Sleep Status

Sorry for the delay! Many have asked how the night went, so here is the update. I left off last night with them sleeping quietly. Honestly I thought it was going to be so dramatic, and it was so...not.

I imagine it's because in general, these kids love to sleep. We really worked hard on this. From the moment they came home from the NICU, they slept in their own cribs in their own room. Never in a bassinet, never in our room, never once in our bed. We tried very hard not to create bad habits that would later be hard to undo. We taught them early on how to be self-soothers by not coming to them when they cried, getting rid of pacifiers by 8 months and keeping a very strict nap/nighttime sleep routine. So they are good sleepers because they learned to be, not just because we're lucky. :)

So on the one hand, I'm not all that surprised that they went right to bed in their new big kid beds because they genuinely like to sleep. However, fear not. The night was not without its hangups.

At 1:00 in the morning, I heard the first thud followed by crying. Sure enough, Ethan had fallen off the bed. (unfortunately, our cribs turn into toddler day beds, with no railing at all to keep them in. So I hugged him (no talking to him) and put him right back into bed and covered him up. He went right back to sleep.

At 3:23, Colton fell off. Same routine. I got up, hugged him and put him back on his bed. He went right back to sleep.

At 4:00 I heard crying, but no thud. Sure enough no one had fallen off, but Colton was apparently having a bad dream or something (probably about falling off his bed!) So I just let him cry because I could tell he wasn't really awake.

At 5:45, another thud, and crying again. this time I went in to find that again, Ethan had fallen off and was standing in the middle of the room crying. Colton and Hunter were BOTH standing behind him, rubbing his back. OMG, they melt my heart. I put them all back in their beds and despite the fact that they normally wake up between 8 and 8:30, I had a feeling they weren't going to sleep for long because they had noticed that the sun was starting to come up. Hunter had soaked her diaper and her sheets were wet, so I changed her, and then she brought her pillow over to Colton's bed and lay down beside him. So I left them in there and went back to bed myself.

At 7:00 I heard them yelling at me. So I agreed to be awake for the day.

I got up, opened my door and saw this. :)

Then I went into their room and saw this.

Yeah, I may need to do something to prevent THIS from happening again. :)

So my assessment of the night is this: I firmly believe they would've slept right through the night until morning had they not fallen out. So the big dilemma right now is that they need to learn to adjust to their new beds and the lack of railing. Many have asked whether or not I'll go buy bed rails and my answer right now is 'Not yet.' Which is not to say I won't, but I want them to try and adjust to the beds for a little while first. (As Brian tells me, we learned how to sleep without falling out of OUR bed so they will too.) And honestly, Hunter did it so I'm confident the boys will too, in time.

That said, I am writing this entry at naptime- currently it is 1:58. I put them in their room, in their beds at 1:00.( There is a baby gate in their doorway. ) They are STILL running amuck up there. I can hear them on the monitor doing God knows what. I'm positive however that it is NOT napping. I went up twice to redirect them to their beds but I'm resisting the urge to go up again. I'm going to play it out and just see how long it takes before it's quiet. Then I'll go see what kind of damage they did and where they each ended up. :) And don't worry. I WILL take a picture. :)

Now you want to know my favorite part of the whole night time fiasco was? When we woke up, and I said to Brian, "So only 3 falls, not too bad." You know what he said? "They fell?" I swear to you, he could sleep through a tornado. Good thing I love him. :)

***UPDATE on the day's nap. Yeah, it never happened. Disaster. Too much fun swapping beds I guess. I'm SO not giving up on the 3 hour nap. I NEED it! I don't know if they still do, but I definitely do. Breathe.....tomorrow's another day, right??? :)