If there is one thing I've learned as a parent over the past two years it's that patience plays a huge role in everything we do.
As parents we have a lot of demands to stay on top of when raising our kids - keeping up with their energy level when we're tired, balancing the competing priorities at work and home and most of all staying focused through all the transitions that come with them growing up.
This past week our patience level has been tested thanks to our decision to transition Charlotte and Jacob from their crib to a toddler bed. I can honestly say I underestimated how this transition would affect them. I naively thought the transition would be easy - remove the front bar of their crib, put a bed rail up along their mattress so they won't roll out and continue on with their bed / nap time routine. After all we weren't moving them to a completely new bed - we were just converting their crib to a bed since they were jumping out of their crib regularly and I figured if we didn't do something about it soon our next stop would be the emergency room at Sick Kids.
I will be the first to tell you this is not how it has gone. Sure removing the bar and putting up the bed rail were easy, what I wasn't prepared for was the reaction we'd get from Charlotte and Jacob. I knew they'd be intrigued by the freedom and would climb out of their bed, what I didn't expect was the amount of times they would climb out night after night (and afternoon for that matter) and the resistance we'd face every time we'd put them down. I used to look forward to bed time now I dread it because I honestly don't know what to expect when we put them down, no matter how closely we stick to the routine. We have tried keeping the light on in the room at the dimmest setting, keeping the door open, closing the door, sitting inside their room, sitting outside their room, sitting right next to their beds, encouraging them to bring books in their bed, giving them flashlights, letting them cry, putting them in for a bit and taking them out and then putting them back in 20 minutes later. No matter what we try the bedtime routine stretches night after night. For instance tonight we started the bedtime routine at 6:45 p.m. Jacob finally settled at 8:30 p.m. and Charlotte is still awake (it's 9:10 p.m.). She is currently standing in our doorway with her blanket as I type this. We are doing our best to ignore her no matter how hard she tries to get our attention.
Transitions are hard at any age. I don't like change and I'm 36 so I shouldn't expect my 23 month olds to adapt to it quickly. But it's hard especially since we have never had an issue with them going to bed. We just put them in their cribs and walked out every night never really giving it another thought. Now bedtime is filled with many thoughts and lots of angst on my part.
The easy solution would be for us to put the bars back but no one said parenthood was easy. For now we'll continue to persevere because as we all know...this too shall pass.
No comments:
Post a Comment