One part of the book astounded me from the very first. It detailed Maria's idea that children should never be contained. They should be free always to roam, explore, learn, experience their environment. Always. Even at night. Maria didn't believe in cribs. She postulated that babies, even newborn babies, didn't need them. They ought to be free, they could find the boundaries of a low mattress at just days old, they preferred to move at will.
I was intrigued, as I gazed at my pretty crib and my designer crib set, bought at Land of Nod for the mere cost of one of my arms, not to mention the drive to Seattle (four hours), night in a hotel (not cheap) and bagels and lox at the Fish Market (overpriced). I HAD to have the crib set from Land of Nod, which has stores only where rich people live and not in podunk, backwater towns eeking out a meager existence on the border of Idaho. On the Idaho border, we should be using cheap Target crib sets, bought used at the baby consignment sale, thank you very much.
Yeah, well, now I do use cheap, used sets because (big secret revealed here, if you don't have kids and don't want a spoiler, cover your eyes), KIDS PUKE AND PEE AND SHIT ALL OVER THE DAMN THINGS.
What can I say? Forgive me. I was very pregnant with my first precious baby and I'd lost a baby before that. Mind not working properly. Some things must be learned by experience.
Maria's little theory intrigued me. No cribs? Days-old babies can find the edge of a low mattress? Children should be free to roam and explore? Interesting.
Then, I had a baby and he came home and - SECOND SPOILER - he didn't sleep for two months unless his lips were firmly attached to my nipple or he was passed out cold face down on his father's chest. Or strapped into a car seat. Which, at two months gave his tired father and I an idea. What if we just put him on a low mattress and watched while he explored his environment and found the edge?
AHAHAHAHAHA. Funny girl, that Maria. No. We noodled his penchant for sleeping in a car seat a bit and said to each other. Us...what if we put the car seat INTO the crib. With him strapped in it. Asleep. And we did and he slept for eight hours, completely restrained like a teeny tiny resident of an insane asylum. Better him than me. It was a little bitty baby miracle.
And so our first beautiful baby slept buckled into a car seat in his crib - in eight hour stretches - for six months when our pediatrician kind of freaked out just a little bit and told us that we needed to try and transition him to a crib! !!
Duh. Panic unnecessary. By then I was all relaxed and experienced and I was like - um, I don't think we're going to have to take the car seat to college and put it on his bunk. No. I was still very intimidated by pediatricians and words like developmental delay and permanent back damage. We switched him to a regular old crib. We didn't even consider a low mattress on the floor.
Want to know why, Maria? Yeah, you know you neglected to mention some things. THIRD SPOILER ALERT. Because babies MOVE. AROUND. Not just on the mattress. When they fall off of things they wake up and cry. They also have the brain capacity of a dim Labrador puppy. They chew on things. They pull things. Their entire existence revolves around wreaking as much havoc and mayhem as possible. How is the parent supposed to get any actual sleep with all of that roaming and exploration going on? Right.
My conclusion? Cribs are genius, obviously. They are little baby cages. Like a crate, for a puppy, except you cannot, under any circumstances, with the possible exception of a quick crying jag on the front porch, put the baby in his crate and leave. It's unfortunate, but true.
Nearly four years later, I own three cages, for my three puppies, I mean babies, for maximum restraint and containment and until last weekend, they all still slept in them.**
That's right, Maria. My three-year-and-eight-month-old children STILL slept in their cribs. Put that on you bruschetta and crunch it.
Until last weekend, that is, when we finally caved and converted Gee's crib to a toddler bed. No nod to Maria, it simply became marginally more of a pain in my ass for him to be in the crib than out of it. The whole "now-that-I-am-not-in-diapers-which-I-kept-completely-dry-for-ten-hours-for-over-a-year-I-must-get-up-and-pee-at-least-twice-a-night" thing.
The crib to toddler bed process:*
My favorite thing about their room, the photo border:
I cried a little. Not the quiet oh my babies are growing up kind of cry. Let's face it, my kids probably should have been out of cribs a year ago. More of an oh-my-god-he-has-access-to-my-entire-house-while-I-sleep kind of cry. The roaming. The exploration. God help me.
