"my biggirl bed" - hana at 28 months... sigh.

well, we finally got around to getting a toddler bed set up for her. it's been a couple of months since hana let us know that she was ready to step up. and when we went on our trip to atlanta, she slept in a twin sized aero bed, which she LOVED!!! the only complication with that is that on all but one night, she would shimmy off the bed in her sleep and then end up under the bed that mommy and daddy were sleeping in. that's right. i said under. i would wake up to a whimper that sounded like it was coming from right beneath me. because it was. sometimes she was completely under the bed and sometimes, her legs were sticking out like the witch's legs from under the house in wizard of oz. it was pretty easy to pull her out and put her back in the bed, because she was sound asleep. i figured this would not be a problem at home because the toddler bed has rails.
i was right, that wasn't the problem. but there were other complications. she was totally into the toddler bed the first 3 nights. she was pretty good (not perfect of course) at staying in her bed all night and she slept really well, back to her 11 hours from infancy. however on night 4, she climbed into her crib. she did this for the next 3 nights. we have been trying to convince her that she needs to stay in the big girl bed because that where big girls sleep and that she can't sleep in the crib becuase that's where babies sleep.

by the way, hana has a baby brother on the way. the crib is still in the room because our plan is to have both kids in the same room. i hope that by september, when "baby broder" arrives, she will move out of this phase. but she's not embracing the big girl bed as her place. she still thinks she has choices. additionally, she appreciates the new found freedom and so she has taken to marauding around the house for over an hour, sometimes close to 2 hours, after she has been put to bed. this has seriously cut into her sleep time and we end up waking her up in the morning, when means she groggy and cantankerous. in that way, she is just like her father (and her mother in her youth). naps have also been impacted as she has had more nap free weekends than i care to admit.

i have been employing the techniques the supernanny espouses, unemotionally and without words return her to bed every time she gets up. jon's approach involves more talking and reasoning. we'll see how either goes. this has been one of the more frustrating transitions.

as you can also see, bailey likes the big girl bed. she will stay in bed as long as he is there. but you know cats. they do their own thing. so when he gets up, which is most of the time, so does she. sigh.

***UPDATE: after about a month of vigiliance, hana is finally staying in her bed at night night time once we put her down. she's still up for a while singing to herself, "reading" her books, and generally talking to herself. but at least she's in her bed. yesterday, 5/2/09 was the first nap she has taken on a weekend in a month. before, we'd put her down, but she'd just get up and goof off for two hours. yesterday, she slept for about 90 minutes. today, she's "down" for her nap but i've already had to remind her that riding the scooter is not for nap time. she went to bed 20 minutes ago but she's not asleep yet... so the saga continues.