Four in the Bed, and the Little One Said . . .

Each night, Meg and I have dinner at around 6:30pm, a short playtime follows, then its upstairs, into the tub, and into bed. It’s our routine. We’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember . . . probably since about January of 2007. It’s nice, peaceful, and the same every night. Meg’s official transition to her ‘big girl bed’ last week has been going swimmingly; there have been no problems at all to disrupt our routine.

After her 7:30-8:00pm bedtime, the rest of the night is mine. I usually work in those hours . . . spending most nights sitting in our office, editing photographs.

Last night, Meg was down by 7:45pm, and I had the night to myself. My cousin had come for dinner, so she and I watched some AI (American Idol, for those who do not have the same guilty pleasure I do). She left at about 10:00pm, and then I spent some time working on the computer.

At about 10 minutes until 11:00pm, I heard a bump above my head. It was a small noise, followed by a much louder THUD.

I flew up the stairs crying, “I’m coming! Baby, I’m coming!” the whole way.

Meg’s bedroom was directly above my head – directly above our office. I knew she’d fallen out of bed.

I think I took the stairs 3 at a time all the way up, slammed the light switch to ‘on’ with a bang. I found her, sleepy eyed and totally confused, picking herself up off the floor next to her ‘big girl’ bed. I’m relatively sure she was asleep when she plummeted the 2 feet (ish) to the ground . . . she certainly seemed startled and confused. She barely had time to get a whimper out before I scooped her up.

And you know what was going through my head?

Turn the light off . . . if she’s still sleepy, she’ll go back to sleep.
No! Turn the light back on . . . make sure she’s OK.
She’s ok . . . no blood or bruising . . . turn the light off again so she’ll go back to bed and is not up all night.
No, wait, turn on the bathroom light so you can see what’s going on.

All this chaos in my mind, while I stood in her room, rocking and swaying her little sobbing body.

I took her in the nursery (Kate’s room) where the rocker is now stationed, and we rocked for quite a while. I held her really tight . . . and I noticed my legs were shaking as the adrenaline started to subside. After several minutes of rocking, I took her back in her room and we lay together in her bed. I propped up pillows and tried to make her as safe as I could . . . God forbid this were to happen again later in the same night. She drifted off peacefully. My attempt to get out of bed was met with a, “Mama” whimper . . . and my thoughts were going a mile a minute again.

Lay back down with her, she’s so sad. I bet she’s scared.
Kiss her and leave the room . . . we don’t want to start the ‘getting into bed with the kid’ routine.
She’s breaking my heart . . . I want to lay with her more. If I could, I’d just sleep with her all night.
Leave quickly so she’ll go back to sleep.

I was so torn . . . but the 'Baby Wise' sensible side of me won out.

The whole ordeal lasted about 25 minutes, from the time of the thud until she was sleeping peacefully again with me on the other side of the door. I checked on her a million times through the night . . . even getting up at 1:30am and again at 3:45am to make sure she wasn’t going to fall out of bed again.

I have no idea what happened – what actually made her fall out of bed. She didn’t roll out . . . we have a bedrail firmly in place. She didn’t slip out between the rail and the bed. She didn’t come out of the bed at the head or foot, where the rail doesn’t cover. I think she went OVER the rail, but I am so sure she was asleep when she did it . . . I just have no idea what happened. Thank God she’s all right and didn’t get hurt. It scared the hell out of her – and me, too.

She slept last night with her ‘Boo baby’, her Elmo doll, and her ‘nigh nigh’ (lovee) all in the bed with her. So, four in the bed and the little one said, “Roll Over, Roll Over. . . .” Then they all rolled over and one fell out . . .

That song as been in my head all day.

Oh – and today after her nap was over, she crawled out of bed and peeked over the landing into our living room to let me know she was awake. Her second time getting up by herself.

I guess the ‘big girl bed saga’ will continue from here. Hopefully the remainder of the times she gets out of bed will be voluntary, like her post-nap adventure. No more involuntary midnight bed-jumping, please. My 25 week pregnant body can’t take another flight of stairs the way I did last night . . . and I don’t think my 30 year old heart can take the stress.