Actually, we are eight nights in and he's been pretty good overall. He gets up about twice a night. He goes to the bathroom. He pees. He gets his PJs back on. He turns off the light and walks to the door of our room. Then, he whines and cries and whinges and tantrums until I agree to get up and 'put his covers back on.'
The end result is that I still have to get up every damn time he does, but it's massively more annoying because it's so unnecessary AND I've lost the crib containment. But, he's roaming and exploring! Finally. Maria would be so proud.***
*Yes, Ess is still in her crib. She doesn't wake during the night at all, still wears a pull up and might until she goes to college with her crib and her carseat. They are in the same room. This keeps them from roaming over to kill each other while I attempt to sleep.
**No, my kids have never climbed out of their cribs, ever, ever. It's not that they are non-explorative kids or because I am a good parent. It's because I am mean. I kid you not. Gee threw a leg over the side once when he was about 27 months and I had an epileptic fit on the floor and foamed at the mouth before I gave him a time out. He never tried it again. Roaming and exploration in the middle of the night are completely overrated.
***My editor and biggest critic, aka Matt, commented that this post might offend some people because, clearly, many, many people believe in the Montessori methods, especially for school. I've never visited a school, but I hear wonderful things. I'm absolutely not judging parents who are able to implement the roaming and exploration philosophy of child raising. I admire them. It's not my fault that my intense, type-A, lawyerish personality didn't magically disappear when I gave birth. Roaming makes me hyperventilate. So do markers.
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71 comments:
I'm with you. We just moved our 26 month old "baby" from the crib straight to the bottom bunk. We skipped the toddler bed all together. And I also cried because I wouldn't be able to take another nap until he started Kindergarten.
I love you more with every story you tell! I thought I was the only crazy that went from crib to college!
I love the way you write!
I am proud to say that at one time I had five cribs in the house! Five high chairs too. I miss those days!
wow, I wish my girls would have stayed in their cribs that long. Both got their toddler beds by 2. The Chicken was a bit younger because I went into her room when she was 16 months and not even walking yet but had succeeded to climb the side and was standing on the side when I came in to check on her. I had a mild heart attack right there and promptly put her mattress on the floor, where it resided until we moved. 1.5 years later.
Oldest daughter climbed INTO her crib at 20 months, so we moved her to a big bed. She, amazingly, stayed in. Although I do have a funny picture of her asleep with her torso on teh bed and her legs dangling to the floor.
2nd daughter stayed in the crib until she was 2 1/2 and she moved into the bottom bunk. She never got out at night either.
The Boy, age 2 1/2, is still in his crib, and I plan to leave him there as long as possible. There's no way I want him able to roam loose, especially since he still wakes up in the night.
And I love the photo border and may copy it!
You're totally forgiven for buying that over-priced overrated crib!! HAven't we all?!!
Its just so funny that you thought about his carseat as a perfect sleep tool! It really works.. I tried it too!!
But the crib doesn't work anymore... my son already has tried climbing over it so many times... and, when he doesn't do that, he bangs his head (yes, inspite of all the headguards!) at all hours during the night! So we may just HAVE to consider that low mattress on the floor!! ;)
That's funny you mentioned markers...my sister-in-law always used to tell us that we should let the kids color wherever they please, as not to stifle their creativity. It's a different story now that she has twins...and I wanted to tell her we'd let them color on HER walls if it made her feel better.
Here's a confession, and I imagine that someone might choose to flame me over it - but we've been locking Kaelyn in her room at bedtime for the past couple of years. She's been in a toddler bed since she climbed out of her crib and was heard screaming bloody murder on the other side of the house. She was hanging precariously on the outside of the crib, gripping the bars for dear life trying desperately not to let go. The drop was less than a foot down, but to her 16-month old mind the drop must have looked like something akin to cliff diving. She moved to a toddler bed that night.
At first we kept the door closed, but unlocked. She didn't have the dexterity to turn the doorknob until she was around the age of 2. It was at that time that Frank turned her doorknob inside out, with the lock on the outside of the door.
