My Bye Bye Bye Baby post (here) may have been a little too premature to celebrate. I boosted about Parker’s progress in potty training, going without a pacifier and abandoning her crib all in one week. Turns out she is not exactly ready to shed her baby skin completely. Maybe it was too much too soon and once the thrill of it all was gone she decided growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be… At least I feel that way sometimes.

PJ did well in her toddler bed for several nights, maybe even a full week, with no problems. And amazingly she still called in the morning, from her room, to let me know she was up instead of charging through the door. Taking naps in the new bed became a challenge, as predicted, she petifully looked at me with her head tilted to the side reporting “I’m not tired mommy, I don’t want to take a nap.” Then as I told her she could just lay down for some quiet time then (hoping a change in the name might change her attitude), this frequently ignited a brief crockadile teared tantrum clearly insinuating the need for a nap. For days Parker was able to escape taking naps just for the simple fact of not being able to keep her horizontal long enough to doze off.

Eventually Parker began leaving her room in the morning too, discovering she could hop right into mommy and daddy’s bed when she wakes up. It was fun at first, a little bit of snuggle time before breakfast. Then morning after morning she came in earlier and earlier until our usually late sleeper was now rousing each morning at 6AM. Too tired to even calculate how we were going to curb this new behavior and determine who was going to have to adjust – her or us – then the night of doom happened.

The day was normal, the nighttime routine was normal, by all accounts she appeared healthy and content when I put her down to bed. Then two hours after she had been sound asleep she woke up crying. Daddy addressed her crying and she went back to sleep, two hours later the same thing only this time we had gone to bed and she met me at my bedside. The rest of the night was more up and down, screaming at my bedside and exhausting any idea of what could be wrong. It felt like I was back to having a newborn to care for again except this newborn sprung from bed and hopped into my face to let me know she wasn’t sleeping. We took her temperature, rocked, changed pull-ups, drank milk, laid in her bed, and tried for about an hour of the night to see if she would sleep in my bed. The night was a blur of activities, screaming, scattered sleep and no clear idea of why it was all happening.

The next day when she continued to plead for no nap she was not tired, I knew she had to be exhausted. Again, she was not cooperating with the need to stay in bed so I offered her the option of sleeping in her big girl bed or a pack and play. I offer her choices a lot of times to try to employ her to make the positive choice, she often chooses the other option to see if I will carry through with the consequence. So, out the pack and play came since the crib has been disassembled and stored away. The afternoon after the night of doom she slept a good nap in her pack and play. And since then the pack and play has remained set up in her room, next to her toddler bed and she continues to choose to sleep there for night time and naps.

Maybe it’s more comfortable to be enclosed? I don’t know why it’s her preference for now, as long as we don’t end up shipping the pack and play away to college later on I suppose we are okay.