Saying Good-Bye to the Crib

A couple of weeks ago our world changed in a big sad way. I was just settling back in from a 3am feeding with Maeva (I know, ridiculous) when I hear Manny start SCREAMING his head off suddenly. It wasn't a cry, it was a scared scream. I went into his room, and he was standing there with tears running down his face trying to climb out of his crib. I asked what was wrong, and he said he was scared and wanted me to hold him. (or hold you as he actually says.) It was so sad...I really could sense the fear, and am pretty sure he'd had a bad dream. It absolutely broke my heart. So we finished the night with him in our bed - which basically means sleep for nobody. Amazing.

The next day, I went to put him in his crib at naptime and he started panicking wanting out and saying it was scary. I felt so bad for him and just let him nap in our bed by himself, and he went right to sleep no problem. And that's basically what happened for the next week. He'd brush his teeth, and before we could even do anything else, he'd run and get in our bed and go right to sleep. A couple of times we tried putting him in his crib, but he still seemed really scared, and not like he was faking it. So we let him fall asleep in our bed, then we'd move him to his crib. He'd still wake up screaming crazy around 5 or 6, which was early for him.

So after a week, we decided to transition his crib to a toddler bed. This was harder for me than I anticipated. I just wasn't ready for him to be out of his crib! He slept so great there (not always, but we eventually got to that point) and I just wasn't ready for this move. But it definitely seemed to be the time for the change. So Patrick transitioned the crib, and I also took Manny to Target to pick out some new bedding. We thought maybe a change would make things better. He was excited at first, but that lasted all of 7 minutes. We could still get him to sleep in there with a little work, but it was exhausting. We knew we needed more changes, so the hunt for the perfect bed began.

And don't kid yourself - I was totally stalking Craigslist for a Thomas bed. Yep, it might be a bit much but if it meant he would go back to sleeping good? I would embrace that bed as if it was made of gold. There was no way I was buying one of these new, but I never found one on Craigslist for a decent price, so I guess it wasn't meant to be after all. 

The more we talked about it and looked around (and the less we slept), we decided he needed a regular twin bed rather than a toddler bed. He'd just gotten too big for a toddler bed and would wake himself up moving around at night...and once he woke up? Well then he'd end up sleeping in our bed in the shape of the letter T. Again...amazing.

Somehow in all our searching, we came across fort beds...and I'm pretty sure I haven't seen Patrick quite this excited about something in awhile. We stumbled on this particular fort bed on craigslist for a fraction of the price, and Patrick was giddy. We had decided we'd probably do it, when we had the foresight to actually measure how it would fit in the room. Yeah, not so much. So as sad as it made me, I had to crush Patrick's hopes and dreams and say no to the fort bed. Maybe one day.

We had seen this bed at IKEA awhile back and thought it was cool. However, we don't feel comfortable with Manny sleeping up top just yet so filed it away for another day. Then I was looking on the IKEA website, and saw that it's actually a reversible bed, and the bed can go either high or low. I was headed to Dallas that weekend anyway, so we decided to go for it!

And a million pieces and a few hours later, the bed was ready to go. He was SO SO excited about it...he actually gasped and started clapping when he saw it. It was so cute!

He was ready to go to bed and kept telling us bye so we'd leave the room. He looked like such a big boy!

Annnnd this is what I found when I went to check on him later that night. I mean...at least he's sleeping, right?! He's such a mess. Thankfully we've come a long way since then and he sleeps great in his bed now. Or I should say WAS sleeping great. Then Daylight Savings Time happened, and we're back at square one basically. So amazing. Except not. I'll sleep one day, right? And that would be the end of the longest most rambling story ever. Can we blame the fact that this doesn't make sense on sleep deprivation? :)