I guess when it rains “ah, what the hell’s,” it pours.
In case you missed my “ah, what the hell” moment from earlier this week, you can read about it here.
Okay, good.
Apparently since the #buhbyebinkie2016 mission was so successful, I decided that now would be a great time to do ALL the things I’ve been overthinking and dragging my feet on. (I think there is something to be said with utilizing the power of momentum in parenting through changes.)
First and foremost: moving the toddler to big sister’s room.
We actually rearranged big sister’s room a month ago to have the layout I wanted for when toddler was ready to move in and be in a “big girl” bed. However, I was still overthinking the timeline because I’d like her to stay in her crib as long as possible. So I thought about just waiting to see if she would be ready to move out of the crib sometime before new baby was ready to move into it, at which point we would move her to the big girl bed in big sister’s room.
But that left a lot of unknowns. And since I am a control freak who meticulously overthinks and plans every detail of things like this, that just wasn’t working for me.
Plus there are perks to not waiting. One perk to combining rooms before baby comes is that I would then have the nursery room open to be able to change diapers at night and nurse in the comfy rocking chair. (The baby will sleep next to our bed for the first few months, but we don’t have a good nursing/pumping spot or a good diaper changing location in our bedroom, so it’s a huge convenience to have the space for this nearby.)
Another perk is that, if we just move the crib to the new room, the toddler will be used to sleeping in the new room by the time she is ready to ditch the crib. So we won’t have to tackle changing rooms AND changing beds at the same time.
Seems like a no brainer.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I had my second “Ah, what the hell” moment of the week and decided we were combining rooms. TODAY.
The husband came home from work and we scrambled to move furniture and rearrange (while the kids dumped out every toy in the house. Seriously.)
The toddler was a little confused about the big furniture shift. But we stuck to the bedtime routine, with the only difference being that we laid her down in the new room room. She was a totally champ (again) and went to sleep, no binkie, in a new room.
When it came time for the oldest to head in to bed, we had to figure out a few compromises. She likes to sleep with multiple night lights and music playing whereas little sister sleeps in the dark with a white noise machine. We found a night light app on the iPad that we could position for big sister that wouldn’t disturb toddler, and she agreed to give the white noise machine a try for tonight. (She was asleep within ten minutes so we will see what her review of the changes will be in the morning.)
So both kids are asleep. In the same room. It still feels weird. But that will pass, right? Hopefully without too many “waking each other up in the middle of the night or super early in the morning” moments.