When she was an infant, she almost never napped. If she did it was in 20 minute increments, when she was in the baby bjorn, when I was outside & walking. So basically no rest for mommy. Similarly, at night, sleeping didn't seem like a priority. She hated the crib. Wouldn't sleep in it whatsoever. I tried letting her cry it out... This experience ended with a crib full of vomit, pyjamas soaked (really) with tears, and a diarrhea explosion (excuse the details). So I did what I said I would NEVER do, and my husband let E. sleep in our bed for about a year.
This sort of made things easier when we traveled. All we had to do was find a place with a big enough bed (read king) to accommodate all of us. Sometimes we squeezed into a queen (and once a double!?!), but for the most part it wasn't a problem.
Until E. started moving when she slept (or decided to sleep horizontally) and I wasn't getting any sleep, and neither was she. This was when we had enough and decided that it was time for her to start sleeping in her room. This is the same story many parents have, with babies (or toddlers by this point for us) who have sleep issues. My husband and I started wondering if we would ever get any sleep, and what would we do the next time we traveled.
E. was an early walker, so as soon as she was out of our bed, she was in her toddler bed. No more crib. Well, no crib ever actually. I figured if she can walk, she can go in and out of her bed, she won't fall out. And yes she did go in and out, and she didn't fall out (well, maybe once), but she was still getting up many, many times a night. So we were wondering, do we go back to having her sleep with us?
We did when when traveled when she was about 18 months but then when we came back, we had to start all over again. Back to square 1. Sleep training all over again. Then just before she was 2 we went to visit my cousin in London who had a camping bed which his son would use. They're also called EZ beds, or ready beds. This was fantastic. It's like an air mattress with a sleeping bag on top. You can get them at Target or Toys R Us. We would put her to sleep in the camping bed, and then go to bed later. We were all sleeping in the same room, but not in the same bed. This was so great that we decided to get her one for our upcoming trip to California.
The choice in pattern was Disney Princess or Cars, and I figure that i probably have many years of Princess themed everything that Cars just seemed, i dunno, less stereotypical. So Lightning McQueen it was. She loves it.
It came in very handy for our Californian adventure. We didn't have to worry about getting a place with an extra bed, all we had to do was take out the air pump and blow up her bed. We would put her to sleep and move onto our evening. But like every parent knows, this wasn't the end to all our problems.
When got back home, we quickly realized that she got used to falling asleep with us in the room. So back to sleep training it was. Fabulous.
I have a friend who gets suite type rooms when she travels, so her son (E's boyfriend) can fall asleep on his own and they can enjoy their evening. This is definitely something to consider for next time. In the meantime, E is finally (!?!) going to sleep after story time, and for the most part, is sleeping the whole night.
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