Nap time battle of wills (and other challenges of a big boy bed)

Today, for the first time since transitioning to his big boy bed, Aaron got up before going to sleep. I thought it might be only a matter of time before he used his new found freedom to get out of bed when he didn't want to sleep, but he's been so good the last 12 days that I hoped we wouldn't have to deal with it.

When Kim put him down before leaving, he as a little amped up, but that's not completely unusual when he's tired. But after his music box turned off, he was still awake (not usual at nap time). He was making some noise, but not much. Then after a couple of minutes, he came out of his room. I had a slight sense of dread at that moment, realizing I was going to have to deal with this for the first time and I had no backup.

I checked to make sure he hadn't pooped (something that will keep him from going to sleep) and told him it was nap time. He began running around his room and started grabbing dirty clothes from his hamper and throwing them on the floor. Since I'm 8 months pregnant, I'm hesitant to just grab him when he's like that for fear he'll thrash around and hurt the baby. But after a moment, realizing I couldn't let the situation escalate, I picked him up (he fortunately didn't fight me), and took him to the bathroom to check his diaper. I was pretty sure it was still clean, but sometimes going through the pre-nap motions again can help "reboot" him. Then I carried him back to bed and gave him his pacifiers. He was protesting the whole time.

Predictably, he continued to leave his room. After the first incident, I called Kim for advice. He came out of the room and was crying while I was trying to talk to her, but I did manage to hear the essence of her advice (which I already knew, but I needed a pep talk in the heat of the moment). She said to keep putting him down. Not to answer his questions or make eye contact. Just put him back down matter-of-factly and tell him good night. She said it might take 5 times or it might take 10. And he'd probably pitch a fit.

So I put him down, over and over. He was crying and protesting, but fortunately not physically fighting me too much. It took about 5-10 times. I stood in the hall outside his room or across the hall and he was pretty much getting up right away. He'd come out and run right to me, letting me pick him up, but also letting me put him back to bed, despite crying. Each time I told him it was nap time, covered him with his blanket, and said "good night".

Eventually he stopped coming out of his room. After a few minutes, I began to hope he was going to stay down, but then I heard coughing. It sounded like it does sometimes when he's throwing up, so I peeked in on him, worried he'd try to get out of bed again. But he didn't even raise his head when I went in. And he helpfully explained by saying "Coughing." I said "OK. Have a good nap." and closed the door. By the time the music ended again, he was asleep.

Even though the whole episode lasted less than 30 minutes, maybe less than 20, I can see how easy it would be to give up. It was hard to put him back down with him crying and trying to talk to me. And each time he got up, I thought he'd never stay in bed. I even considered going to our afternoon play date early and just giving up on his nap. But then I realized I'd be setting a very bad precedent. By being firm, I have hopefully convinced him that he's not going to get out of taking his nap. At the very least, I avoided rewarding undesirable behavior which never leads to any good. I'd say I miss the crib, but the fact is we'd have this battle at some point. I'm not sure it would be easier when he's older.

Although this is the first time he's gotten up on his own without going to sleep, after only about a week in his new bed, he started getting himself up on his own in the morning. And around 6 - 6:15am which was early for us. Although we don't like getting up that early, it's not so early that we felt it was necessary to get him to sleep later. But we hoped to at least convince him to stay in bed until we come get him. The first time it happened, we let him be awake for 15 - 20 minutes before going to get him. He got impatient and came out on his own. The next time, he was only awake a few minutes before coming out and the third time he had barely woken up before we heard his little toddler feet hit the hardwood floor of the hallway.

Each time, one of us went down there and told him he should wait for Mama or Dada to come get him. We took him back in his room, and sometimes even back in his bed telling him that next time he should call out to us and we'd come get him. This morning, though, he slept in until almost 7am. We were already up (having now gotten used to waking up closer to 6am) and when we heard him wake up, we went to get him pretty quickly. We said "Good morning! Thank you for waiting for us to come get you. Good job!" Not sure it will work, but we'll see.

