Once Isabella started sleeping in her bed, she slept with her pink glow-worm in her bed. Yes, even when she was a baby - we also used bumpers too ... don't judge. Once Silas was born and her crib was moved into her own room she slept with her music toy (just the music part of a baby crib mobile - see right) and her glow-worm, a pillow and a blanket. A review of this mobile is coming because this has been one of Isabella's favorite items ever. She still listens to this music every single night before going to bed. She seemed fine with that and has usually been awesome about going in her crib and putting herself to sleep. I feel compelled to say that we do not practice cry-it-out; we have been blessed with kids who fall asleep easily. A few months ago she started asking to take a toy with her when she went to bed. At first it was cute. It was a baby here and a stuffed animal there. However, we quickly realized that it was impossible to remove that item in the morning. It was like asking her to pull off one of her own toe nails to get the stuffed animal back out. And don't even think about saying no that she couldn't take something to bed. Complete toddler meltdown.
We let it go on for some time until it became a game for her. Once you would tell her that it was time for bed, she would gather up every toy that she saw from the place that she was standing until she got to her bed. Sometimes she would tell you that it was too heavy and ask you to carry it for her. This got ridiculous quick. Mom would clean out the bed in the morning and by the afternoon Isabella had amassed an entirely new set of items in or around the bed to be taken into bed during nap time.
Eventually we had to put our foot down and tell her that she couldn't take things to bed with her anymore. Corry and I talked about it before hand that we would leave the items in her bed that were already in there, but we would limit the new items that she would be allowed to take in there. This was a lot easier said than done because a screaming, crying toddler is fairly persuasive around bedtime. Lately we have been able to just tell her that we are going to lay down with Rosie (super cheap Target baby named after the younger sister on Cailou) and she will be fine.
She still has quite a few items in bed including several blankets. More specifically she has all of these items (except the two frames):
3 pillows, three blankets and herself in bed with her at all times. From what I heard, this is normal, right? On one hand, I feel like we are raising a hoarder by allowing her to do this. However, on the other hand, if it isn't hurting her, it isn't stopping her from sleeping and it's comforting her at night, why should I take these items away from her? I am inclined to leave them alone and let her have them in her bed.
If we are truly raising a future hoarder, at least right now she is collecting cute items and she looks so precious doing it!
-Sara
No comments:
Post a Comment