Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Ever since before Noah was born, we've been planning to set up bunk beds in the kids' room. That whole time, Emma has talked excitedly about sleeping in the bunk beds. Now, in her entire life, she has not spent a single night in a bed by herself, so I was more than a little curious to see how she'd handle it once the beds were actually assembled. We took her to Target and let her pick out some sheets, we set up a night light, and Sunday night we were all ready to give it a go. Steve and I tucked her in, kissed her, and told her that if she needed to she could come back to our bed at anytime. We turned out the light and came and got into our own bed. No more than four seconds later, we heard her crawl out of bed and her little feet plodding across the floor. A moment later she appeared in our doorway and silently crawled into our bed. Steve and I sort of quietly chuckled to each other, and he said to Emma, "So you're sleeping in here tonight?" She just said, "Yep," and went right to sleep.

Last night we gave it another try, except this time Steve told her he'd sleep in there with her. A little while after they'd gone to bed, I heard some noises that sounded suspiciously like someone who was not going to sleep. I went in the room, turned on the light, and saw Emma bouncing around on the top bunk while Steve slept soundly down below.I asked her what she was doing and she said she couldn't sleep without me, so I told her to come on in the big bed with me and Noah. I am not a nice enough person that I was going to let Steve continue to sleep in a bed all alone while I was poked and kicked all night by the young'ns, so I woke him up and had him come to the regular bed too.

At this point I'd probably normally just let it go, but I'm wondering how we can all possibly fit in one bed together once the new baby comes, so I'm going to keep encouraging her to sleep in her new bed. Once Steve starts his new job next week, he will hopefully have a regular enough schedule that we can start to implement a nighttime schedule with Emma that includes my laying with her in her bed until she falls asleep while Steve and Noah kick it in the living room.

I got an ornament in the mail today! It's too late to put it on my tree this year, of course, but it was a nice surprise to get another package in the mail.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a cute bedroom, bed, and quilt--no wonder Steve likes sleeping there!
Mom

Melinda said...

Congratulations on the new baby. We are expecting our third in August. What we did for the bunkbeds (set them up in October) is ds is up top and dd and I are in the bottom. Lucky dh has the whole other queen bed to himself. Maybe this would work as a transition? Ds was older (5) and I'm not sure if it would have worked when he was younger. Good luck!

Shawn said...

Love the room Sarah it is so pretty! I was going to say laying in there too with her until she fell asleep. Maybe give her something of yours to sleep with?

Anonymous said...

What a cute picture! That looks like something my husband would do. :-)

Mary Beth said...

Ken and I were just talking about when the little ones might move out of our bed. My idea is that when our teens move out (in 3 and 1/2 years) the two little boys, who will be 6 and 4 will get their own room and still won't be technically sleeping alone because they'll have each other. Your situation is a bit different because you'll have a newborn too. . . do you have a king sized bed?

I like that you got an ornament in January. Nice surprise, winding down from the season.