When you have trouble falling asleep, you're supposed to count sheep, right? You're supposed to sit back and imagine a line of fluffy little farm animals leaping gracefully over a white pasture fence: one, two, three... But when Lily has trouble sleeping, she has a different strategy: imagine yourself leaping a fence; or, better yet, don't just imagine it: do it.
You see, late last week, we set up a little pressure-mounted baby gate on Lily's door. I don't really like gates on doors; we only had them in Virginia because it was impossible to gate the top of the stairs, which are a legitimate safety hazard. But we are currently trying to get her to sleep in her own bed, and while she used to consider my leaving the room as a valid form of punishment when she misbehaved at nap time, she has, since moving, made a game out of opening her door and then getting put back in bed. Imagine the fun: sneak out of bed, open the door, get returned to bed, watch door get closed, repeat.
So, reluctantly, I brought out the baby gate. I did not use the big pedal-operated one that requires a wrench to install. The idea was to take the gate off once she fell asleep so that she could still find me when she woke up startled. After all, independent sleep is new for her. So I used the simple pressure-mounted gate that snaps in and out. It's the same gate we used to use to keep Woody and Buzz in the kitchen in one of our first apartments. It looks rather like a small livestock fence.
Not long into this gate's first night on Lily's door, her cries of "Mama!" and "I don't want to go to sleep!" turned abruptly into "I need some help," and we came out to find her astride the baby gate like a rodeo cowboy on a bull. She had taken the little step stool that was meant to help her get into her bed and carried it to the gate to help her get over. We removed the step stool from the room and placed it in our little upstairs landing. But over the next few evenings, the landing became a veritable furniture storage unit as Lily, raptor-like, tried the following items successively: her little green armchair, the piano stool which I had been using to sit beside her bed, the cardboard box that stores her books (made movable by first emptying the books out...clever girl), and, most impressively, her doll stroller.
Sometimes, I think that this child doesn't need a parent; she needs a wild horse tamer. Perhaps there are lessons for that sort of thing in these parts...
You see, late last week, we set up a little pressure-mounted baby gate on Lily's door. I don't really like gates on doors; we only had them in Virginia because it was impossible to gate the top of the stairs, which are a legitimate safety hazard. But we are currently trying to get her to sleep in her own bed, and while she used to consider my leaving the room as a valid form of punishment when she misbehaved at nap time, she has, since moving, made a game out of opening her door and then getting put back in bed. Imagine the fun: sneak out of bed, open the door, get returned to bed, watch door get closed, repeat.
So, reluctantly, I brought out the baby gate. I did not use the big pedal-operated one that requires a wrench to install. The idea was to take the gate off once she fell asleep so that she could still find me when she woke up startled. After all, independent sleep is new for her. So I used the simple pressure-mounted gate that snaps in and out. It's the same gate we used to use to keep Woody and Buzz in the kitchen in one of our first apartments. It looks rather like a small livestock fence.
Not long into this gate's first night on Lily's door, her cries of "Mama!" and "I don't want to go to sleep!" turned abruptly into "I need some help," and we came out to find her astride the baby gate like a rodeo cowboy on a bull. She had taken the little step stool that was meant to help her get into her bed and carried it to the gate to help her get over. We removed the step stool from the room and placed it in our little upstairs landing. But over the next few evenings, the landing became a veritable furniture storage unit as Lily, raptor-like, tried the following items successively: her little green armchair, the piano stool which I had been using to sit beside her bed, the cardboard box that stores her books (made movable by first emptying the books out...clever girl), and, most impressively, her doll stroller.
Sometimes, I think that this child doesn't need a parent; she needs a wild horse tamer. Perhaps there are lessons for that sort of thing in these parts...
Haha! Well, determination and innovation are certainly good qualities to have, although perhaps not in this way yet.
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