As you may remember, I gave up the fight all together a few months back and just let Eli sleep in our bed. During naps, we stacked pillows around him and got a bed rail (that he could so easily fall right over if he decided to pull up on it) and during the night, I sleep so lightly that I stiff armed Jonathan every time he even thought about moving any of his extremities. And it worked. Somehow, we were all rested when we woke up in the morning to our grinning little boy.
In early June, Eli learned how to climb. Not just stairs, but pillows, too. Whenever we heard the slightest movement over the baby monitor, one of us would take off into the bedroom to make sure he wasn't crawling off the bed. It was a little stressful. We put our mattress and box spring on the floor as an extra precaution, and that same day, Eli crawled off the bed, onto the nightstand, grabbed Jonathan's Afrin, and fell off onto a bunch of bags that were yet to be unpacked. !!!!! Luckily, no tears were shed and he didn't eat the Afrin.
We made the effort to be extra, extra cautious with our ears, but the next night, he crawled off the bed again. This time, it was face first and we had lots of tears and screaming. He only had a little carpet burn above his eye that healed up by the next morning, but it was obvious that he wasn't allowed in the bed unless we were in it.
We made a valiant effort at the crib again, but he wasn't having it. Not even a little bit. The only idea I had was to make him a pallet on the floor of his very baby proofed bedroom, lay with him until he dozed off, then sneak out of the room. It's worked like a charm. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, I usually bring him into the bed with us again since it's easiest. Oh, and since I absolutely can't sleep when he's in the room all by himself. On the floor. Lonely. And probably cold or scared or something! Something must be wrong since mama's not there. Right?!
My paranoia is a little out of control. Yesterday morning, Eli woke up extra early, so I asked Jonathan to rock him back to sleep and put him in his bedroom. He slept in there for a couple hours, woke up again (stupid teething!) and I grabbed him and brought him back in bed with us. Around 7:00, I started to wake up. In a still-half-asleep state, I noticed the baby monitor was off and PANICKED. I yelled to Jonathan, who was still asleep, "the monitor is off!!" while I ran toward Eli's room. I opened the door, and more panic. "He's not in here!!!" I could see Jonathan sit up across the apartment, and he has no idea what I'm talking about. "Eli is not in his room!!!!" Jonathan gives me the weirdest look, and just points down to the bed beside him. I hurried back into our bedroom and just sighed. "Oh my gosh. I had no idea he was in our bed." Jonathan gave me a side eye and told me to be quiet before I woke him up. I slipped back onto my side of the bed, right beside Eli, still trying to process what I thought was happening. It wasn't until later that afternoon that we were able to laugh about all of this.
I guess I'm having a harder time adjusting to these new sleeping arrangements than Eli is! He has adjusted to sleeping by himself really well, and last night, I felt good about it, so I laid him in his crib. He slept for four hours straight in it, which is amazing! (for him)
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