Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

To start this blog off right I need to go back to two Mondays ago. Brady was upstairs for his nap when all of a sudden I hear some weird noises coming from upstairs. I looked at the monitor and there was no Brady in the crib. My adventurous little man finally figured out how to climb out of his bed. I ran up there and put him back in, but within 20 minutes he was back out. The next day he spent the whole nap time sitting on the rail of his bed trying to build up the courage to climb out. He finally did. He never napped again that week. He never tried to climb out at night because he was so exhausted from not napping that he went right to sleep.

So this past Sunday comes around and climbing out was pretty much the norm. There was no getting around the fact that he was not staying in that crib. So for his safety we decided to make the transition to toddler bed. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Total torture that's what! Guess what, they don't stay in the bed! He thought freedom was awesome. Sunday night it took an hour and a half of pushing him back up onto the bed before he fell asleep. Monday he wouldn't take a nap but fell asleep quicker that night out of exhaustion. However, he woke up at 3:30am and decided he wanted to play. You see, when your child wakes up in their crib they know they can't go anywhere so they go back to sleep. Not the case when they are in a toddler bed. So he was up for 2 hours. I eventually just held him and rocked him until he went back to sleep.

Yesterday he took his first nap in 2 weeks only because he woke up at 6:45am, went to BSF, and played with his Nonna. My mom was watching him for me and she basically held him down until he fell asleep. Last night it took 2 hours of sitting by his bed before I totally lost it. I said bye and left the room. I was getting so frustrated! After about 10 minutes of him crying by the door Austin went up there and laid him back down. He was asleep in seconds. So...tonight we took every potentially dangerous piece of furniture out of his room and decided to leave him in there. We only left him in there for 15 minutes at a time, but it only took 2 times doing that before he fell asleep. Hopefully, we have found the method that works for us. We shall see. I'm not sure if he will ever nap again, but he will have to stay in his room for rest time. I am definatly praying my way through this, because it has been the most frustrating stage so far.

This is Brady's room after we took most of the furniture out. We removed the bookshelf, the toy shelf, all of his stuffed animals, end table and the dresser. We also turned his armoire around so he couldn't climb on it. I guess he was so bored that he finally went to sleep. :)

Even though we have had a horrible time figuring this stuff out, he does totally love his big boy bed. He thinks it is very cool.