Now that she's (FINALLY) 98.9% potty trained (age 3.5), she's no longer even wearing Pull-ups at night. We put her potty chair in her room (though she's NEVER used it at any other point EVER in her potty training), just in case she has to go at night. She never seems to need to and wakes up dry.
So yeah. I lock my kid in her room. Totally. The baby monitor is in her room because our room is on the other side of the house. Roam? Yeah - within the confines of her own room where I know she won't be able to get the butcher knife and whack off an arm if she wanted to.
No crib?? Not happening on my watch. It's not a cage. *giggle* It's time to sleep, not take a safari.
Rolling off a low mattress may not make some babies cry, but it could still frighten a few others out of their sleep when they clunk their head on the floor mid-dream!
Apparently my kids read Rock Climbing Magazine in the womb, since they were climbing out of their cribs by age 2.
I'm in the Whatever Works camp. And, with (fairly insincere)apologies to Maria, I think that low mattress theory sounds a little whacky. What does she say about swaddling? I thought it was soothing for babies to feel like they were still inside womb?
However. If this works for some people, all the best. That just sounds like a lot of baby-proofing before it's actually needed.
First of all, mmm, lox. I crave lox like crazy while pregnant. Unfortunately, finding good lox in Indiana is about as likely as finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
Second of all, I am such a huge believer in doing whatever the hell works to get your child to sleep. Whether it's on a low mattress on the floor, in a carseat in the crib, hanging upside down from a closet rod, WHATEVER WORKS. I'm also happy to say that my laid back attitude on this has enabled my kid to sleep unattended in our bed all night long OR sleep happily contained in his crib all night long. I haven't tried hanging him upside down yet, but I wouldn't rule it out entirely.
You are absolute genius. I love it. You are definitely not mean. If you were (here's an idea) you'd be not letting him drink anything after noon so he'd STOP GETTING UP TO PEE AT NIGHT. :-)
I heart cribs. I'd still be using them if I thought I could.
How? How in the Hell?! How in the Holy Hell can you write like that?!?
You make me laugh, you make me cry. Alright. I'll say it: I want to marry you.
I say do what ever works for you.
When my oldest son was much younger, he would wake me up to announce that he was going to go to the bathroom. Despite me telling him to just go without waking me up, he couldn't stop scaring the snot out of me in the middle of the night. I decided to return the favor and wake him up when I went potty. Funny. He cried and then stopped waking me up from that point on.
Totally giggling, because as I read it, I thought "Oh geez, she's going to get the comments about how great Montessori is".
Stacey,
My kids stayed in cribs forever as well. Max was 3 before we converted it to a Toddler bed. Also, Macie was a horrible sleeper. She slept in her car seat in Dan's office(off of our bedroom) for months and then graduated to the car seat in the crib. I say"Good parenting"
Kerrie
wow - i got really nervous that you were going to embrace the cage-less parenting! great post and thanks for the reminder that I can't leave my kids in their cribs when I go out shopping....
The first time we finally let Kylie, my granddaughter, sleep outside the crib at our house, we found her in a dark corner of the basement (two floors down), checking out Grandpa's toolroom to see what she could get into.
I say, "Cage them!"
In my experience, it's partly the parenting and partly the child. My son started climbing out of his crib at 18 months, far too young even to be afraid of a fit I could pitch, so he ended up on a mattress on the floor. Daughter, on the other hand, was in a crib until 2 1/2 and never tried to climb out.
I do have one suggestion, though, if your newest bundle seems to love the carseat for sleeping: this blanket, which was seriously the best $9.95 I ever spent on anything. EVER. It enabled tight, unbreakable wrapping of the baby burrito enough to keep even the most finicky baby who wanted to be sunggled 24/7.
Me thinks Maria was writing about fantasy children...lol
As always I love reading your writing hun :) And I love that border in the kids room!
Aidan, my friend's nephew (age 2 or 3) sleeps in a bed... the exact same bed model that I currently sleep in. I'm not sure if this says more about Aidan's character or mine.
