we switched from a crib to a toddler bed

on sleep transitions

You know how movies transition between scenes? A quick establishing shot - NYC bridge, a restaurant called RESTAURANT, a wide shot of a house exterior as the car pulls up - and bam, we’ve moved through time and space easy peasy lemon squeezy but only if you intend to make lemonade out of them otherwise don’t bother.

Life’s transitions are never that clean. They’re messy and last a while — a breakup, a move, becoming a parent.

Key to surviving any parenting transition is getting through it. To the other side. To a new normal that feels good and sustainable and doesn't make you want to jump out your first story window just so the neighbors see and worry about you and ask if you're okay and maybe say you should take a few days to yourself just to recenter and you say no no I'm fine but honestly if you guys are all worried for your sake I will gladly go stay at an airbnb for a few weeks just to make sure everyone in the neighborhood feels okay. 

outta the crib and into the fire

Our latest and greatest transition has been moving our now almost 3yo son Wilder out of a crib and into a toddler bed. Every parent we'd talked to said DO NOT MAKE THIS CHANGE UNTIL AS LATE AS POSSIBLE and we tried to heed their advice, but about five months ago, Wilder forced our hand. One night we heard a giant KABLOW like a sack of russet potatoes had just been airdropped into our house from a helicopter. He'd climbed out of the crib and lunged out onto the floor and now he was crying because it hurt and was terrifying. 

We put him back and explained like rational adults that he could not jump out of his crib because it was super dangerous. We left the room and he jumped out of his crib. 

So, we decided to switch to a toddler bed, and we’ve been stuck in the transition ever since. For the last five months, every bedtime is a michael bay movie a la The Rock or Con Air but drawn out like Terrence Malick's Tree of Life. 

—

First we tried running back the whole sleep training thing wherein you let the child cry and check in on them every five to fifteen minutes until they learn how to put themselves to sleep. Yes, it was awful when we did it last time but we got through it and we could get through it once again. 

But he'd had plenty of time to strategize for this upcoming battle. Gone were the stock “wah wah wah's" of a generic baby and in their place was something much more potent: words from a real human being. Now he was screaming things like, "Don't leave me in here” and “NO I DONT WANT TO” before throwing every toy and book he had down onto the ground. That was all in the first night.

Even the word 'bedtime' is a red herring, since that implies a period during which Wilder falls asleep. 

The reality is more "Wilder running around the house demanding things for a while until he finally settles into bed only to call for us every five minutes with complaints like I want to go on my tummy and the blanket is touching my butt. Like any prisoner of war situation, our ability to reason with him got scrambled, leading us to capitulate to every request, like "I want to sleep with a flashlight" and "no I don't want that flashlight it’s not bright enough" etc. 

His current rider of items that MUST be in bed with him or he will not consider sleeping are: 

1. a small but super intense flashlight the kind cops probably use when doing big cases 

2. a monkey lovey named baby

3. a police car (sometimes is replaced by a trash truck or other midsize car) 

4. a calculator for running late night numbers 

5. a small squishy paw patrol book that he’ll often tell us he’s reading on his own while we read him books

6. a water bottle WITH FRESH ICE IF THERE IS NO ICE BY THE TIME HE TRIES TO SLEEP HE WILL NEED MORE ICE 

7. a hard metal fidget cube

That’s the A-team. Also present are the night’s watch of tiny items that he wants to be in bed with him but are so small that he will spend all night losing them, so they go atop his bookshelf that’s two feet away from him and watch over him while he sleeps:

1. a whistle

2. his GREEN hot wheels cars 

3. two plastic little gems which he pronounces as ‘jams’ 

4. pennies and sometimes a dime 

The sleep consultant we hired said it was not a good idea to have more than one item in bed with him but what the hell does she know, her best idea was to unspool a string of yarn like literal fucking fuzzy yarn from Michael’s from his bed to us so he could tug on it and we could tug back like we were sending morse code back and forth I don't know why we ever thought that one would work he just kept tugging so hard and then would accidentally let go of the string and I’d have to walk it back into his room and say ‘hold onto the string bud’ and he’d look at me with pity, real pity, before half-heartedly trying the string thing again solely for my sake because he loved me and didn’t want to see me in so much pain.

point is, bedtime sucks 

Well, fingers crossed hope no one dies, it *did* suck, as five nights ago there may have been a breakthrough. Lauren had read online of a technique in which you purchase a yak-bak style recording button that we could record a message into telling Wilder good night. Then he could whack the green button over and over and hear our message. Surely this wouldn't work, we thought, and ended up never even opening the package after ordering it on Amazon a month ago.

But desperate times call for desperate measurements. We recorded a short message with both of our voices in a frazzled harmony: "good night Wilder we love you you’re doing such a good job staying in your bed we're so proud of you and we can't wait to see you in the morning we love you so much mwah."

We handed him the button and he pressed it. I saw his eyes process what it was as he pressed it again and again after the word "good night" like it was a whackamole game at chuckee cheese. Something had clicked. He was beaming. He started talking back to the button. "I love you" he screamed and my heart melted like fondu. It was so cute to see how much he loved hitting the button, a palpable need for his mama and dada now easily served up by this simple yet powerful technology called ‘the button.’

I didn’t get my hopes up though. but I knew that once he got into bed he'd probably chuck it at the wall and stare dead into the baby monitor's camera calmly reciting the lyrics to Metallica's Enter Sandman.

But that didn't happen. He laid in bed and just kept hitting the button. Over and over and over and over. 

And over and over and over and over. 

Then he stopped. 

And then he started again, hitting it over and over and over and over. 

He stayed in bed and I felt devastating joy. Freedom, perhaps, from the Sysophian routine that had taken over our lives, but at what cost?

There he was, enthralled by a crude simulacra of the very real love and safety he’d been seeking from us every time he beckoned us to his room, and…it was working?

We watched him for a while through the monitor’s CCTV style footage as the 90s landline voicemail crackle of our voices filled the house, Wilder laying on his back hypnotized by a trance he could now control. 

I started to cry. He didn't need us anymore, I thought. He had his button. "We're such a big part of his life," Lauren told me, "probably the biggest part we'll ever be," and then she cried, too. 

Was this happiness? Because it felt awful but it felt real the way you do after an intense fight where everyone has said everything they needed to say and even though nothing is resolved, there is a lightness of being that, yes, is unbearable, sure, the kind of unbearable you could not bear to be without because it is so full and painful that you wake up from the dream of sleep and remember you’re alive.

support both are true by whacking this (not) green button!!

comment

1. are you a parent what are bedtime routines like in your household (plz no parenting advice tho just share stories ya weirdo!)

   1. what weird shit did / does your kid sleep with?

   2. what are some upcoming transitions to get ready for??

2. are you not a parent but have questions for parents? ask em here idk could be cool!

4. the lil baby EJ is waking up now so I gotta publish this fast tryna think of some more questions 1 sec

5. were you ever a kid? what was sleep like?

6. what is sleep like now as an adult??

8. why did I ask that last question?????