Prison Break

If you are my Facebook friend, you may already know about this - but a few weeks ago...


Evelyn crawled/jumped/somersaulted/fell out of her crib.

True Story.


It was about midnight. She had been down since 7:30 or so, just like normal, and then out of the blue woke up and began fussing. I grabbed the monitor as I roused myself from 45 minutes of sleep to check out what was going on. I saw her making an effort to CLIMB OUT OF HER CRIB!

What?! This is new. And better yet, she was actually making progress!

So I jumped up, ran to her bedroom door, and as I put my hand on the knob, I heard it. A thud.

I opened the door, and there she was on her back, taking a gasp of air and then...then the moment that makes your heart thud as you wait and wait, that seems to stretch out forever and you think, "Just cry. Please just cry."

In reality it was probably a half a second, but then it happened. She cried. And I ran in and scooped her up into my arms, woke up my still sleeping husband and held that baby. She calmed down in about 2 minutes or so, btw. (I think she was more scared than anything else.)

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In any case. It was scary. And spurned the discussion regarding what exactly we were going to do with Evelyn and sleeping in the future.

We thought we had her crib on the lowest possible setting. After investigating, however, we realized that we did not. That was quickly remedied.

In the meantime, she hasn't managed to climb out of her crib again just yet, but its not for lack of trying. Girlfriend throws her arms over the rail like she is about to hoist herself out of a pool, and then wedges her feet in between the crib slats and shimmies up as high as she can get.

So far, it's not high enough to get out...but she is getting pretty damn close. Watching her on the monitor is as much suspense as I can handle these days. We are constantly negotiating whether to let her calm herself down, or run in there and lay her back down. It is stressful. Thankfully, most nights she still goes down like an angel and rolls right over and goes to sleep. But on those random nights that we are dealing with teeth or some sort of cognitive dissonance - it is hard.

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So, we begin having the real discussion about toddler beds, big girl beds, new baby coming and new sleeping arrangements and new rooms.

All the books and websites and forums of course say different things, but as the parents who actually know our baby girl, this is the plan we are shooting for in the next few months.

Right now - leave her in the crib, try to stretch out the crib sleeping as long as possible.
Decemberish - put the toddler bed rail on her crib, and gate on her bedroom door,  hope to teach her to sleep on her own, in a bed she can escape from - albeit safely. If we can wait on this, we will.
Januaryish - have the "big girl" room all set up, with her big girl bed we have conveniently picked up in Wisconsin over Christmas, begin playing in the big girl room during the day. We really want the room to exist before the new baby gets here.
February - new baby arrives, Evelyn still sleeping in the nursery, as baby will begin sleeping in our room anyway.
March - transition Evelyn to big girl room and bed. Once she is settled, which we are hoping won't take too long...move Baby into nursery.

The biggest things are that we are trying to help ease transitions over a few different periods of time so that we won't be dealing with hugely fussy toddler and hugely fussy baby at the same time. Also, that Evelyn never feels "kicked out" of her room or bed by the new baby.

SIGH. Cross your fingers for us. Maybe this will all be way too much planning and all the transitions will go simply and smoothly. Right? That's possible?


Evelyn Rae is 15 months old, I'm 23 weeks along with Baby Ferris

...and...who knew parenting would involve so much strategy?