We have success! Well, mostly. We tried before to no avail, so I put it on the back burner. But lately I've been trying to get Zoe excited about sleeping in a big girl bed. She has seen the bedding in the top of her closet and I've told her that she can have that when she sleeps in her big girl bed. Finally I had enough of the talking and decided to act. After she woke up from her nap on Monday I took down the bedding, hauled in the spare mattress and had her help me set up the bed. For the rest of the afternoon we played "night time." We practiced laying down on her pillow and closing our eyes, then we talked about when it is dark we go to sleep and when it is daytime we wake up and get out of bed. Zoe ate it up, and seemed to understand what was going on. That night we read books, tucked her in, and closed the door. And that was it! Normally she stays awake talking in her crib for quite a while (anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes) but not this night. We never heard a single peep from her after we closed the door! She woke up at 7:30 the next morning but didn't even attempt to come out.
Now, we are still having problems with the nap and she usually ends up in her crib after repeatedly coming out of her room, but we're working on it. I am thinking of getting some darker curtains for her room and maybe "childproofing" her door (read: locking her in). Is that too cruel, or just practical? I know it would definitely help in the morning as she decided to wake up and wander the house at 6:15 this morning. I'm sure the nap issue will work itself out by the time Owen needs the crib, or we will just cut the nap out all together - the only reason she still takes one is because we spend so much time playing outside in the heat and we keep her up later on these long summer nights.
We still have a few kinks to work out, but things are looking pretty good. We are so proud of Zoe for how "mature" she's become just in the last few months. Any suggestions for the napping situation would be much appreciated!
7 years ago
7 comments:
My personal opinion is childproofing the door isn't cruel. You could put one of those covers on the knob so she couldn't open it from the inside. Or put up a gate?
That's great she'll sleep in the big girl bed at night!
When I told Gaby Santana that Ethan slept straight through the night at 10 weeks and never had a problem after that, she had a fit! She put a gate on her kids' bedroom door that night. She endured two nights of torture, with them calling out and wanting to get out. She ignored them (probably while silently crying inside), and the third night they slept through the night and she didn't have any problems after that! I'm not sure about naps; at our house we just stopped doing them when they wouldn't go to sleep anymore (much to my dismay).
alarms aren't bad either. If you think Zoe would go for a "you can't come out until the clock makes noise" (for us a lightning mcqueen engine) then she knows that even if she wakes up before the clock she has to wait until it makes noise to come out, same for "nap time".
I remember reading your previous experience. It's amazing what a difference it makes to wait until your child is ready for something! I need to remember that. As far as naps go I would do everything in your power to teach her to still take them! You need her to be napping when your other one is born!
I am a big fan of black-out curtains and locking the door, but maybe I'm biased because that is what worked for me. If you don't have energy to make curtains right away you can always tack a blanket over the window and see if it makes a difference. Yay for big girl beds!
We went with the blanket-over-over-the-blinds route for now. Ezra sleeps at least an extra 45 minutes in the morning now.
With the twins, we HAD to "babyproof" their room from the inside out (yes, putting a lock on the outside of the door at 1:00 a.m. IS a desperate measure...but it was a desperate time)! It worked for naps as well, after we'd read a story and settled down.
Glad Zoe's liking the big girl bed!
No advice from me on naps because my 2 1/2 year old stopped taking them long ago! It became such a struggle that I finally gave up and decided to put her to bed earlier. In the summer that doesn't work out so great because of the lovely weather in the evenings and no one wants to come inside. Sounds like your role playing with Zoe did the trick for night time....maybe it would work for nap time too?
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