The Great Sleep Experiment

When we decided three months was an appropriate time to stop co-sleeping with our little Neila, we made the decision to put her to sleep in the pack-n-play in our room. That month was beautiful! She got sleepy, we swaddled her, laid her down, read a book, closed the door and she slept. What are all these parents talking about? Sleeping is easy! When month number four came around, we started seeing little protests here and there, but by the middle of that month, it seemed the only way to get her down without a fight was to nurse her to sleep in our bed and then move her to her pack-n-play when we wanted to sleep. Okay, I guess I could deal with that, but occasionally she would wake up mid-transfer and I'd have to start over. Putting her straight into the pack-n-play wasn't working because it seemed that as soon as there was a divider between us (like the side of the crib), she would cry. I tried letting her cry (with me there, patting and shushing like no tomorrow), but it was not only torture for me, she was so clingy for the rest of the day that I knew that was not good for 'us'. The final straw was her night feeding. This little feeding would come every day around 3am. She would wake up and in my sleepy-daze I would bring her to our bed to feed her and we would both fall asleep there. But this co-sleeping was not the wonderful, snugly, newborn kind of co-sleeping of the early days. Around 4am I would be attacked by four flailing limbs dropping on me like bombs and sand-paper nails scratching my eyelids and lips completely off. I finally wised-up and started pushing our attack baby over to daddy's side so he could feel the wrath.

Enter: the floor bed.
One day I casually said to Jordan, "I wish I could lay down with her in her crib to sleep, then we wouldn't have to move her or keep her in our bed while we try to sleep... like if she had her own bed already". Thus, the research into the floor bed had begun! I started Google-ing all kinds of questions "age to start a toddler bed", "baby in toddler bed", "baby sleeping in own bed", etc. One time I stumbled on a Montessori blog with a mother talking about what a blessing it was when she transferred her four-month-old away from co-sleeping and into his floor bed. My searching became more refined as I delved into the Montessori baby theories. I learned that many Montessori parents put their babies to sleep on a mattress on the floor. One mother said, "just think of it as a crib the size of your room". Really, it seemed to make sense. I know what you're thinking -- we are far from the perfect Montessori parents. In fact, I don't always agree with everything Montessori, but some stuff I like. Well... to be honest, I will like anything that already agrees with my ideas. So I'll cherry pick my parenting style as needed.

Granted, she's not crawling yet. I know we will have a whole host of new issues to work out when that day arrives (baby proofing, for one). But for now, we thought we'd give it a go. After all, we share a room with her, how much trouble could she get into while we sleep? (famous last words, perhaps?)

Day One:
After a quick trip to IKEA (what isn't a quick trip these days?) we came home with a twin foam mattress, one fitted sheet, and one of those super cute giant leaves to hang over the bed (in an effort to make it look like the bed is supposed to be on the floor - not sure if it's working, but it does look cute!). After we first put it all together (some room rearrangement was necessary) we all laid under the leaf and read some books together and tried to make sure she would feel comfortable there by herself when bedtime came. She seemed happy so we went into bedtime confident. The good news: she fell asleep easily. The great news: she stayed asleep beautifully! She still woke up for her night feeding, as usual, but I came to her and left her there to sleep while I went back to my cozy bed (assault-free). And when she woke up for good, she stayed quite content under her leaf oasis and babbled happily for an hour! Ahhh :) Happy mama.