Our next plan would be to allow him to play in his room until we come get him, if not stay in his bed. But since most of his toys are now stored in his closet and we lock the closet doors at night (they are bi-fold doors which are good for pinching fingers), there's not much to play with besides the animals in his bed and the dollhouse.

We'll let you know if we have any success.

BTW, over the weekend we accomplished a lot of nesting. We moved our computer desks down to the master bedroom, turned the office into the nursery, and finally moved the crib out of Aaron's room. I hope to post pictures of the changes soon. Only a few big ticket items remain to be done before Audrey arrives, such as getting the infant car seat installed (which means moving Aaron's car seat from the center seat) and setting up the port-a-crib in our room, where hopefully Audrey will spend her nights the first couple of months if she's not as noisy a sleeper as Aaron was. Sometimes I think that Aaron's good sleep habits (today notwithstanding) are so good because he pretty much always slept in his crib in his room so he never had to deal with transitioning from one room to another or from a bassinet to a crib. But even if Audrey sleeps in our room at night, I plan to put her down in her crib during the day so she is used to that space as well.

Big Boy Bed Follow-up

Aaron slept just over 2.5 hours yesterday in his big boy bed. When he woke up, he made some noises and I went in before he could think about getting up on his own. He sat up and scooted toward the top corner of the bed where he can get out, and said "Done". But he stopped short of sliding down on his own and wanted my help. He has since perfected the art of getting out of the bed on his own either sliding down on his butt using the bed post and the guard rail for help, or by sliding down on his stomach like he does from the other beds. (He's had a lot of practice because he keeps wanting to get into his big boy bed even when it's not time to go to sleep.)

Last night, when we put him down, we had the bedroom light on, which we never did when we put him in the crib. When Thom went to put him in bed, he said "No Papa do it." Meaning he didn't want Papa to put him in bed. And he kept fussing after Thom put him down. I asked if he wanted the light out and he whined "Yes." I was getting nervous that things were going to go badly, but after we turned out the light and put on his music, he settled down pretty quickly and went to sleep without incident.

This morning he woke up around 6:30am. He'd been mostly sleeping in until 7-7:30am, but he did wake up around 6:30 a few days ago. Only then he woke up crying. This time, he woke up chattering like he usually does. And we were able to leave him in there for 20 minutes or so while we checked e-mail and the news online. When Thom went in to get him, he got down off the bed by himself. I wonder how long it will be before he decides to just get up on his own without waiting for us. Hopefully it's such a habit by now, he'll continue to wait for us. A new neighbor friend of mine has a 3 1/2 year old son who sleeps in a toddler bed and she says he still waits in bed for her to get him. He doesn't fuss or anything, but she'll look in on him and he'll be awake, just waiting for her. I hope Aaron is like that.

And once again he is down for his nap without incident. Other than lying sideways on the bed and kicking the wall with his feet. But that seemed to lull him to sleep. I was worried because right before his nap he acted like I gave him pure sugar for lunch. But I think he was just tired. He hardly objected when I said it was nap time.

I want to pinch myself. I thought this would be such a hard transition and so far it is going remarkably well. We are truly fortunate to have such a wonderful boy.

Big Boy Bed

This is the new bed that my big boy is sleeping in as I type this. I put up a mesh guard rail before he went down, but that didn't make as pretty a picture.

We bought the bed online from Bunk Bed King after doing much research. The price was incredible, especially for solid pine, not manufactured wood. And the fact that they are based in TX meant no sales tax for us, plus they offered free shipping. We were initially thinking of getting him a day bed with trundle, thinking he'd sleep on the trundle at first. But we looked at day beds with trundles on Costco.com and they were pricey. Then we discovered that they sell twin over twin bunk beds with trundles which would give us 3 beds in one. (And since the beds can be separated into two twins, we'll already have a bed for Audrey when she makes the transition in a couple of years.) I had found one retailer online that had a beautiful deco bunk bed that had solid foot and head boards (no place for any body parts to get caught), but after I e-mailed to find out how long it would take to arrive and they said 1 week, when I actually placed the order, it turned out they discontinued that bed. That didn't bode well for their customer service, so we continued to look around.

