Traumatizing Transition

As I was typing up the blog about Josie on Thursday I heard a noise I have been dreading for a couple of months. It was the first time I heard it and it sent chills down my spine. It was the sound of Xander's door opening when he was supposed to be in his crib napping. I went over to discover Xander standing in his doorway (partially naked, but that's becoming a common thing when he is left alone and gets a dirty diaper) and I let out a blood curdling "Nooooooooooo!" If I hadn't been holding Josie, I would have dropped to my knees crying "Why, God, why?"

Instead, I gathered my wits, set Josie in her swing and headed upstairs to recloth Xander. I eyeballed the crib for any malformations that he had escaped through. Seeing none, I can only assume that by sheer determination and upper body strength Xander managed to climb out. Which is obviously a fluke incident and won't happen again for 6 more months. So I deposited Xander back in his crib, told him to take his nap and headed downstairs to finish Josie's blog.

Ten minutes later I heard a bump, a cry and then "Ok." Because Xander now says "Ok" if he falls down but isn't badly hurt. I retrieved the boy and gave up on naptime for the day.

That evening, Chris converted the bed to a toddler bed. Basically, one side comes off of the crib. Xander was very excited, you could tell because he kept jumping off of the bed. I was tempted to put the new sheets I bought him for Christmas on the bed (Toy Story!) but they'll wait until Christmas.

The first night was really rough. First, Chris had to warn Xander to go back to bed about three times. When we went to bed, Chris found him sleeping on the floor so he was quietly tucked into his bed.

The sky fell at about 1 am. Xander woke up crying. I went in and he was just sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching his pillow and sobbing. He wouldn't even lie back down for about ten minutes. Even then, he'd get upset if I tried to leave. So I brought in a pillow and blanket and tried sleeping on the floor for a while. However, I'm too old for that and everytime I tried to leave to go to my bed, Xander would start crying or race out after me.

So we put the safety handle on his doorknob so he couldn't get out. Wow, that made him so much more upset! He wailed for another half hour. We finally turned his bed around to face the wall, essentially making it a crib again. Xander cried for about ten more minutes and then passed out. It was then about 3:30 am. Chris was not happy.

The next day I turned the bed back to facing out and tried to get Xander to take a nap. He had three tries and then I turned the bed to the wall again. He was ticked! He fought me on it as I turned it and threw quite the tantrum. I put him in and he settled down and took a nap. When he woke up, he immediately tried tugging on the bed to turn it back out which I obliged him.

That night was so much better, he easily fell asleep in the bed. I heard him cry out a couple of times but he seemed to go back to sleep right away. There were two times towards morning that I heard a thump followed by a sleepy "Ok", which totally made me chuckle.

Last night was even easier. We did leave the safety handle on (because we forgot about it), but we'll see how things go from here.