Sadie's New Bed

So while we were in Arizona, Sadie was using a pack and play as her bed for the 2 weeks that we were there. Let me just tell you...she did not like it. Well, I don't think it was the actual pack and play that she didn't like, I think it was just that we were in a new place and she didn't sleep very well. Since she was in the pack and play, she discovered that she could easily climb out of it and run to the door and open it. She would try to escape unless one of us was lying on the floor next to her the whole time she was sleeping. No matter what time it was, if we thought she was asleep and tried to sneak out, she would open her eyes and start crying. So...after about a week or soo of not much sleep, we decided to try out the "Supper Nanny" way of dealing with this issue. This means that we would put her down to bed and naps like usual, and walk out. If she tried to come out, we just say "it's time to sleep" and put her back in her bed. Any time after that, we were supposed to just pick her up and put her back in bed without any words or interaction. So I tried out this method one day at nap time and it worked! After about 5 times trying to escape and being put back in her crib, she came to the door and knocked from the inside. I tried not to laugh out loud and waited for her to actually open the door before I put her back in bed but after that she slept for a really long time. It was great.

Anyway, so we used that method for the rest of the time that we were there and it worked pretty well. We thought we would be ok when we got home because she was still sleeping in her crib and we didn't think she could climb out of it...we were wrong. It took all of one minute for her to figure it out and we had to start all over again. But this time I was really nervous that she was going to fall and hurt herself while climbing out of her crib. So we finally decided to change her crib into a toddler bed.

Here it is!

She always has to have all of this stuff in her crib before we leave the room. It is so weird, but it helps her to stay in bed...kinda.

Anyway, so we knew it would be really hard to keep her in bed without any kind of obstacle to keep her in there so we braced ourselves for a long couple of nights. The first night wasn't too bad, but she came out of her room at 4:30 am and ran into our room and said "i woke up". We were too tired to deal with the crying that would come if we put her back in bed, so we let her come in our bed. Not that she went back to sleep, but anyway. The next night was horrible and we lasted about 2 hours before we finally let her come out and watch a movie with us hoping she would fall asleep. No such luck. We found out though that if we held the doorknob so she couldn't turn it, she would get mad and start crying, but she would walk back and get into bed. So the next day, we bought one of these:

It is great! She still tries to get out of bed, but since she can't open the door, she just walks back and gets in bed and goes to sleep in a lot less time than it took to put her down before. And, this morning, she slept in until 7:30. It was awesome!

And now we have a happy, well-rested Sadie. The end.