I came across Bunk Bed King while searching on shopping.google.com. The google checkout reviews were excellent. The one negative review didn't sound too bad. In contrast to some online retailers I investigated where people complained that the wrong product was shipped and they couldn't get anyone on the phone. To be on the safe side, I actually called Bunk Bed King to make sure I could get someone on the phone (I did, right away) and I ordered the bed over the phone after asking a few questions about the bed. I ordered the bed on a Thursday and they shipped it Friday. One box arrived the following Wednesday, and 2 more boxes arrived Thursday. So just a week later, we had the bed.

Thom's friend Bill helped put it together on Saturday. It took just over 2 hours. (Bill has some experience having assembled a bunk bed for his girls that was very similar to ours.) Aaron was so excited about his "big boy bed". But the mattresses we ordered from Overstock.com the day after the bed weren't to arrive until yesterday. The waterproof mattress pads from Amazon.com also arrived yesterday. We had bought some sheets at Ross and Costco the weekend the bed was assembled. By yesterday evening, all the bedding was washed and Thom had unrolled the mattresses onto the lower bunk and trundle (we didn't get one for the top bunk yet). The foam mattresses we bought take a little time to expand to their full size.

After assembling the bed, we thought the bottom bunk was low enough we could just start him there instead of the trundle. (We've even talked about pulling the trundle out as a soft landing spot in case he falls out, but I decided to try him out with the hand-me-down guard rail some friends gave us.) So this morning, I put the bottom bunk together and when Aaron saw it, he wanted to get in right away. He was so excited. We've been talking about it for a week now. About his big boy bed and how we were waiting for mattresses. He pointed out his new sheets to people when they were sitting in their packaging in the kitchen waiting to be washed. He'd wake up from a nap or in the morning and I'd hear him saying "big boy bed". So I had high hopes that he would make the transition easily.

Kim put him down for his nap as usual before she left, only this time it was in his new big boy bed. We closed the door and then I sat across the hall (in my office) listening for him to go to sleep. His music we turn on takes about 20 minutes to end. I heard him chattering in there most of that 20 minutes and heard a noise right after it ended. But then he was quiet. Although I was afraid to wake him, after he'd been quiet at least 30 minutes, I carefully peeked in and confirmed he really was sleeping. He'd turned around so his head is at the foot of the bed and he's on top of the covers. This is pretty much how he did it in the crib, too.

I'm so excited that it went smoothly. But I remember he slept well the first time we put him down in his crib with blankets instead of in his sack. It wasn't until the second or third time that he started to have trouble. But I think that coincided with a cold and/or teething. Still, I know the novelty might wear off and we might have some rough patches ahead, but I'm optimistic. We'll disassemble the crib to get it out of his room this weekend, so it won't be an option anymore. And although he can get out of the bed at the ends since the guard rail doesn't extend the whole side of the bed, I'm hoping we can convince him that he should wait for us to get him up. If he doesn't get up on his own after his nap, I'll probably even pick him up rather than teach him he can slide off by himself (which he does do on the other beds in the house, but they don't have a guard rail, so maybe that will fool him).

My boy is growing up so fast.

Nut allergy?

Last night, Theresa gave Aaron dinner while he was at her house. They had gluten free pancakes. Apparently Aaron threw up shortly after starting to eat them. Theresa told Thom over the phone when he called to check in, but he didn't want to worry me about it until we were on our way to pick Aaron up. He didn't seem sick, she said and only threw up that once.

I got the details when we arrived. He'd been sick all over himself, so she gave him a bath (which he enjoyed because she kept getting him "more toys" from the endless bath toy supply she has for 3 kids. Eventually, she told him no more toys and it was time to get out. He said he felt yucky, so she asked if he wanted to lie down. So he laid down on Noah and Grayson's big boy bed for about 10-15 minutes. She was surprised he stayed there. I am too. But he didn't go to sleep and got up after about 15 minutes. Afterwards he watched TV with Mattea and seemed fine.

