A couple weeks ago, Marshall and I made the decision to sidecar Jilly's crib to our bed. We came about this for a couple reasons. One, we felt it was time to start getting some of our space back in the bed. And two, Jilly's increasing mobility and ability to use anything as a pull-up point (including the bedrail we installed on the bed previously) were making us uneasy about having her sleep in our bed, especially during those couple hours between Jillian's bedtime and mine, when I was constantly checking on her, but she did spend some time in there alone while I tried to have some sanity-saving time to myself. One thing that cemented our decision to do this, though, was that we wanted to make sure transitioning her into her own crib goes smoothly and gently. This doesn't need to be a traumatic thing, right? And putting her in her crib in her own room and making her sleep alone for the first time in her life seemed way too traumatic to both Jilly and me. Because at this point, I'm just as dependent on those night time snuggles as she is.
So, we took one side off the crib, hauled the beast from her room to ours, adjusted her mattress height to be the same as ours, and pushed them seamlessly together. It makes me getting in and out of bed difficult, as now the only part of the bed available to get in and out of is the foot of the bed. But that doesn't really bother me like I thought it might. I made a big production out of the new sleeping arrangements. "Look, Jilly! Your bed and Mommy's bed, yay! Now you can sleep in your bed, and Mommy will be in her bed, but it's like one big bed. Yay, Jilly!" And we set off to get her to bed and try this out.
Here's what I expected: lots of confusion, waking up crying, wondering why in the world she's in this thing instead of the bed, followed by some playtime fluttering back and forth being excited. Lots of us putting her back to sleep and putting her back down in the crib. Repeat throughout the evening until I come to bed, when she'll throw and fit and scream and I'll have to pull her into my side. I expected it to be a huge adjustment and kind of confusing to her.
Here's what actually happened: the first night she slept 8 hours in her crib, without so much as a whimper until 4 am, when she half-awake half-asleep crawled over to me and plopped down snuggled into me. Each night since, she goes to sleep without fuss in her crib, and despite one bad night where she refused to go to sleep at all, she sleeps until I come to bed, when she sleep-crawls in a stumbling manner into my side of the bed and nurses and snuggles. All naps are now taken in her crib, and when she wakes in her crib she'll sometimes play for a good 10 minutes or so before crying out for me. So she's adjusting perfectly. It's been easier than I anticipated for sure.
I hope she keeps night-crawling to me when I climb in bed, though. That first night I hardly slept a wink without her in the crook of my arm snuggling against me. It was lonely. It was my first realization that she's growing up, and at some point she won't want to sleep snuggled with her Mommy anymore. As an attached parenting family, these signs of independence make me happy, but I'm also glad to be there for her in the middle of the night when she decides she needs to nurse and lay with me. And I anticipate a sidecarred crib until well into the toddler years, when she's ready to branch out into her own big girl bed. (And probably still end up in bed with us, just as I know I did as a child, right Mom?)
All in all, I'm happy with this first small step we've taken towards transitioning Jilly into her own sleep space.
