Mama Talk on Ben's new room
You can see a bunch of pictures of Ben's new room over here on this post. I just ask that if you leave a comment, either do it here so I know who you are, or if you do it over there and click annonymous, say who you are on lj so I know who I'm talking to. Thanky much.
Doing the bedroom shuffle
It took us more than a month from when we finally decided that Benjamin was ready for his own room to actually get it ready for him to make the big move.
I had no idea there was so much to do until we actually started doing it. We got new, safer blinds so that he couldn’t accidentally hang himself.
We picked out a few sheet sets we liked and let him make the final call (he picked multi-colored dinosaurs on a tannish background). We painted the walls to match his new bedding, dubbing the shade “painkasaurus brown.”
And we looked long and hard to find a lever-style door handle for the room so that Ben could open it and come to our room if needed. If I wanted to get out of bed to tend to a crying baby at 2 a.m., I would have put him in his own room from birth, you know?
Once everything was ready, we took the mattress from the floor of our room and moved it into his new room. We put on the dinosaur sheets and spent some time playing on the bed, to help him get used to the idea that he’d now be sleeping in a new room.
Ben loved the sheets, but had a harder time with the new sleeping arrangements. He’d never slept anywhere but our room for his entire 21 months of life. It took him three hours to fall asleep in there on his first night.
For the most part, the switch seems to be going better than I thought it would. One of the most important factors of the plan, the part where he comes into our room if needed, had the largest number of kinks that needed to be ironed out. The first night, he just sat and cried in his room and I had to go get him. After that, there were a few nights where instead of coming across the hall to bed, he would cry at the gate that I insisted we place at the top of the stairs. (My nightmares do not need to include all the things that could happen to him if he went downstairs alone in the middle of the night.)
It took him about a week, but Ben got it figured out. Now, he comes to the side of the bed and says “Mama up peeeese,” which is much better than hysterically crying in his bed, waiting for someone to rescue him.
Surprise side-affects
My favorite aspect of the switch is that almost immediately, Ben began sleeping through the night. I never saw this one coming. I figured he’d wake up around the same time that he used to, at about 10:30 p.m. and come across the hall to nurse for the first time and sleep with us for the rest of the night. No matter when I went to bed, Ben always cried for me to feed him at about 10:30, like clockwork.
But for some strange reason, he started sleeping straight through from bedtime until 2 or 3 a.m. I had long since given up on getting him to sleep through the night. I wasn’t willing to be forceful about it, figuring he was waking because he missed me and that was our special time together. I’d adjusted to the wakings so much that I hardly noticed them anymore. One or two wakings a night was no big deal after doing the every hour and a half thing for so long.
So you can imagine my surprise when Ben slept all the way until 6 a.m. for the first time ever, only four days after moving to his new room. He’s slept through the whole night! No crying. No nursing. Just sleeping.
I’m glad we waited until he was ready for this big change in his life. Clearly, this new independence is something that he was ready for. Of course, he’s not sleeping all the way through every night yet. But if you’d told me two weeks ago he’d soon be sleeping until 3 a.m. every day, I would have laughed.
Part of me did worry that I would miss cuddling with him when I went to bed at night, smelling his sweet baby hair and stroking his cheeks while watching him dream. But the truth is, because he isn’t suffering any attachment issues due to the move, I’m not either. Instead, I’m just very proud of all he’s accomplished.
Doing the bedroom shuffle
It took us more than a month from when we finally decided that Benjamin was ready for his own room to actually get it ready for him to make the big move.
I had no idea there was so much to do until we actually started doing it. We got new, safer blinds so that he couldn’t accidentally hang himself.
We picked out a few sheet sets we liked and let him make the final call (he picked multi-colored dinosaurs on a tannish background). We painted the walls to match his new bedding, dubbing the shade “painkasaurus brown.”
And we looked long and hard to find a lever-style door handle for the room so that Ben could open it and come to our room if needed. If I wanted to get out of bed to tend to a crying baby at 2 a.m., I would have put him in his own room from birth, you know?
Once everything was ready, we took the mattress from the floor of our room and moved it into his new room. We put on the dinosaur sheets and spent some time playing on the bed, to help him get used to the idea that he’d now be sleeping in a new room.
Ben loved the sheets, but had a harder time with the new sleeping arrangements. He’d never slept anywhere but our room for his entire 21 months of life. It took him three hours to fall asleep in there on his first night.
For the most part, the switch seems to be going better than I thought it would. One of the most important factors of the plan, the part where he comes into our room if needed, had the largest number of kinks that needed to be ironed out. The first night, he just sat and cried in his room and I had to go get him. After that, there were a few nights where instead of coming across the hall to bed, he would cry at the gate that I insisted we place at the top of the stairs. (My nightmares do not need to include all the things that could happen to him if he went downstairs alone in the middle of the night.)
It took him about a week, but Ben got it figured out. Now, he comes to the side of the bed and says “Mama up peeeese,” which is much better than hysterically crying in his bed, waiting for someone to rescue him.
Surprise side-affects
My favorite aspect of the switch is that almost immediately, Ben began sleeping through the night. I never saw this one coming. I figured he’d wake up around the same time that he used to, at about 10:30 p.m. and come across the hall to nurse for the first time and sleep with us for the rest of the night. No matter when I went to bed, Ben always cried for me to feed him at about 10:30, like clockwork.
But for some strange reason, he started sleeping straight through from bedtime until 2 or 3 a.m. I had long since given up on getting him to sleep through the night. I wasn’t willing to be forceful about it, figuring he was waking because he missed me and that was our special time together. I’d adjusted to the wakings so much that I hardly noticed them anymore. One or two wakings a night was no big deal after doing the every hour and a half thing for so long.
So you can imagine my surprise when Ben slept all the way until 6 a.m. for the first time ever, only four days after moving to his new room. He’s slept through the whole night! No crying. No nursing. Just sleeping.
I’m glad we waited until he was ready for this big change in his life. Clearly, this new independence is something that he was ready for. Of course, he’s not sleeping all the way through every night yet. But if you’d told me two weeks ago he’d soon be sleeping until 3 a.m. every day, I would have laughed.
Part of me did worry that I would miss cuddling with him when I went to bed at night, smelling his sweet baby hair and stroking his cheeks while watching him dream. But the truth is, because he isn’t suffering any attachment issues due to the move, I’m not either. Instead, I’m just very proud of all he’s accomplished.