Bill can't sleep when Kai's in our bed. Kai tosses and turns/kicks in his sleep, and our bed is simply too small for 3. We've been trying to get Kai into his own bed for a looooong time. The old house wasn't ideal because Kai's room was not properly set up. Then we had to move after 6 months. In this new house, it took us a few months to "find our bearings" so to speak because of the layout of the house. There are 2 adjacent bedrooms in the basement (but who wants to live in the basement?). There's one big bedroom on the main floor right next to the kitchen (that was our bedroom when we first moved in). However, we quickly realized how inconvenient it was to have a bedroom practically right in the kitchen. Specifically, when someone's in the bedroom, nothing can be done in the kitchen. Finally we decided to move up to the two smaller rooms in the attic. It's not ideal, but the alternative would be moving to another place (again) in the winter.
Long story short, we're making the most out of the situation. We set up Kai's room with a Lightning McQueen fleece blanket pinned to the wall next to his bed and shelves lined with some of his favorite books. There's an area rug on the floor where he can drive his cars on the roads. Kai also picked out 2 Lightning McQueen posters, and we'll hang them up on the wall once they're framed. Kai started to show interest in the room once he recognized it as "Kaikai's Room". Every night on the way upstairs, we ask if he wants to sleep in his bed. It was always a definite "No" in the beginning. Then he agreed to read in his bed until it was time to go to sleep. After a few more nights of tears, tantrums, and battles of will, Kai started falling asleep in his own bed. However, he'd cry and ask for Mommy when he woke up in the middle of the night. Bill was the one who went and comforted him. We'd let him come into our bed for the night. But the next morning Bill would talk about it with Kai and tell him how he could better handle the situation: "When you wake up in the middle of the night, you should try to go back to sleep." "If you want Mommy, you don't have to cry. All you need to do is to say 'Mommy, Kaikai's up' and we'll come get you."
And it worked. The next few nights, Kai would simply call "Mommy" while sitting in his bed in the dark or I'd hear a lot of ruffling from the monitor and find Kai standing in the hallway between our two rooms holding a stuffed animal and rubbing his eyes, "Kaikai all done sleeping in Kaikai's bed, Mommy."
Then on Tuesday, Kai slept in his bed through the night (it was weird 'cause I woke up every few hours anticipating a toddler standing by our door, but it never happened)!! We made a gigantic deal out of it the next morning and got the daycare teachers involved as well so they can help praise Kai on his big achievement. Kai didn't say anything, but he was happy and he knew how proud we were.
It's a lot for this little guy to adjust to because he's been in our bed since he was 6 months old, but he's being such a great sport. We're taking it one night at a time. Sometimes I wonder if he's really only 2 years old. He seems to understand so much already.
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