The Longest Shortest Time

I Want a Fever

A few nights ago my husband and I heard the inevitable kaboom of our toddler lifting herself over the side of her crib and landing on . . . God knows what body part. Sasha seemed fine but we didn’t want to risk that happening again, so the next night we took the side off her crib. It’s one of those Ikea cribs that converts to a toddler bed but it didn’t have a guard rail, so Sasha rolled out a couple times. It didn’t seem to bother her, so we just picked her up and slid her back into bed.

I talked to a friend who has older kids and she told me she had the same crib/bed when her kids were little. She never wound up getting a guard rail and after about a week or so her kids learned “where the end of the world was” and stopped rolling out. I like this idea of letting Sasha train herself to stay on the mattress, so we’ve been putting off getting a guard rail and have been leaving a folded-up blanket by the edge of the bed to cushion any falls.

Thing is, now Sasha can get out of bed by herself. And she knows how to turn doorknobs. Yesterday no matter what I tried, I just could not get her to nap. She would keep getting up and coming and finding me. Once I even pretended I was asleep in my bed and she stood quietly beside me for about two minutes before poking at my shut eyelids. So no nap.

Same thing last night trying to get her to sleep. We tried to talk her through the decision to remove the crib side for her safety and how we understood it was hard to get used to and maybe a little scary, which seemed to calm her down a bit. The most effective part seemed to be when my husband explained the situation in the voice of Sasha’s Elmo doll and Sasha said she wanted to lie down and snuggle Elmo. But still, within seconds of leaving her room she’d be waddling out in her red sleep sack and staring at us with big round, tired eyes.

“I have a fever,” she told us.

“No you don’t,” we said.

“I want a fever,” she answered, I guess wanting us to take her temperature and sing to her and hold her hand like we do when she’s sick. That’s how much she didn’t want to be in bed: she’d rather have a stick up her bum.

We finally resorted to holding the door shut while she screamed and banged on the door . . . until things were finally quiet. We waited about an hour before going in and finding her asleep on the floor against the door. My husband put her in bed and we can’t know for sure, but it seems like she stayed there all night long. (This whole scene felt a lot like Parenthood’s “Sore Loser” episode, when Julia and Joel lock Sydney in her room to freak out and eventually pass out—something I remember thinking seemed very real and hard and also funny, especially when they put Sydney in her bed and then run out of her room giggling like a couple of kids at a sleepover. That was definitely us last night.)

Right now I am up against the nap problem again. After Sasha escaped a few times, I used the holding-the-door-shut technique. While she did stop screaming and banging after 15-ish minutes, she is still not quiet. I have heard toys being pulled off of all shelves. Blocks, I think. And something that rattles when you shake it. And some electronic toy that speaks in Spanish. Sasha has been talking up a storm all the while. It’s been over an hour. I fear that we may be losing our nap time for good. But I don’t feel ready.

We’d been in such a good rhythm with naps and bedtime that it’s been a shock to have things feel like they’re reverting back to the broken leg days.

Does anyone out there have experiences to share about the transition to a toddler bed? The transition to no nap? Please tell me she will get used to this eventually and that there are more naps in my future.

UPDATE: Just as I am about to publish this post, I hear silence. I wonder if she’s sleeping on the bed or the floor!

UPDATE 2: I risked opening the door and saw this. The mess is even more sprawling than I can fit in the frame.