My little climber is now an escape artist. Yeah, I know. It blew my mind too. Usually, the boys bedtimes are staggered with Max's coming first, but on Monday night they went down at the same time. We gave them a couple flashlights and let them play and talk in the dark until they fell asleep. The only stipulation was that they had to stay in bed. Really, the rule only applied to David since Max was in a crib, but we have to make things sound equal around here for them to go smoothly so it was for "both of them".
They played, they laughed, they talked. They had a great time. And then...
I heard David yelling from the bedroom "Maaaaaaama! Max broke the night-night rule. He got out of his bed!". Max is just too sweet to break rules, right? We muted the movie we were watching and waited a minute. We heard more yelling from the bedroom. "MAAAAMMMAAA!!! He's walking around our room!". He sounded much more insistent this time so I went to check it out. Sure enough Max was standing in the middle of the room with his blankets and his Monkey in his arms just grinning at me. I have never seen the kid look prouder. Without a sound he had managed to escape the prison that is his crib. Unbelievable.
We talked with Max about how that was naughty and breaking the rule (for whatever good that does with a 19 month old) and put him back in his crib. By the time we were seated in the living room and had our movie back on we heard David yelling that Max was roaming the room again.
Fast forward through the next two and a half hours and 10-12 trips back to Max's crib, we were exhausted, it was 11pm and Max was just starting to seem tired. Learning new skills got the adrenaline pumping and he couldn't sleep. Pair that with the feeling of freedom and getting to see mama whenever you want and you have a boy that has seemingly vowed never to sleep again. Ever.
When he finally surrendered we said a little prayer begged God that he'd wake up in the morning having miraculously forgotten how to pull that little stunt. No such luck. Nap time Tuesday was another battle. It started off pretty good. He laid there for a while before attempting his first escape. Then he picked up speed and I wasn't able to reach the door before he had his leg over the side. Each time he'd escape he would run to David's bed, lay down and settle in. I'd go to check on him to find him covered with blankets, sucking his thumb and hugging Monkey. He looked as if he planned to stay all day. Every time his sweet little face would look up at me and say "Big boy!".
I had a prenatal appointment Tuesday so I didn't have time for a long, draw out battle. I gave in after relocating him to his crib about a dozen times and just let him stay in David's bed. I figured if he wants so badly to be there then there might be a chance he'd sleep there. I snuck off to a corner where he couldn't see me and just waited. In 5 minutes he was asleep. I did have to remind him once to stay put, but he didn't put up much of a fight.
Almost 3 hours later, I had to wake him from one of the longest naps of his life. I guess he really liked that big boy bed. :) David and I talked and decided, to make it safer for him, we'd switch him over to toddler bed. We had one in storage at my mom's so we packed ourselves up and made a quick trip out there before bedtime. He was SO excited to go to bed!
Night one was a HUGE success. He took nearly an hour to fall asleep which is unusual, but that's probably from his super long nap that afternoon. He never attempted to get out of bed. He sat up just once and looked around, but I was watching and told him to lay back down. He obeyed very quickly and never pushed it again. The rest of his awake time was spent quietly cuddling Monkey and sucking his thumb. He woke up just once around 5am, but after hugs and kisses he went back to bed without a fight, again not attempting to get up and follow me out of the room.
I have never seen a more obvious sign of readiness. I hate when parenting is a guessing game (especially when I guess wrong a few times before I get it right). Max dumbed this one down to a level we just couldn't miss. I LOVE that! :D
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| The new set up |
