We had a bumpy weekend this time through. I’ll begin by relating the biggest of the bumps – the literal one. Kathleen climbed out of her crib and fell to the floor yesterday. I had the end raised to combat the latest cold which appeared on Saturday. That was enough to give her the height she needed to swing her leg over. Fortunately, I think she landed bottom first. It took DH a lot longer to recover than it did Kathleen. She stopped crying quickly enough and was completely herself. DH was looking for all the world as if he were having a heart attack. He was the first one there and he heard her fall. That’s one of his biggest fears, her falling like that, so it’s not surprising it got his adrenaline going.
The result of all this is that Kathleen’s crib has been converted to a toddler bed much sooner than we’d planned. In fact, we hadn’t been planning to convert her to a toddler bed at all. She was to have gone directly to the full-sized bed. That won’t be far in the future, I think. We have a safety rail attached to her bed right now – DH ran out to Wal-Mart at 6:30 to pick it up – but we’re thinking that it will only be temporary.
You’d be surprised how few universal safety rails there are for toddler beds. They’re all for twin, full, and queen-sized beds. I suppose they assume that if you bought the convertible crib, you probably bought the accompanying toddler bed conversion kit to go with it. We had limited selection to choose from if we wanted to pick one up immediately, and because of this, it doesn’t quite fit. It’s the right size, but it was meant to primarily go with beds that are supported by spring bases or, as an alternative, a single, large board. We don’t have either of those. Her bed is supported by a slat roll. DH jury-rigged the rail for the night. We’re going to get some zip ties today so we can attach it more securely tonight. That should last us until we can get her a full-sized mattress and two new safety rails for adult beds which we hope to do by the end of the year.
Kathleen did a much better job in that bed than I thought she would. She had problems going to sleep, which I expected. She was so excited to be able to get in and out of bed herself, so that’s what she did. All the while DH was trying to set up the rail, she was jumping on and off the mattress which he’d moved to the floor. She continued the up and down once we finally got the rail and her mattress situated. It took some doing for me to convince her that she was staying in bed after the bedtime stories. We had some limit testing and tears, but she stayed put in the end. It didn’t take as long as I’d expected. I thank her daycare experience for that. She’s already used to being crib-free there. As an added security, DH dragged the twin mattress his mom usually sleeps on into her room and slept there for the night.
It’s interesting that this is the weekend she transitioned out of the crib because it also appears to be the weekend that she self-weaned from the binky. It actually started on Thursday of last week. She spit the binky out a couple of times while we were reading our stories. On Friday, she spit it out and would not put it back in. It was the same thing on Saturday and yesterday. She doesn’t seem to want it any more. I knew she wasn’t dependent on it since she goes without it at daycare, but I actually thought she’d hold on to it awhile longer. She hadn’t given any indication until she started refusing it that she was losing interest in it.
She may not need the pacifier when she sleeps, but she does need her toys. Her crib (now bed) has plush toys and blankets all over. Her daycare teachers delighted in telling me that she has them there, too. She sleeps next to a shelf of doll babies and stuffed toys, and it looks like she pulls them all down with her when she goes down for a nap. I can just picture her hugging a stuffed something or other to her chest – probably two – while she slumbers surrounded by all the rest. That’s my baby girl.
As I mentioned earlier, she’s come down with another cold. That’s the third one since July. I’d love to know how. Do the viruses mutate during their rampage through the daycare only to infect the kids again on their next pass through? I don’t believe she had a cold at all last year from late April or May through September or October. I was hoping for a longer break this year. Knocking on wood, she seems to be throwing them off faster. This one is as phlegmy as any of them, but the latest colds haven’t stuck around for much more than a week. That’s a huge improvement over the 4 – 6 weeks during her infancy. I pray it continues.
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