rock-rock

The husband and I decided that it was time to move Lily out of her crib and into a big girl bed. 

Did she complain about her crib?  No. 

Is she too big for her crib?  No. 

Was she sleeping just fine in her crib?  Yes, for the most part (teething is mostly to blame for an off night).

However, with her sister due to arrive in 10ish weeks and in need of a place to sleep, we felt it was important to make this transition far enough in advance for Lily not to associate getting kicked out of her crib with her baby sister.  Why set a negative tone for their relationship from the start, right? 

So over the past few weeks I’ve been buying bedding and we’ve been discussing room layouts etc.  We live in a two bedroom townhouse, so baby sister will be sharing a room with us for a bit and Lily will keep her space.  I refinished an old headboard that Jeff’s parents kept from when he was little and we bought a new twin mattress set.  Everything was ready.  Lily went away to stay with Grandma Becky and Grandpa Tim for the weekend and Jeff did all the set up on Sunday before she got home.  He removed the crib and stored it in the basement and moved the rocking chair into our room.  She was very excited about her big-girl-bed and the first thing she did was jump up and down on it – so cute.

However, the love affair with the big-girl-bed promptly ended when she realized that the new bedtime process would no longer involve rocking in the rocking chair with one of us before bed time.  A meltdown ensued, I caved and rocked her for a bit in our room and then ended up holding her in her room till she fell asleep.  I laid her down blissfully unaware of her big-girl-bed or anything else till 4am.  Repeat rock - fall asleep - back to bed unaware process while I laid awake unable to go back to sleep at all and feeling awful.

To back up for a second, here is the logic we initially thought made sense… 

When baby sister arrives, we will clearly need the rocking chair more often for feeding.  Leaving it in Lily’s room just doesn’t seem feasible as we will need it all hours of the night for baby sister and we don’t want to wake Lily to use it; she is a light sleeper.  So since we will need to move it at some point into our room, why not just do it now and make the transition swift and complete?  She will be so excited about her big-girl-bed, she won’t mind the change.  Will I miss rocking?  Yes, but creating a new routine is probably best right?  How very, very wrong we were.

Last night’s meltdown was even worse.  I am adamant about not laying down in her bed with her.  That is one habit I refuse to create.  She needs to be able to fall asleep on her own and she’s been just fine with this in the past.  I don’t want that to change with a new bed.  So we read books and sat together in bed and sang countless rounds of twinkle, twinkle.  Again, I caved and we rocked in mama’s room for a few minutes and headed back to the big-girl-bed.  She wouldn’t lay down and wasn’t near enough to falling asleep for me to hold her.  She’s heavy.  We thought we would just try the leave quickly and cry it out method.  I lasted 20 minutes.  She didn’t just cry… she screamed.  I cried.  She called out for Grandma and Grandpa.  Anyone who may be listening.  She wanted to rock–rock.  I went back in her room to find her sitting at the end of the bed sobbing and screaming like I’ve never seen.  I held her and cried with her till she fell asleep next to me on the bed.  Gently I laid her down on her pillow once again, blissfully unaware of her big-girl-bed or the drama that she’d just been through.

Pregnancy causes me to be emotionally unstable as it is and I feel drained.  I will not do this again tonight.  She isn’t a big girl yet.  She needs to rock-rock and I need to rock-rock.  Jeff has to work late, so when we get home, Lily and I will be removing my bedroom door from the hinges and moving the rocking chair back into its rightful place in her room.  And tonight, we will rock-rock before bed.  Hopefully this will help her love her big-girl-bed and I won’t feel like the worst mama ever.

Anyone have a rocking chair you aren’t using?  Baby sister may need her own…