I'm more of a "fusion" believer when it comes to child rearing - I like to fuse all different methods together, kind of like a pot luck.
Alison moved to a toddler bed at 1 1/2, and never even TRIED to get out of bed without permission until age 4. Blythe, on the other hand - well, she'll be 2 soon and I forsee her staying in the crib until High School, at least. To each, his/her own!
I think it all depends on the child and their personality. My oldest, who is now 4, was put in a big boy bed at 18 months. He hated his crib. The bars frightened him I think. He wasn't a wanderer and he never fell out thanks to all the safety precautions we took. My youngest, 18 months, will most likely be in her crib until she's three. That child will be a wanderer. I just know it.
I am terrified of markers too...and I still hold onto the crib...If I get my way we will have a crib until baby #2 is too big for the porta-crib.
Porgie was a very needy baby, who had to be touchy someone at all times. So, we coslept with her. But Izzy? He woke up 573 times per night when we coslept. So, he slept in his carseat, at the foot of my bed.
But now, both kiddos are in cribs. I have no intentions of ever transitioning them to a regular bed. EVER.
Great post. I'm also in the whatever works camp. Both my kids moved straight to a twin mattress on the floor right around 2 yrs old. Oldest was because little sister was arriving in two months and I'm too cheap to buy a 2nd crib.
Youngest was because she's a freaking beast of a child and was getting way too heavy to lift out of the crib.
I also lock their doors at night.
My five year old stayed in his crib until just before his third birthday. He is an ACTIVE child - always has been - but never once tried to escape that crib. I LOVED that crib. I DID NOT want to say goodbye to that crib.
One day my doorbell rang and surprise - there was a toddler bed purchased by my grandma and delivered right to my door. Hint, Hint!
Okay, so we survived the transition and all is well two years later, but I planning on keeping my 8 month old in his as long as humanly possible too.
I went to a Montessori school for 6 years, I was a head teacher in a Montessori classroom for 7 years, and now my daughter goes to a Montessori school, and I have to say I have always LOVED the crib!!! Even after sitting in many early childhood Montessori workshops and discussions that included information about the crib-on-the-floor philosophy, it never made sense for our family...I shed a few tears when my oldest moved out of her crib. Her little sister is sleeping soundly in it now. Cribs are fabulous.
I tried co-sleeping for about 2 weeks until I was so insane with fatigue that - when my husband moved M to the crib one night and it worked - I never looked back. And then, a couple of years later (who can remember exactly when) she went from a crib to a big girl bed (a tall one) just like that. She's fallen out 2x (though we put pillows on the floor for at least a year and she never fell until she was at least 7).
Point is, as long as they sleep and you sleep, I don't think it matters. FYI - I had a lock on M's door at night for a couple of years because she's at the top of a staircase in a Victorian home and I was afraid she might kill herself if she sleepwalked. Lots of people probably judge that but I don't care, what with her still being alive and all.
PS: After 5 minutes, she knew how to unlock the door from the inside so it was kind of useless. But I thought that maybe a sleeping her wouldn't.
I personally like the cribs from the 1950's. They were actual cages. Wooden slats all over, including the top.
Geniuses, those 1950's moms....
i wish i had thought of the car seat thing when my kids were little!
this post is absolutely hilarious!
You guys are cracking me up, love the stories. Oh and I completely agree with the 'whatever works' comments. If the kids and the parents are sleeping, that's success whether they are all in a big heap on a mattress on the floor or in cribs or in boxes or whatever.
I was mean, but I also do know that I just got somewhat lucky (in my world), my big kids never pushed the climbing thing very hard.
@hokgardner - That photo border was a pain, but it makes me happy every time I walk into the room!
@Amber - One of my best friends is so creative/artistic and her kids have access to a huge amount of art supplies/paints/colors, glitter, you name it. It's awesome and makes me break out in hives all at the same time. My kids have to ask for crayola crayons.
@Kym - I've heard this from several people. Some kids just will not stay put and it's scary. We actually have a lock on the outside of their door. I will use it if he starts wandering around or tries the stairs!
