I’m sure you all remember the time honored children’s tale of the indecisive little girl with the bouncy locks. We also have our own little bouncy-locked girl, but our golden haired boy tends to veer a bit towards the choosy side, as well. They have some issues with their beds.
When we moved Kailan up from his toddler bed to his big boy bed we thought, “hey, he might actually sleep!”. We braved a blizzard to go to a mattress store. He laid on them to choose the one that would be perfect for him. He said it was comfy. Unfortunately, it didn’t stick. Soon he was back to sleeping in the guest bed, then our bed, and occassionally, his floor. The excuses why his bed is not sleep-worthy are wide and varied. Lately it has been that his bed hurts his back, which is not possible. He may be having growing pains, so tell me oh wise internets, how is a comfy pillow top mattress going to hurt him less than, say, the floor.
I think he’s fibbin’.
We are fairly certain that Anya acquired the aversion to her bed from her brother. She used to sleep wonderfully in her crib. However, now with some measure of freedom she is wandering about the upstairs when she should be sleeping. Eventually she finds her way to our bedroom floor. I put our decorative bed pillows on the floor as a makeshift bed since usually she comes to lay there in the middle of the night while we are sleeping. Now that it is getting cooler I need to keep a little blanket there as well, since she is usually curled up in a ball with fairly cold toes.
I was able to capture this before I went to bed a few nights ago:
Very sweet, of course, but we would rather have well-rested, non-cranky-tantrum-throwing-screaming children. Some days it is almost embarrassing bringing them into daycare in the morning. That is if I weren’t so used to it, I might actually be embarrassed.
Kailan was waking up at 5am and would go into the office and turn on a movie or cartoons. We have since unplugged the TV. His crankiness reached full throttle last week and he can no longer watch movies while we get ready in the morning. Then he is completely bored by the whole thing that he actually (a) sleeps in or at least rests for a bit longer and (b) wants to go to daycare out of boredom.
Now we just need to figure out how to keep the wanderer in her bed!
And she has her own little taggie pillow too! She’s made it her very own spot.
I like your reasoning about unplugging the tv. I bet if you give it time it will work.
I used to sleep on the floor all the time when I was a kid, and so did my brothers. That way we didn’t have to make our beds in the morning! Perhaps you should get them sleeping bags and actually put them to bed on the floor–then at least maybe they’d stay where they started out and get more rest!
I like the unplugging the tv idea. He hasn’t figured that out yet? I’d considered it at one point for mornings for the same reasons you listed, but I think Drew would figure that out real quick.
Right now Anya is the only one really sleeping on the floor…Kai just doesn’t sleep period and then crawls in at 4am (since he can’t turn on the TV). Alissa, it is HARD to unplug that tv so that is why he hasn’t figured it out yet. Give him time. 😉
I did start Anya out on her floor last night, but she still moved to our room. Sigh.