Princess Bed

After climbing out of her crib for the first time last week, we've deliberated quite a bit about just what to do with our monkey of a child. Scott tried several times on Saturday night to get her to stay in her crib, to no avail. She spent that night and Sunday night in our bed. I love to snuggle and nap with Madeline from time to time, but I prefer it to be on my terms, not on hers. Our queen is just not big enough for all three of us. By Monday morning, we decided a crib tent was the way to go for our family. Don't judge - everyone's situation is different. Madeline's sleep is crucial for all three of us.

We went out Monday afternoon in search of a crib tent, only to find that they are not to be found in DFW. Apparently, you have to order them online. I wish I'd have known that! I needed one THAT day. The earliest I could get it from Amazon was Wednesday. So, we decided to go with Plan B on Monday night and see if we could get her to sleep in her crib with the siderail lowered (to lessen the chance of injury since she was actually LAUNCHING herself from the crib and landing flat on her back). She figured out in about 5 minutes how to kick the side rail just so, so that it would fall completely off. We tried the "silent return to sleep" method where you walk your child back to bed without looking at their face or talking to them. It was a battle of wills, and she won. I silently led her back to bed over 600 times in a three hour period before I was sick of keeping track. By the time I got to the door of her room after putting her down, she was already out of bed. I only had time to make a talley mark on my little paper, and turn around to put her back to bed. The last straw was at 9:45pm when she started crawling out of her room and laughing, thinking this whole thing was just a fun game. I was completely exhausted. I pulled out the futon in her room, put her in her bed, and we slept. Well, she slept in her bed until she fell out 5 times during the first hour, and then she slept with me.

I was on the computer ordering the crib tent by 6:45 Tuesday morning, with one day shipping. I again had to sleep in her room Tuesday night, and was really getting sick of that hard futon mattress.

Unfortunately the tent didn't arrive until after she went to bed Wednesday night. I guess the UPS guy couldn't find it in his truck until all of his other deliveries were done. Madeline woke up at 9:30pm and wouldn't go back to bed, so we put the tent on that night. We made a big deal about it and called it her princess bed. I had shown her pictures online of beds with canopies, and told her she would be getting one for her crib. She was really, really exited - until I closed the zipper. Not wanting it to be a bad experience for her the first night, when she was already a little out of sorts, I slept in her room again, but made her sleep with the crib tent zippered shut.

The next morning, we decorated the princess bed with flowers and ribbons. We pretended we were camping and ate marshmallows in it. We showed it off to friends. I talked to her several times during the day about what was going to happen that night. I geared myself up for lots and lots of crying.

I put her to bed an hour ago. She cried for two minutes.

Crib tents are awesome.