@JenH - It is at odds with the whole swaddling, womblike environment movement. I find the swaddling works - but to each parent and child their own for sure.
@Erin - I have an obsession with good lox. Sometimes, I want to move to NYC just so I can have them every day. Whatever works including hanging upsidedown - amen.
@Mom24 Can you really do that? Cause if it would work w/o causing dehydration...
@ForMyself - I'm have a mean ice cream habit, other than that, I'm fairly low maintenance. Thank you.
@Beth - I'm pretty frustrated. I'm thinking of giving M&Ms for putting himself back to bed and pulling up his own covers!
@MommyTime - I'll have to try it. I like swaddling, but Gee preferred the car seat.
@Christy - We co-slept a lot more with Cue, he was easier to sleep with somehow. Keep the cribs, girl.
@Kristen - Now that is good to know! It's like Andrea said, take what works and leave the rest.
@K-line - We have steep, hardwood stairs too. I wouldn't hesitate to lock them in if we started to have wandering problems, otherwise, I would never sleep.
@Tracey - A really good friend used one of those net tops to keep her son in his crib when he tried to crawl out too early. Totally worked.
Maria must not have had her own kids! I am all about doing what works but just can't see the mattress on the floor working at most infant stages. My daughter left her crib (for a mattress on the floor-with a rail-because, hello she fell off at 2.9 mos and woke up very upset) when the baby needed to move from the bassinet and we don't have room for another crib. I'll keep the baby in there as long as I can.
I am on a listserv with grad stud moms and some of them are very vocal about NO restraints--I think that is when I realized I am a lot more "traditional" (I guess that is the word for it) than I had imagined myself.
Great post, which I will get back to, but wanted to tell you I put you in my Friday Flux: Blog Crushes post today :)
Big Montessori fan here. Huge in face. However, the crib is in our house and if I have to dismantle it and reset it up in her dorm room ... I will! Yeah, I read the book. It's a good one, but I think Maria got a bit over the top in some of her thinking. As with any parenting book, I took the good/helpful and ignored everything else.
Great post though, I agree. Cages, all the way!
Kiy
I totally remember having many nights of babies sleeping through the night in thier carseats...all buckled and contained. That's really the reason they were created, weren't they?
I would love to see more pictures of your house! From what I have seen so far....it's beautiful. You should do a post on your design skills :)
We put one of those knob covers on the inside of the kids' doors when they moved out of their cribs. My oldest, at about 2 1/2, one day took the knob thing off and threw it at me. That was the end of that. My son had it on until he potty trained at night...he was 4.
I had all of mine out of cribs by 18 months...but I also have locked them in their rooms with one of those plastic doorknob "locks" on the inside of their doors. When my oldest was between 2-1/2 and 3-1/2 while my husband was going to school fulltime and working 2 different jobs part-time and I was working at night at home, I would put do the bedtime routine, give her a bag of goldfish crackers, a cup of water, and her potty seat in her room (that had said doorknob lock installed). That way I didn't have to worry about her falling down stairs while I was plugged into my headphones working. I'm a firm believer in doing what we need to do to keep some semblence of sanity - this was mine. Good luck with the night time wakenings, they suck (to put it mildly)
I read Montessori, but I am all about whatever works for your kid. I mean, my kid is absolutely unique and I hate when people tell me how I could do this or that and have better results - cuz I have already tried this or that and it DOESN'T work!
