Adventures in Bedtime- From Co-Sleeping to Big Boy Beds – Mommy Blogger

03/05/2018

My name is Christina Hnatiuk. I am a new mom of a 6 month old baby boy, Marshall. I am married to a wonderful man, we will have been together for 5 years, married for two. I work full time in Human Resources and part time as a Ukrainian dance instructor. I love to try new things, especially new restaurants and food. In my free time, which is hardly ever, I love to bake, specializing in cheesecakes. This is my first time writing a blog but I am looking forward to sharing my adventures in parenting with everyone!

Sleeping has been one of our hardest struggles with parenting. Our son never liked sleeping in his crib. We would put him to bed with us, and then transfer him to his crib after. Most of the time he would wake up and we would start over. It just got to the point where we gave up. We decided at that we would co-sleep.  Our life was officially taken over by a tiny human. We went to bed when he did, and were up multiple times through the night worrying he’d fall off the bed.  My nights were sleepless, constantly being kicked, punched and drooled on.  I was officially at the end of my rope.

We tried to change his crib to a toddler bed, but he knew it was the same; there was no fooling him. So finally we decided we should think about a “big boy bed”.  We decided to wait until after Christmas, thinking that the routine would be thrown out of whack with visiting family and such. Finally beginning of February we decided to go look at beds. We had tossed around the idea of twin or double and hadn’t really made a decision. That was until we saw a twin bed, and remembered how extremely tiny they are.  Know fully well one, or both of us was going to be crawling in there with him at least once a night, we opted for a double bed.

We brought it home, set it up and prepared for our first night. Both of us assumed this would be a really long night. We brought him in his room and made a big deal about it. “Look it’s your bed, a big boy bed!”  And “Oh boy, you are so lucky to have such a cool bed!” To our surprise, he was so excited.  He climbed up on the bed and smile and laughed. We got him dressed in his room, read him a story and both laid down to put him to sleep. Within 15 minutes he was asleep. It was unreal. Our nights continued like this. The odd night would be tough to get him to fall asleep but he really liked his bed. Finally we had our evening back and could enjoy doing thing like reading and watching TV.

Then the stomach flu plagued our house.  4 full days, 3 people sick. It was awful. No one slept, especially him, and especially not in his own bed. After everyone was feeling better, we went back to our old routine. But things haven’t been so easy since. He is so much harder to get to fall asleep. And has developed a 3 am wake up which usually lasts anywhere from 15- 45 minutes.  There have even been a couple nights where we have given up and let him sleep with us. Decision-making skills are diminished at 3 am with a screaming baby. But we are still working on it and this has been the most success we have had to move away from co-sleeping.

The most important thing I have learned from our experience is you need to do what is right for you and your child. You know them best and you know when they are ready. I was embarrassed to say that my kid still slept with me, because everyone around me had kids sleeping in cribs and beds though the night, and my kid still drinks 4 bottles a night!  But I everyone would say ”how many 16 year old boys do you know that still sleep with mom and dad?” That really put it into perspective for me. It would happen eventually and he would do it in his own time! And lets be honest who doesn’t love baby snuggles? SO moral of the story is, whether its sleeping, eating, potty training or talking, don’t worry about how fast or slow they are going, they will get it in their own time. You make sure you are doing what is best for your family!

“Being a parent is like folding a fitted sheet. No one really know how!”