Sunday, July 24, 2011

Crib to Toddler Bed, part 1

Milestones are giant mountains for us. Dragging Snugglebug to and over a milestone can be a frustrating process. The advice of so many to not worry about a milestone is completely false when you have a neuro-atypical child.

If I had waited for my son to speak and never enrolled him in speech therapy, he would still be squealing, and certainly, not talking and putting two words together. I could go down the list just like this for each and every milestone between birth and now, but that would be monotonous. You can just read past blog postings.

The current milestones are no less mountainous. Moving from a crib to toddler bed has been more than a little frustrating. Potty training has been disastrous thus far. And the transition to summer school was a complete failure.

We attempted moving from crib to toddler bed in the spring. We have one of those awesome convertible cribs and took apart the front portion to turn it into a toddler bed. It was a momentous occasion. I was nervous with his sleep issues, but with him crawling out of the crib, I knew it was time.

I spent every night for the next three weeks battling him to keep him in bed. For three hours every night from 7pm to 10 pm. He would crawl out of bed and come down the hall. I would pick him up and put him back in bed. I followed all of Supernanny's rules. I didn't say a word. No kisses. No hugs. Just back to bed. At 10pm, he would finally fall asleep. And, so would I . . . from complete exhaustion. We would repeat this process at 2 or 3 am for an hour or so.

I was not a happy camper. When my alarm went off at 6am, I had no desire to see dawn break. In fact, I wanted to sleep all day.

I would stumble out of my room, half asleep, and literally trip over my son who would be sleeping somewhere in the floor. We found him sleeping in the kitchen, using the step stool as a pillow, in the hallway outside his room, in the walkway between our room and the kitchen, in the floor of his room next to his bed, and leaning against his doorway of his room (yes, standing but sound asleep).

My Facebook friends found it quite entertaining to see where I would find him each day. I wasn't quite so entertained.

A little research later and I found a store that carried a Crib Tent and new plan was born. After three weeks, I threw in the towel, put the crib back together, and put a crib tent over the top. He was trapped, and I could get some sleep.

This story would be continued but at a later date...



2 comments:

Jennie said...

You have been a trooper through all of the sleepless moments. I also know exactly what you mean about milestones and celebrating each one. Sadly, our potty training didn't kick in completely until 4.5 (The summer before Kindergarten.) I was so thankful. I was dreading having to send diapers to elementary. Pre-k was one thing, but I wanted him to have as close to a typical elem. experience as possible. Anyway... good luck. Hopefully G will be faster than J. :)

Ettina said...

"If I had waited for my son to speak and never enrolled him in speech therapy, he would still be squealing, and certainly, not talking and putting two words together. I could go down the list just like this for each and every milestone between birth and now, but that would be monotonous."

You can't know that. You don't have 30 Snugglebugs who got therapy and 30 who didn't that you can compare to each other. You have one, who got therapy, and you'll never know what he'd have been like without therapy. I can pretty much bet you that he'd still have reached many milestones. It would probably have taken longer, but he would have. It bugs me when people act like neuroatypical kids are incapable of learning unless they're getting therapy, and act as if their child's development would have come to a standstill without therapy. It's just not accurate. Therapy can help them reach milestones earlier, but they'd still have learnt and grown without therapy.