Sleep Saga (warning - long!)

On the weekend of their 2nd birthday, the kids decided to learn to jump out of their cribs. We had seen Lucas and Abby hook their legs over the side of the cribs, but they had never actually made it over the sides. That all changed on 3/24 - I swear they had heard me say that I refused to convert their cribs before they were two.

We had just put them down for nap on Saturday, and we heard giggling and screaming, so we went to investigate. And there was Lucas running around the room, going back and forth between the girls' cribs. Ack! We put him in a pack n' play in the guest room for nap, and he stayed put. On Saturday night he went to sleep fine in his crib, so we were hoping it was just a fluke.

Nope. On Sunday (their birthday) we heard more horseplay, and when we opened the door, both Lucas and Abby were running around the room, and petite Zoey was trying her darndest to get her legs over the side of the crib. Triple ack! We separated them again, and Abby climbed out of the pack n' play in our room, and basically no one napped that day.

We really really really did not to convert their cribs to toddler beds, especially without having the time to prepare them for the transition, but we were worried they would hurt themselves if they kept jumping out. So, since Jason was scheduled to leave town for business that night, we converted the cribs as quickly as we could. The plus side to having 3 to do is that we got pretty good at it by the 3rd one!

They were so excited about their new bed arrangement






We were worried about them falling out (traditional bed rails don't seem to fit on these IKEA cribs) so we piled up rugs and pillows on the floor. I think they took that as an invitation to sleep on the floor instead of the beds - maybe they felt more secure that way.

The first night was rough - I put all 3 of them to bed at the same time, and within a few minutes they were pounding on the door and screaming. I opened the door and they ambushed me and ran back out to the living room. After reading some books on the couch, I took them back to bed and tried laying down with them on the floor, but they still wouldn't settle down. Finally I put Zoey in the pack n' play in our bedroom, since she seemed the most tired. I can't really remember when or how the other two fell asleep, but this was how I found Abby and Lucas sleeping the first night:


Abby woke frequently during the first night, and every time I went in the room I found her in a different spot on the hardwood floor. Lucas also moved around a lot but seemed to sleep right through it.

The next day, we tried naps in the room. I eventually had to separate them, so Abby was the only one in there. Here's a picture of Abby napping:


If I knew how to transfer pictures from my phone to the computer, I would add the pictures of Lucas napping on the cushions next to the bookshelf. There have been several times in the last week when he has fallen asleep while reading. It's really adorable.

The next two nights gradually got better - screaming less intensely and for shorter periods of time, and falling asleep more quickly. I can't remember but I think we continued separating them as needed. They got into their fair share of mischief such as throwing all the clean diapers all around the room, but it still felt like we were making progress. Other forms of mischief have included Lucas stealing the girls' pacifiers, fights over loveys and blankets, and generally invading each others' personal space.

Wednesday night was rough - they had taken really long naps during the day and did not want to go to sleep AT ALL. There was much struggling to get them to go to bed and stay there. Eventually I brought Abby to bed with me. I fell asleep, but she didn't. Somehow she got down off our bed and Jason found her wandering around the house getting into mischief. Yikes!

I can't remember what happened on Thursday night, but on Friday night we decided to drag the full-sized mattress from the guest room up to the kids' room so that there would be one large surface for them to sleep on. We felt bad that we kept finding them sleeping on the bare hardwood floor. Man that thing was heavy! They're going to have to learn to stay in their beds by May, though, because we have guests coming to stay with us that month.


The kids loved the new arrangement, but on Friday night their mischief turned really challenging. We admittedly left them unsupervised in there for too long while we tried to eat our pizza (which had taken almost an hour to be delivered from the pizza place 5 minutes down the road), and we were starving. When we finally went to investigate the giggling/screaming, we found that all 3 had taken their diapers off, peed on the floor and mattress, and emptied half a box of wipes. Triple yikes! At least they all owned up to it - when we asked who peed on the floor, they each said "Abby did," "Lucas did," and "Zoey did." They get points for being truthful. We had to try really hard to appear mad (which we were) while not laughing (because it was actually kind of hilarious).

At this point we were lost about what to do. I polled local moms of multiples, my internet moms of multiples friends, the Facebook world - everyone I could find. We got a lot of different advice - put the cribs back together and use crib tents (at $60 apiece!), put them in separate bedrooms all the time, sit in the room with them and keep silently putting them back to bed every time they got up, strip their room of everything except mattresses so they couldn't get into mischief, etc. In hindsight, maybe we should have given it a couple more days in their cribs and tried to find crib tents on sale, in order to avoid all this chaos.

However, we've decided to persevere for now, in large part because we don't want to go to the effort of putting the cribs back together. We have tried to get tougher with our bedtime rules - they get one shot at falling asleep together, and the second we hear any antics we put them in separate rooms. Our babysitter has had some success at getting the girls to fall asleep together during nap - Lucas often seems to be the trouble maker so once he's removed things go more smoothly. We put the changing table in their huge closet so they can't access the diapers or wipes, so really all they have to play with is books, which is fine with us. We've started putting onesies on under their clothes/pajamas so they can't take their diapers off, especially since the babysitter had to deal with a "poop incident" during nap this week.

I did find a cute Elmo book about transitioning to a big kid bed, which is cute, but doesn't seem to have inspired them much.
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Enough-Bed-Sesame-Street/dp/0375822704/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333635470&sr=1-1

We really hope that things get smoother over time. It's hard to have no access to our bedroom or the guest room when they are sleeping, and it's hard when they don't fall asleep until well after 8pm. That first week we had basically no down time in the evenings because they had such a hard time getting settled, and once they fell asleep it was our bedtime too. Once they fall asleep they usually stay asleep, with the occasional waking when they can't find their pacifiers. If only they would sleep past 7am...

We'll keep you posted on the sleep saga and we welcome any advice or commiseration folks can give us!