I asked if the pancakes had nuts. She said they had peanut butter. The other time he threw up shortly after eating and didn't seem sick was when we gave him some cashews from a trail mix. I've avoided peanut butter and nuts since then in case it was an allergic reaction to nuts. A few months ago, I was eating a PB&J sandwich and he wanted a bite. I gave him a corner and tried to get a piece with just jam, not PB. But there was a little and after eating it, he had a face like I thought he was going to be sick, but it passed. So now I'm really wondering if it's an allergy. Needless to say, I won't be giving him peanut butter any time soon.

Triage

We had our second trip down to triage yesterday. That's where our hospital evaluates you if you are having any preterm labor symptoms or other problems when you are pregnant. I noticed a slightly painful contraction yesterday just before 3pm. The Braxton-Hicks contractions I've had up until this point were never painful, so I jotted down the time. 12 minutes later, I had another one. 12 minutes later, another. 10 minutes after that, a milder one, and then again after 10 minutes.

By that time I was a little concerned. Also Aaron woke up from his nap so I wasn't able to keep tracking them. But before getting Aaron up, I called Thom to see if he could come home early in case I needed to go down to triage. He was away from his desk so I left a message. Then I called my OB's office and left a message for him. While waiting, I kept calling Thom's office. The 3rd time, he answered. He'd been down the hall and when he kept hearing a phone ring, decided to check if it was his phone. He said he'd leave right away. (I now have his coworker's extension as well, since that is generally where he'll be if he's away from his desk.)

Then my OB's nurse called me back, asked me some questions and then said I should go to the hospital. I started thinking about what we'd do with Aaron. Kim was working at her other job. Larissa is in town and was a possibility, but she's getting ready to move to college later this week. My mom was with my dad who was having some outpatient surgery that day. My sister Theresa had said we could drop Aaron off at her house if we needed to, but I thought she was on vacation. But I called her cell and they were driving home right then and only 40 minutes away. My brother-in-law was leaving town that night so she couldn't just meet me at the hospital, but said we could drop Aaron off at her house on our way to the hospital.

Thom came home soon after that. He had a snack, I packed a bag for myself in case I was admitted and a bag for Aaron to have at Auntie's. I figured if I was admitted, Thom would get Aaron and take him home. If I was going to be very late, Thom would still get Aaron and we'd find someone who could stay with him at the house - I knew Larissa could do it in an emergency, or Kim's daughter who is 20. But hopefully we'd be back later that night to take Aaron home together.

We'd never left Aaron at Auntie's, so we were a little worried about how he'd do, but knew Theresa could handle it. So we drove down to triage and arrived around 5:45pm. We did the whole routine - I peed in a cup, then they hooked me up to a fetal monitor and a contraction monitor and had me lie uncomfortably on my right side while they monitored me. I had one contraction before the nurse came in and could see the little bump in the graph pouring out of the machine. The nurse asked a bunch of questions about the current symptoms as well as my general health and health history.

Then she said they were going to do a fetal fibronectin test (fFN). It is a swab of your cervix, like a pap smear, but it detects fFN, which the pamphlet she gave us describes as the "glue" that holds the baby in the uterus. Before 35 weeks, I guess there shouldn't be any leaking out. If the test comes back negative, you have a 99.2% chance of not delivering in the next two weeks. If it comes back positive, it doesn't mean you will deliver in the next 2 weeks, only that you have an increased risk of preterm delivery. The test takes about an hour to get the results.

Next she examined my cervix, which she said was still elongated at around 2.5 cm and was closed. That was a good sign that the contractions weren't doing much labor-wise. She went off to send in the test and chat with the OB on call. When she came back, she had a vial of terbutaline sulfate. She said it would help calm my uterus and hopefully stop the contractions. She pretty much gave me the shot before explaining it completely, although she did warn me ahead of time that it would make my heart race and I'd feel shaky. And it did. But I thought it was weird how fast it went. I'm used to asking questions about treatment and giving consent. I probably still would have taken the shot if that was the OB's recommendation, but I like to know exactly what is going on.

