Big Boy bed

The weekend that Auntie Jenn, now known as La-la, came to visit with Emma, Gavin decided to master a new milestone of climbing/flinging himself out of his crib.  This resulted in us putting his toddler bed together to hopefully keep from having to visit the ER and Gavin mortally injuring himself.

Gavin had a big time helping Clay as you can see, he wanted to make sure he was "involved" in the entire process.

 I had high hopes, since it seemed like Gavin was super excited about his new big-boy bed.

  But alas they were quickly dashed that night.  Normally we would let Gavin self soothe, aka cry it out, however with La-la and Em in the next room, we tried to keep the screaming down as much as possible.  Not that it did much good.  So after attempting to sleep on the floor with him, I gave up and brought him into our bed so that we could all get at least a few hours sleep.  The next night actually wasn't so bad, but then the night after that he got up all night long and I think ended up sleeping on the floor next to the door.  I voiced my complaints on FB, and Aunt E had a great idea of getting a nightlight for him.  Well of course, I didn't make it by Wal-mart that day and then we left for Thomasville to celebrate Thanksgiving.  I thought for sure that they change in routine and him sleeping in his pack n play, would set us back even further when we got home, but it really didn't.  He was still fighting like mad during the day any nap attempts and usually ended up on the floor by the door for short periods of sleep.  But I thought we were making progress, but then I had to go out of town for continuing education...... If I haven't mentioned it before, Gavin has grown VERY attached to his Mommy.  I think it all stems from the week we spent together without a minutes separation in Boston in September.  Anyway,  me leaving really threw him for a loop and he and Clay had two very sleepless nights last week.  And even when I made it back late Friday night, we kept him up hoping that when he realized I was home and things were back to normal that he would rest easy, he still woke up numerous times and was up for the day at the crack of dawn.  Monday night putting him down, was awful, he kept getting up screaming at the door and finally fell asleep by the door.  Neither of us wanted him to sleep there all night, so Clay had to move him to his bed which thankfully didn't result in anymore meltdowns.  Yesterday morning he was up at 4:45 and no matter what I did, he would not go back to sleep.  Finally after a couple of 5 minute power naps laying next to the door, interspersed with screaming fits, he got up for good at 6 (or maybe more accurately put, I gave up at 6).  Needless to say we were all a bit cranky :-).

I subscribe to BabyCenter and last night they sent me this email....6 major sleep mistakes most parents make Look at #6!  I am worried that this is a problem.  Clay doesn't want to go backwards but I think sleep is more important :-).  I will say that last night went SO much better, he went to bed like normal and didn't wake up during the night at all.  He did get up at 5:45, but at least that is heading in the right direction.  Hopefully all he needs is to get used to his routine again, but if he starts the waking up and not going down problems again, we are going to have to do something. I guess maybe I should go get that nightlight, huh......


Below are a couple of pics from the visit with La-la and Em.


For some reason, that Saturday Gavin refused to nap so we put them both in the stroller and walked around for 45 minutes until he finally fell asleep.  We parked them in the backyard trying to get them to nap as long as possible!

This was Gavin and Emma enjoying an episode of Blues Clues on Netflix.