huge since I’ve known here. Like the cat in Shrek. Come pick me up, their beckoning to me.

So she was still a bit whiny and standing up usually solves this for her. Sit down = she cries. Stand up = she stops. Go figure, it’s pretty annoying. So I make a joke to papinou (grandpa) why don’t you stand up, dance and sing to the little angel. I feel like we’ve told them all the little quirks that make her happy so what’s one more thing. Hold her like this so her fingers are free so she can put them in her mouth, stand up, sing to her, dance, flap your arms in the air, do some jumping jacks, etc… you get the idea.

Papinou get’s up and throws on a dance CD. Where’d her get that from? And on top of it, it has graphics for the TV too so the wee babe is transfixed. He puts down the computer so we can see him holding her, dancing. It’s freaking AWESOME! The tears are gone, and now I’m smiling from ear to ear. No more tears from anyone – my face actually hurt from the smiling and laughing. We’re laughing and the wee babe is dancing with papinou to some crazy disco song. Oh man. Then the tweenager grabs the flip mino and get’s almost all of it on video. I need to get papinou to sign the release forms first before I can post this on YouTube though. Stand by.

The song is over and we decide to leave on a good note. Papinou is moved to tears which gets the hubby crying again which sends me into another blubblerfest. Enough said.

Was I ready? I think so. Just on the edge of it. I might have been pushed a little bit due to a wedding or two but I think it was the right time for her. I’ve always prided myself on the fact that the tweenager has been able to sleepover at anybody’s house. Anybody. And I attribute that to the fact that she slept over at people’s houses from a very young age. Very young. So shouldn’t I be trying the same thing with the wee babe then if I want the same results? I think so. It’s just so damn hard. She’s so little and I HATE to see her cry even for a minute. It breaks my heart when I know that I can make it stop if she’s just with me. But whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger right? I’m sure she’s not going to die over there tonight so she can only be stronger.

Bon nuit ma beaute. Fait de beaux reve. Jusqu’a matin. I can’t wait to see you in the morning.

EEeeeek! My tweenager is growing up!

Today we hit a milestone for her. She probably could have done this ages ago and she probably is totally embarrassed that I would draw attention to this fact but I’m sure every mother and father can relate.

My tweenager did everything this morning. By. Her. Self.

What’s the big deal you ask? Think about it.

When she FIRST started going to school, it was everything in my power to just get her to eat her breakfast at a clip faster than a turtle. And forget about shoes. Every morning I needed to ask her to put on her shoes and jacket. Every. Single. Morning. I swear, everything was a big deal. Getting out of bed. Brushing the teeth. Getting dressed. Doing her hair.

We had check mark lists. We had sticker systems. We had reminders. We tried to get up earlier. We tried to go to bed earlier. We tried changing the order of things around.

I lost my cool many times. She lost her cool many times. My hubby lost his cool many times. I remember even her and I having all out battles with me screaming at her and then dropping her off at daycare or school her crying, me crying feeling like a terrible mother…

Then she got older. And she stopped dilly dallying as much. She had more of an interest for time. She wasn’t perfect but she understood. But toast and/or cereal was still made for her. We needed to tell her to get dressed and brush her teeth. We needed to tell her how much time there was until we needed to leave. Counting down… 10 minutes… 5 minutes… You know how it goes.

And still she got older and she got an alarm. She knew how long she could sleep in and how long it took to get dressed. She knew when she needed to leave and what she needed to do to get ready. But we still got up with her. Helped her get breakfast ready and ate with her.

And then today. Both my hubby, me and the wee babe slept in. My tweenager got up, had a shower, fed herself, brushed her teeth, her hair, got her backpack ready, wrote me a note telling me to have a wonderful day and she was just about out the door when I woke up.

What the?!?!? You were going to leave without me getting up? I have mixed emotions about this. I’m freaking out a bit. The day has come where she is totally self sufficient. She doesn’t need me anymore. No more prodding. No more helping. No more hugs and kisses before you leave?

Stop right there.

There ain’t no way you’re walking out of this house without a hug and a kiss from me. You might be growing up but you’re still the little girl I BEGGED to put her shoes on not that long ago.

The difference is you’re all growed up.

Last night was a rough night. Normally my wee babe wakes up 1-2 times a night. Lately it’s been 4 and I’m not used to this. It’s pissing me off to be honest with you.

My hubby and I have been trying something new for the last week. We’ve been bathing her, reading her a story, breastfeeding her and then bed time. Bath, book, boob, bed. And every night she’s gone to sleep at the breast but that’s it until around 12 or 1 where she wakes up and feeds and goes back to sleep for an undetermined amount of time.

Tonight, completely different. Bath, book, boob, bed, crying, boob, bed, sleeping, boob, bed, crying…this all started at 7pm and now it’s 10:10pm and she’s crying. My husband says “leave her and let her cry”.

What is it that make men and women so different where they can tune out their desperate pleas, but for the mamas, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. No wait, that’s more of an irritating sound and this is a more sad, and well, desperate sound.

I’ll let you know how it goes…

It’s 6:55am and… She went to bed finally around 10:40pm and slept until 6:00am!! This just validates it even more for me that there is no rhyme or reason for night time sleeping/waking.

Why do some nights they sleep all the way through, and other nights wake up 4+ times?????

I wish I knew.

Go to sleep. Go to sleep. GO TO SLEEP!

As I sit here, my wee babe is crying. Crying. Crying. She’s in her crib, tired, fed, clean diaper, and she’s crying. I’m letting her “cry it out”. I started this 2 weeks ago and she did great. I guess I’ve let it slip and put her in her crib already asleep too many times so she forgets how to fall asleep now.

Sleep is a funny thing. People take drugs to go to sleep. People drink warm milk. They take hot baths. They meditate. Soft music. All in the name of sleep. Why is sleep such a tough commodity? Why do people need to “learn” how to fall asleep. It blows my mind.

Sleep baby sleep. Sleep now please. In my mind I’m slowly going crazy. I’ve reassured her a couple of times now. Should I pick her up? Will that undo all that I’ve done and ultimately I’m just going to have to put her back in her crib again hopefully asleep. Which again defeats the purpose of crying it out.

As I write, she’s calming down. I’m secretly wishing that by the time I’m done writing this blog she will be done crying. So I write and I write. Willing. Wishing. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s only got a diaper on. Maybe my husband is being too loud (AGAIN!). Or maybe she just really really really doesn’t want to go to sleep.

Wait. She’s slowing down. Oh no, no, she’s ramping up again. Sigh. This is beginning to drive me around the bend. Please baby please please stop! Learn how to fall asleep. You need to do it for your health and my sanity. Ok, so now it’s been an hour. Am I a bad mom? She’s never cried for so long before. I’m going to check on her.

I checked on her. There she was, on her back, red faced, tears streaming down, no where close to sleep. I gave in. Decided I better get a disposable diaper on her, put her in a onesie, swaddle her and breastfeed her to sleep in hopes that she stays asleep for a while. She’s back in her bed now. Asleep.

It didn’t go as I had planned but that’s ok. She’s where she needs to be. And I’m back where I need to be. Sanity is beautiful.