Zeke went to sleep last night for the first time in a toddler bed (crib with one missing side). I only heard him thud to the floor once, and by the time I got there he was quietly crawling back into bed. I told Sarah that he did have a slight advantage over his brothers, who would fall onto cold oak hardwood instead of soft warm carpeting! The rest of the night was was pretty uneventful, with the exception of the tucking-into-bed phase. Zeke was really distressed about the whole process, crying with lip quivering, we couldn’t figure out why he was so anxious. Finally I let him show me what was upsetting him. He grabbed his new stuffed froggy, slid out of bed, grabbed my hand, and walked into the hallway. There he gave a big speech and sat froggy down on a duffel bag before turning around and heading back to bed. Turns out the little guy was a bit freaked out about sharing his pillow with a strange beady-eyed stuffed frog.
That little episode reminded me of how Titus and Asher interacted with their stuffed animals. I think it took upwards of 3 years to convince Titus that stuffed animals were good–now he just puts up with them. I think the most mileage we ever got out of stuffed animals was the process Titus used to go through to pick either his “curly” puppy or “soft” puppy before going to sleep. Asher first went through a phase where he loved his stuffed hippo to death. Then when he started to need fewer naps and Sarah had to take hippo away from him because Asher and hippo would spend nap time chatting, Asher proactively decided that hippo talked too much and kicked him out of the bedroom during the day. Finally he would get so distressed when hippo fell out of bed at night that he proactively put hippo in the corner so that he wouldn’t have to worry about any late-night rescue attempts.
Funny boys!
I love these stories! O and F do not tolerate stuffed animals at night time at all. Finley would freak out about not wanting it, and then if I even left it in the corner of the room, he would quickly jump out of bed, whip open the door, throw it out in the hallway and sprint back in bed. Oliver would let a puppy be in the bed, but before falling asleep he would jam it between the wall and the mattress. So much for that!