I have since looked up terbulatine. It turns out is an asthma drug that is commonly used for preterm labor as an off-label use. That means the FDA and the drug manufacturer haven't approved it for treating preterm labor. Some question whether it is necessary or effective. It did seem to calm my contractions. I was monitored for nearly an hour after I was given the shot and only noticed a couple of mild contractions, at least 20 minutes apart.

Right around the time I got the shot (around 7pm), it was time for my dinner. I was concerned about eating because of the gestational diabetes and it had been 3 hours since my afternoon snack. In triage they don't seem to have access to the full cafeteria they do when you are admitted, but she said they could get me a turkey sandwich. It was actually a box lunch with the sandwich, an apple and some sugar free "gel-style dessert". It was the best turkey sandwich ever and the best apple (I was hungry), but the "gel" was less than appetizing. I only ate half the apple since I didn't know how many carbs were in the bread, but I still had a post-dinner blood sugar of 152. I have also since read that terbutaline can cause high blood sugar, so that may have contributed.

After eating, I found out the fFN test was negative, so the nurse thought I could go home. But she needed approval from the OB on call who was apparently in a delivery. So we had to wait around for the OB to call back. We finally got out of there around 8:40pm. The nurse told me no exercise, sex or lifting until my OB cleared me to.

Thom had called Theresa 3 times with updates. Each time it sounded like Aaron was doing fine, although he had teared up a little and asked for Mama or had wanted to go home. But fortunately his cousin Mattea is very funny and she cheered him up. They even cuddled on the couch and watched some episodes of the Muppets. The green frog is funny, too.

I followed up with my OB today. He asked me what had taken me down to triage, so I explained the contractions. Between the negative fFN results and the exam of my cervix, he wasn't worried about preterm labor at this point and said I could resume normal activity. He said the contractions hadn't done anything to my cervix and not to worry unless they were 3-5 minutes apart or much more severe. He said everyone is different and every pregnancy is different, but in my case, for this pregnancy, those contractions weren't doing anything. He even said to resume walking to control the gestational diabetes because that was a bigger concern right now. He also said that if I do go into true labor after 34 weeks (I'm 31 weeks 6 days today) they wouldn't stop it anyway.

But Thom is still going to come home early today and I'll still take it easy for now, although I will continue with my walks. And hopefully Audrey will cooperate and not come early. We really aren't ready yet.

Preparations

In addition to getting Aaron transitioned to a big boy bed, there are several other things we need to accomplish before Audrey's arrival. One is getting the changing table out of Aaron's room. Although we've had a changing pad set up in the guest bathroom between the twin sinks since he was an infant and haven't used the changing table to get him dressed in well over a year, it has still been in his room storing his clothes in the 4 wicker baskets that came with it.

I actually have a partially repainted dresser in the garage that was mine growing up. After I moved out, it went to my nephew. But it was available again before Aaron was born, so I took it and planned to repaint it for Aaron's room. But then Thom got me worried that it might have been painted with lead paint, having been bought back in the 60s for my oldest brother. So I never finished painting it since I wanted to leave some exposed original paint to test for lead. I did eventually get a lead paint test kit and the preliminary swap looks clean. There is a more advanced test I want to perform just to be safe, especially since I had sanded the paint down prior to repainting so if there is any lead it would be in the paint dust that is coating the inside of the drawers and could get on his clothes. But I'm reasonably sure it is lead-free. But since the baskets on the changing table were working, I didn't have incentive to get the dresser out.

