Unforgettable Mornings with my "Flip-Flip" Alarm Clock...

I am not sure how many people are aware of this but we have had Everly's wood crib in our office since she was probably 6 or 9 months old. However, up until about a month ago she was still sleeping in her pack-and-play in our room (I LOVE the pack-n-plays everyone should have one). We, decided then that it was time she HAD HAD HAD to get out of our room. Mainly for the reason she would wake up in the middle of the night and we would be lazy and bring her into our bed to keep her quiet and she would be back asleep in all of about 2 seconds. But since she was now a toddler, with strong-walking-toddler-legs, we got tired of literally being pushed out of our bed. Not to mention she didn't like being covered by the blankets which made it hard for the two freezing adults on either side of her who had to create a blankets "dip" or void that went around our sleeping toddler. Usually most mornings she would be the wrong way in bed and Dave would end up punched in the face or kicked in the groin. Needless to say we were both tired of horrible sleep due to our little intruder.

One day I just snapped (literally) and said "that's IT". I cleaned out her crib in the office, washed all the bedding, put her in there with a bottle and never looked back. She cried for almost an hour the first night even though she was really tired but now, about a month later, she can fall asleep in it even with me in the same room and she knows what it means (it's time to sleep) when she goes in there now. We even use her crib for naps. No more naps on our bed. It was time that ended as well because any noise, or the TV was too distracting for her to go to sleep with now that she was older and wanted to "watch".Over the last couple of weeks, I also dug out her crib toy aquarium that Grandma Johnson got her for her first Christmas in 2007, and now that she was in a real crib, we had somewhere to attach it for once! Not only that but she LOVES IT!!! She has always loved Grandma Johnson's real fishtank and now she had one of her own that sang and moved and she could pound her fist on the sound button as many times as she wanted and mommy wouldn't get mad at her!

But not all was well in the new land of crib... we still had basically one of the same big problems we had in our room and that was Everly would wake up like clockwork between 2-4am and we would have a hard time getting her back to bed. We found that we could take her back into our bed, thus regressing, and we would ALL sleep horrible, OR we could drag our tired rear-ends out of bed and make her a bottle and put the bottle in her mouth and a pacifier in her hand and a blanket over her and she would drink her own little bottle, pop her own pacifier back into her mouth and snuggle with the bottle and go back to bed until a more reasonable time.

When I tell most people that my 17 month old still needs a bottle in the middle of the night they about have a stroke on me. However, here is this little energy burning, fast-growing, human who sleeps 6-8hours, wakes up, and finds herself alone and hungry at 2-4am and if a bottle will help with going back to sleep, what harm? After the bottle she will sleep in until 730am-830am so generally speaking she sleeps roughly 12 hours a night. I would be hungry too if I slept that long!

Anyways the alternative was to make her breakfast at 2-4am which I have tried about twice and she was so tired and SO unhappy to be up, it wasn't worth it for either of us or I guess I could just let her cry, but I will tell you this, she sleeps SO much more sound and peaceful with that little bottle and we all have a little less stress. Without it she will toss and turn and wake up all morning long until she finally gets up for the day.

Do I think giving in with a morning bottle will scar her for life? No... and I doubt I will have a teenager needing a bottle in the middle of the night because I am sure this is a phase she will eventually grow out of even if 90% of the toddler population does just fine without one, my daughter does not at this point in her life.

I will say though that this bottle in the middle of the night has brought on some pleasant side effects which brings me to the main point of this post...

Lately, instead of crying like she always used to do when she woke up in a crib or pack-n-play in the mornings (thus alerting us she was awake and usually unhappy), she has been waking up quietly and sometimes it can be awhile before we even hear much from her or know she is up stirring.

How did I know she was awake the last few days you ask? Well, because I heard "flip-flip", "flip-flip", "flip-flip", "flip-flip"... apparently my daughter has found the light switch in her room which as of right now is conveniently RIGHT next to her crib. She is only that close to the light switch due to some reorganizing around her crib that I was doing that I didn't finish yet so her crib is not where it usually is and apparently she is taking advantage of this fact.

So one recent morning, I'm laying there in bed, asking myself, "what in the world is that sound?" and then it dawned on me what it was. I listened to it for a little while and then I quietly snuck out of bed, opened her bedroom door and there she was with the lightswitch now in the "off" position, standing up in her crib next to her fishtank pounding away on the sound button with a huge smile on her face and a pacifier half hanging out of her mouth.

And all I can say, is I would take a million mornings like that! ;-)

(I will miss these little moments all too soon.)