Battle of the Bed

When I was pregnant my mother-in-law loved to tell me that, when my husband was small, she would hold his hand every night until he fell asleep, crawl out of his room and then crawl back in in the early morning. I would smile at her wanly and think smugly to myself that will never be me. Little did I know... Last week I literally rolled across my son's squeaky hardwood floor in attempt to get out of his room without waking him up. I was doing well until I banged my head on the changing table, toppling over lotions, waking Baby M and adding another 20 minutes on to our bedtime "routine."

Baby M has never been a good napper, but until a few weeks ago he has always gone down at night pretty well. For the past 6 months it's been bath, book, bed-- and my husband and I were free for the next 11 hours. Now, for some unknown reason, Baby M panics as soon as we start to leave the room. "Mommy lie down," he cries pointing at the small couch we keep in his room. If we go he becomes hysterical and ever since the crib diving incident, we refuse to leave him alone when he gets like that. So for the past few weeks my husband or I have been sitting in his room with him until he falls asleep and then sneaking out, sometimes more successfully than others. Somehow, the kid who can sleep through an American Idol concert at the Staples Center, wakes at the sound of one squeaky floorboard.

In an attempt to get out of this new bedtime routine, which can take up to 2 hours, we decided to get Baby M a toddler bed. I know this may seem counter intuitive, but our thinking was that (a) maybe he will be so excited to have a new bed he'll stay in it and go to sleep and (b) if he does jump out, at least we don't have to worry about him cracking his head open. We set up the bed, talked about how great it was to have a big boy bed and hoped for the best. Sad to say, the best did not happen. Somehow, my husband ended up sitting in the dark for 2 hours while Baby M brought every toy in his room into bed with him. And where was I at 2AM? Lying on the floor, next to the bed, holding Baby M's hand. It must be in the genes.