And now that Aaron is two and starting to get into everything and generally behave like a doofus, I'm not sure I trust him in his room by himself with a dresser. We'd definitely have to get a furniture strap. One of my few vivid memories from our house in Ohio (we moved when I was 4 1/2) is of trying to climb the drawers to get to a music box on the top to show a friend of mine. I knew I wasn't supposed to stand on the drawers, but I knew I'd be fine. The next thing I know, I'm pinned between the dresser and the bed. I don't remember being hurt. My only thought was that Mom was going to be so mad at me. My friend had to go get her since we couldn't stand the dresser up on our own. So I'm a little nervous about putting a dresser in Aaron's room even with a furniture strap. Eventually I will get the dresser set up, but for now, his clothes are small enough to all fit in these cubes so there is no hurry.

Instead, we put in the black cubes you see above. Thom has had them forever - at least since before I knew him. That was his dresser until we bought bedroom furniture 2 1/2 years ago. They've been sitting mostly empty in our closet. So I dusted them off and put them in Aaron's room. He was thrilled. He insisted on helping me put his clothes away. He might still try to climb them, but at least he won't be crushed if they fall on him.

And now the changing table is standing empty in the guest room/office, ready for me to start putting away clothes and burp clothes for Audrey. Which brings me to another task I needed to perform before October. Sorting through baby clothes. Until Aaron was about 12 months, I was good about putting his outgrown clothes into storage bags under our bed according to size, as well as hand-me-downs he hadn't grown into yet. But I kept finding myself having to re-open one of the bags that I had vacuum sealed to add something and eventually I gave up. New hand-me-downs were piling up in his closet, completely unorganized. I would periodically try to comb through it all to find new shorts that fit or whatever else he needed.

I also recently received some hand-me-down girl's clothes from my friend Heidi. Although I tried to only buy gender-neutral clothing the first year, a lot of clothes we were given were specifically for a little boy, so it was nice to get a few girl outfits. I'm conflicted because I hate girly pink clothes, but Heidi had a variety of hand-me-downs and I found several cute things that I added to my collection.

I spent hours yesterday going through all the clothes and finally getting everything organized from newborn to 5T. For stuff under 2T (the sizes Aaron has outgrown), I separated stuff into boy-only stuff that can be stored indefinitely, and gender-neutral/girl stuff that I will be getting out over the next 2 years. I also pulled out all the 0-3 month clothes, along with burp clothes and receiving blankets which I plan to wash and put away for Audrey.

I did realize as I was going through the clothes that a lot of the 3 month outfits are summer outfits, so that could be a problem. I knew with Aaron being an April baby and Audrey being an October baby that I'd probably be off by a season in clothing, but I had hoped to have enough overlap to be OK. I may end up having to buy some winter clothes for Audrey though. Unless we get some hand-me-downs from her cousin who was born last August and has a wardrobe more on target with what we'll need.

Below is the result of my hard work. Those are storage bags waiting to be vacuumed flat. The boxes in the back are old clothes of mine waiting to go to Goodwill. Then there is a pile in front of that in paper bags of baby clothes for Goodwill. And the pile falling onto the floor is a stack of stuff that I need to wash.

Snacking with Daddy

Thom found these new snack sticks called Sticks & Twigs. Thom likes his snacks. It used to be mainly potato chips, now it's usually pretzels. But he will mix in some strange snack he finds at the grocery store. Usually something spicy. The Sticks and Twigs are Chipotle Tomato flavored. They are organic and consist of a plethora of whole grains from rice to sesame seeds to flax. Yet they are surprisingly tasty.

Since Aaron likes to eat whatever Thom is eating (even if it is too sour), he climbed up next to Thom on the couch to share his twigs. I had given him some for a snack earlier in the day when he rejected his graham cracker. After one bite, he said "too hot", but continued to eat. They really aren't that hot, but they do have a little spice. Of all the things he could be ruining his appetite for dinner on, there are worse things. These even have a little protein and fiber, along with some iron and the flax should provide some Omega 3s.

I can't help but wonder though if the chia seeds it lists as an ingredient are the same thing they use on Chia Pets. Is there a Chia Pet out there going bald because of these twigs?