Katherine has been in her toddler bed for several weeks now. So far the little experiment is working well with some exceptions. She used to go to bed at 8:00. Now she still goes to bed at 8:00, but we spend the next two hours chasing her back into bed, changing her diaper, answering questions, and so on. On a typical night, we’ll be in the living room and we’ll hear this “thump, sprint-sprint-sprint, snatch, sprint-sprint-sprint, thump!” Yes, that is her jumping from her bed, running across the room to grab a desired toy, and sprinting back to her bed.
This will happen at least four times each night.
Another habit she has picked up is getting up when I do. I get up at that horrid hour when not even the birds are yet awake, and while I do try to be quiet, Katherine inevitably wakes up as well. Usually she’ll hop in bed with Courtney where she will talk until Courtney gives up completely on sleep.
She also has the habit of drinking her bottle, wanting a diaper change, and a refill on the bottle. It tends to make for a rather damp morning if we don’t change her immediately after she gets up.
The one habit that I find most disconcerting, however, is her habit of not necessarily sleeping in her own bed or any bed at all for that matter. This morning, we found her asleep on the floor outside our door. We’ve also found her asleep under her bed, on the exercise machine, in the middle of her room…. It worries me because we really have only a general idea of where she’ll end up sleeping, and if we needed to find her fast, we’d have to search.
Hmmmmm…
Here’s an idea: She currently has these fuzzy pajamas. What if we covered her bed in velcro? Heck, we could even get rid of the bed and just put velcro on the wall. And think of how easy it would be to tuck her in at night! We could literally just toss her into her room!
It’d be a real space saver, and it’d solve most of the habits she has now.
Now if you’ll all please sign here stating that you promise not to call Child Social Services….
