The Gradual Evolution of Rachel's Bedroom

To say that we've had some recent struggles with Rachel surrounding sleep would be perhaps the understatement of the year around here. You've all heard the stories by now, but I really think today's takes the cake. So, before I get to the big story, here's a little retrospective of the recent changes that have been necessary in Rachel's room:

1) September/October - Rachel decides that the crib can no longer contain her. Begins a several night long series of crib jumping episodes, or perhaps I should call it crib flipping...she didn't exactly jump, she hurled herself out head first multiple times. One night it ended up being probably 20 times, with us putting her back in each time, just like the poor exhausted parents on the "Supernanny" show. Bill and I ask ourselves, where have we gone wrong, that we actually have something in common with the beleaguered and ineffective parents on that show?

2) We take the crib out of Rachel's room to avoid a possible head injury. We put the crib mattress on the floor. We put a gate up at her doorway so she can't get out. This makes her angry. After a few nights, she gets over this and settles down quickly, but then starts what I like to call "the dark period." She woke up screaming several times each night (up to 10 times per night, with nights where it only happened 3 or 4 times counting as "great nights" for us!). She would only settle down when we went in there to console her. But the consoling didn't last long. Sometimes it would be 5 or 10 minutes, just enough for us to fall back to sleep, before she started up again. This went on for weeks. Weeks, I tell you. Just when we decided that we were going to have to get tough and ignore her screams, she tapered off and stopped doing this on her own. Phew!

3) So at this point, her room has the crib mattress on the floor, the rocker (which I always lock in the stationary position overnight), the dresser and the changing table, and that's about all that's in the room. Nights are going much better, but Rachel decides that nap time is for the birds. She starts finding things to busy herself with in her sparse room during nap time. She begins emptying out her dresser drawers and changing table drawers. I come in to get her after "nap", and find things in large piles in her room. On the floor, on the rocker, everywhere. On one of the rare days recently when she did actually fall asleep, I came in to her room to find Rachel sleeping on her mattress, on her side, facing a big pile of stuff she had apparently pulled out of her drawers before passing out, exhausted from all the work. On some days I find things that came out of drawers that are higher up than she is, making me wonder how long her arms really are. We take the drawers out of the changing table, and remove the stuff from the bottom two drawers of the dresser. The top two dresser drawers we take out completely, because I am afraid she will pull them down on her head.

4) "No drawers to empty out? I'll work on the closet!" Up to this point, Rachel had left her closet alone. No more. With the new year comes new frontiers for Rachel. She starts emptying all the books out of her two bookshelves in the closet. That very day, I go to Babies R Us and buy locking devices for the closet doors. Score one for us parents.

5) Which brings me to today. Bear in mind that at this point, Rachel's still gated room consists of the mattress, LOCKED closet doors, the rocker, the changing table with no drawers in it, and a dresser with two empty bottom drawers in it. The other five drawers from those two pieces of furniture line our hallway. Today I hear banging noises upstairs. What could this be? I wonder, since there is just about nothing left. Oh, how naive was I. On my first trip upstairs today during "nap" time, I find Rachel sitting in the cabinet inside her changing table (we emptied that out, too, so apparently it seemed like a good place to sit). I scold her and put her back on her mattress, telling her it's time to go to sleep (Yeah right, Mom). I go back downstairs. After awhile I notice it's pretty quiet up there, but I can tell she's not asleep. This is usually a bad sign. I go up to check on her, and this is what I find:

It is times like these when I wish we had a "baby cam" installed. I can only imagine how this happened. Somehow, the child who is terrified to climb anything during gymnastics class managed to open the empty bottom drawer, climb up, grab onto the metal track above the next drawer to hold on, and hoist herself into the empty second drawer. When I found her, she was sitting there, happy as could be, talking and singing to herself and playing with the now broken metal track. Perhaps it was not good parenting on my part to leave her there and turn around to run for my camera, but how could I resist? No one would believe me if they didn't see it for themselves. By the way, we still can't find the screw that held the metal track in place. I asked Rachel if she ate it, and she said she didn't, but I don't know if I trust her.

This weekend the next step in her room's evolution will take place. We are taking out the dresser altogether. Oh, and by the way, this past Wednesday we ordered her new bedroom furniture: a big girl bed and a dresser to match. I'm betting that we will be bolting those drawers shut with kid-proof locks. And the 6 shelf bookshelf I bought her a few weeks ago at IKEA? After we bolt it to the wall, I'm thinking we'll install only the top two shelves, and leave the rest in a pile in the back of her (still locked!) closet until she's older.