What Have I Done?

I'm at a loss.

My kid is usually quite adaptable to new situations. With that in mind, we decided that we needed to get her transitioned out of her crib and into a big girl bed before the baby arrives, preferably by her birthday in November.

After mentioning that, my mom borrowed a toddler bed from my brother's fiance and for the last three trips to Philly Kaycie has slept in it. The first night was a disaster, but she's been find in it ever since. We decided, based on that, to move forward with the transition at home.

In hindsight, this was not a good plan. This was a bad plan. An awful plan. We had sleep down to a science in the crib. She went to sleep happy, woke up happy, napped for two hours every day... WHY would I mess with this? Why? Did I lose my mind? Yes. I did. And now I'm paying for it.

The first attempt at sleeping in the bed was a disaster, and I ended up putting her back in the crib. We bought a rail to put up on the bed to help her feel more secure, waited a week, spent a weekend at my parents (with her sleeping in the toddler bed there) and then decided to move her for real that Sunday night after we got home. That was one week ago tonight.

We haven't had a peaceful bedtime or naptime since. As a matter of fact, I'd say half of the days we haven't taken a nap at all, which has made for some really nasty evenings.

We were leaving the door to her bedroom cracked (because the HVAC system in our house is so wonky that you have to leave all the doors at least cracked for it to work right) and she would spend hours "peeping" out at us. Toward the end of the week she got brave enough to come out of the room and down the hall, until she saw one of us and then she'd go racing back to her room and close the door. We were putting her back to bed four or five times in a two hour period. I finally started closing the door and waiting until she was good and asleep before cracking it for the night. This resulted in big fat meltdowns when she couldn't peep. We were still having to put her back to bed multiple times, but now she's screaming and crying for two hours instead of peeping.

Tonight we gave her the option of sleeping back in her crib and she opted not to. We put her in it and she screamed. I rocked her for a bit, then put her on the floor and told her to go to whichever bed she wanted to sleep in. She went to her new big girl bed. I read her one more story and the minute I put the book down and told her it was time to sleep she started screaming again. I told her goodnight, closed the door behind me, and let her scream. She tried to get out the door, she screamed. At some point I'm hoping she gets back in the bed and goes to sleep. As of right now she's still crying and whining.

Did I mention she's woken up screaming twice this weekend? Yesterday morning at 6am (she always gets up at 8:30, like clockwork) and then after a short nap this afternoon. That's never happened before. Ever. It took me a while to calm her down both times.

We've tried leaving her lamp on low (she has a dim nightlight). We've tried taking her books away and letting her sleep with them (and she does, literally, sleep with her books). We've given her any stuffed animal she's asked for (there's barely room for her in there at this point). I've taken away the comforter and given her the crib blanket she likes, which helped for approximately one bedtime. We've tried putting her down less sleepy and more sleepy (more sleepy actually tends to be more intense screaming, less sleepy tends to last longer).

In hindsight, we should have waited. But she did so well at my parents' house that I thought it would go smoother. There's no going back now, she's refused to go back to the crib, so we'll just have to see how long it takes her to adjust. I'm terrified of what's going to happen on our beach trip at the end of the month. We rented a house with a bed for her, but I'm questioning whether or not we should take the pack and play just in case. I just don't know what to do with her at this point. Sleep was going so well for so long, and now I feel like I'm the one who screwed this up. And she's starting a Mother's Day Out program this week, which will probably traumatize her even worse and that will be my fault too, so be prepared for me to have a big fat mental breakdown later this week. It's coming.

MicroTot will be staying in his crib until he's four. At least.