Baby in a big bed.

My baby girl recently graduated to her big girl bed and I reclaimed my bedroom as my own.

I did a little tally in my head the other day and calculated that we had shared our bedroom with our children for almost 18 months. I had enjoyed almost every minute of that time and was always conscious not to push them into their own room too quickly. They would only be so small and able to sleep in their beautiful little bassinet next to my side of the bed for such a short period of time in their big long wonderful lives and I wanted to cherish every single last minute of it. I knew that once they went into their own room the bassinet would be packed away and an end of an era in their lives and mine would be upon us. I loved everyday that I woke up, I was greeted with big beautiful eyes looking up at me begging for me to gaze down on them and say good morning. That in the depths of the night all I needed to do was slip my arm out from under the doona and rock the swinging basinette to resettle them back to sleep and that if they needed to be fed they were right next to me and within arms reach.

Leading up to my baby's move I noticed that she was getting more and more unsettled in the late evening right before we were about to go to bed. She would wake up and cry with intensity, clearly distressed and unhappy. I had been so used to her waking at around 9-10pm that I just assumed she was doing what she normally did but that teething was causing her some pain and hence the unsettled screams. Most nights were drawn out and by 11:30pm my husband and I were a wreck, we went from toys, to play gym to singing back to toys to occupy her but she was terribly unhappy and once my most favourite part of the day, getting into bed, flicking through crap on foxtel or playing with my iphone before I went to sleep was abandoned as we tried desperately to keep our little girl happy, then to try and settle her in her bassinet by rocking, patting and shushing her to sleep. Some days it would take more than an hour to get her to nod off. It was without doubt her most unsettled period of the day. Once asleep she slept through but getting her there was becoming harder with each day that passed.

Now my little girl, she's sleeps like a rock, put her in her bassinet, few little coo's later and she is asleep. Self settle, no worries! I have never really had an issue with her sleep except during growth spurts but I quickly learnt to just go with the flow and not let those periods worry me, if she didn't want to sleep then I wasn't going to force her. Night time though was strange and in the back of my mind I kept wondering whether us being in the room while she was either asleep or trying to go to sleep just disturbed her sleeping mojo. We tried excruciatingly hard to keep quiet when we went to bed, we even took turns sitting next to the bassinet ready to rock her back to sleep while we got changed and brushed out teeth in case we woke her but so many things were against us.

First of all, our floor boards, they creek and you'd be forgiven for thinking that each step is going to send you falling through the first floor the noise is so shrill. We have even tracked a path around the joins so that we can avoid making noise. My husband had to abandon getting ready or showering in the ensuite boys bathroom and took up residency in mine which I was none to happy about, it's a girl bathroom, no boys allowed, but truthfully, it was becoming so very difficult to keep quiet and not wake the baby. Add to that she really was fast outgrowing the bassinet, her little head just a centimeter or two shy of the top but worst of all I was petrified of having the two kids sleeping right next to each other when at any time either one of them could wake up and having a crying fit which the big boy did on random occasions after a night mare or when he wasn't well and the thought of then having to resettle two children and not just one was sending me grey. The logistics were like trying to understand mathematical chemistry. In the end I resided with the fact that the kids were most likely going to keep each other awake or wake each other up for the rest of the time they lived together under one roof together and that getting hooked up on the what ifs wasn't worth my time.

I decided, although a little reluctantly, that I would trial her sleeping in her bassinet in her room when the big boy was at daycare so I could attend to her when she woke with the aim to try and resettle and comfort her with no disruptions and ample time on my hands. I was aware that for some babies the move to a new room and a new bed can be terribly disruptive, I had after all experienced a bit of difficulty moving my son to his room for the first time and had the memory not far in my mind. And then she got sick, and then I got sick and then my son and then my husband. It wasn't the right time. 2 weeks passed and she was still in our room. It all came to a head one afternoon when she was a bit all over the place but I really needed to get dressed, clean our room and change the sheets on the bed. She just needed to sleep somewhere else in peace and without the floor boards from hell creaking and the sound of sheets flapping around and clothes being hauled across the room. I dragged the bassinet to her big girl room, tucked her in, put on the white noise nice and loud and left. 2 minutes later asleep!

Huh? How did that happen so quickly? I thought it was a fluke, maybe she was just really tired, I was after all expecting a massive protest, new smells, new sights, new sleeping environment, nothing. Next sleep the same and the next and the next. While I dragged the bassinet back into our room for one more night sleeps not wanting to enforce too much change too quickly I decided that I would test her out at night on the second day of operation Big Girl Bedroom Change-Over. 5 minutes, fast asleep and wait for it, she slept from 6pm till 630am. Not one noise came from her room. The next night one wake up, one sook at 4am but back to sleep with a shush and a pat and awake at 8am. The night after that 12 hours back to back, not a noise.

I had seen enough to know I had seen it all. Clearly she was begging for some quiet, dark, white noise filled space to go to sleep in. Sleeping in our room, even though dimly lit was enough to keep her awake, our movements and the barely audible tv in the background, it was simply rousing her out of her sleep when she was clearly wanting to and capable of sleeping through. She had after all been sleeping through from day one for at least 8-10 hours, she was just ready to show us how she could do a 12 hour sleep without batting an eyelid.

I was over the moon to have my room back but more than anything I has happy that my little girl was happy to be in her own room without one single fuss in the world. Always wanting to strike while the iron is hot I decided to push my luck and see how she would go in her own bed. She had such a beautiful cot, I had made her a patchwork quilt, there was an abundance of bamboo cotton sheet sets she had been given for her baby shower just waiting to be put to good use so I made up her bed, pulling all the sheets way way down so her little tiny body would be covered just enough to keep her warm but not to swallow her up and decided that I would give it a whirl. I popped her in her bed and decided that seeing as she was capable of self settling that I would just do what I normally do, put her in her swaddle suit, pop her into her bed and tell her I am going out and leave her. She slept!

I was so amazed that I checked on her three times while she had a nap. Despite the sound and motion sensor monitor I just couldn't pick my jaw up off the floor and believe that she had gone from sleeping in our room, to sleeping in her own room in her bassinet, to sleeping in her cot all in just two days and then sleeping through the night every night bar one and for 12 hours at that. WTF! Amazing, blessed and a huge sense of relief came over me.

Last night we dismantled the bassinet and I wrapped it up to put it away. My husband told me that we can now sell it if we like, we can buy another one for the next baby (we'd like to have another baby down the track but not any time in the near future) I said "are you crazy? I'm not that ready to end an era" I can do the big girl bedroom but I will hang onto the bassinet and hope that it can stay tucked under my sons cot until another baby comes along and then I'll think about selling. For now, sweet dreams my children.