So way to go on your parenting and the big milestone... :)
I'm from the South and around here, Duct tape fixes anything! Even wandering toddlers! :)
Ok so I haven't actually tried it. But not because it hasn't crossed my mind. My youngest is now 2 1/2 and is in a twin bed with the mesh bar on the side to keep her from rolling off. When we first transitioned to a crib, I would wake up 829 times per night to find either her body draped over mine or her just standing there, in the dark, mere inches from my face, staring at me. Ever experienced that one? Holy shit! I made her cry several times by screaming. I mean, she's a doll, don't get me wrong. Not an ugly child at all. But at 2am ANY eyes look like beady eyes. One time this happened, I screamed "BRENLEY!!" She screamed "MOMMY??" I screamed "BRENLEY!!!" She screamed "MOMMY??!!" ...you get the idea. So with heart palpitations, I put her back in bed. It was short lived, the getting up, thank God. My oldest, who's 15, STILL gets up all during the night. She's a sleepwalker. She will come in, do the stare/scream thing or have an actual conversation with you. You just never know. Drives me NUTS. I'm starting to wonder if the duct tape would work on her, at least... Is that illegal? Then I had a brilliant idea! I'm going to invent ADULT CRIBS!! I know, rock on, right? That way, we have the security of sleeping and the kids CAN'T crawl into bed with us! I don't know. Maybe duct tape would be cheaper. Good luck with your covers needing rambler. I'd say buy the M&M's. They work around here for everything!
I love this post. My son was 2 1/2 b4 he was out of his crib. he never climbed out though, which was great.
robbin
Our 11 pound newborn son slept in his infant car seat in a bassinet setup at our bed level until he was much much too big for both. As soon as I attempted to put him in his crib, without the car seat, he stopped sleeping through the night and started screaming through the night...
HaHaHa. I've known people who had to take their kids out of Montessori schools because the kids were very free to roam, but didn't learn so much in that environment. I've also had a friend with 4 kids say she hates Maria. LOL. Live and learn.
This was a beautiful-funny-engaging, smartly constructed piece.
Thank goodness you got around to a toddler bed, you had me worried.
;-). Maggie May suggested your blog and I am so very glad she did. ~Mary
Re: expensive bedding: I'm headed to a shower tomorrow for a 1st time mom who registered at Restoration Hardware Baby. I didn't even know of its existence but the 600 threadcount $50.00 a pop flat sheets are simply gorgeous! I got her a 50.00 gift card to BRU. She'll figure it out...
We moved to the big girl bed about six months ago with no problem. Well if you don't count her ability to play in her room until 10:30 before she decides she's ready to get in bed a problem.
The funny thing is her door is left open a crack and she never leaves her room. She knows better. We leave the gate up just in case because her room is at the top of the stairs but there hasn't been any roaming.
TOTALLY feel the same. NO ROAMING! They'll have their whole lives to roam without my supervision, why start when they're babies?!
oo! i think i may be the winner of the crib contest: timmy was in his crib until his 4th birthday (not quite two months ago), at which time his crib mattress went onto a toddler bed. i hope he doesn't get too long for it until at least kindergarten in 1.5 years.
he got out of his crib once, at almost two. when i heard the crash and cry, i came in and he said, "mommy, i bonked mine head all over the place!" and never tried again.
he also does not get out of his bed at night. not even once. he has started to get out is bed at naptime in the last month. however (speaking of mean!), after a warning, i started taking things away in his room until it was absolutely barren. he quit getting out and is earning his things back. (i wouldn't be so mean about the nap thing if he and i both did not need the sleep.)
roaming makes me sweaty too. we got lucky...the transition to the toddler bed (at nearly three) was a little hairy, but since he can't open the door to his bedroom by himself he's still moderately contained.
Markers SHOULD make you hyperventilate. My daughter "decorated" grandma's guest room with a red sharpie once. There were red happy faces, flowers and hearts on EVERY surface of that room. Grandpa was baby sitting. Good times.
my parents drove around the neighborhood with me in the carseat until i fell asleep. then they put me (carseat and all) into the crib. i don't remember any of this, of course. i don't see the harm in it, either.
i love how you say you're mean. i mean, you probably are and everything :D but it's nice to hear.
oh, and have i thanked you for not having the word verification thing? i am an idiot when it comes to those.
My 4 1/2 year-old still misses her crib. It just gave her so much security.
My loves his crib. And so do I.
I love all those ideas you have before you actually have a baby to deal with. Glad to know I wasn't the only one.
oh, I am so with you. my almost 3 yr old is "still" in a crib & I'm holding out as long as I can, despite the strange looks I get from other moms. now he's asking for a big-boy bed but we're stalling til at least the summer. at that point, I'm considering a latch for his door (only partly joking). my mil told me a horror story about how, at age 3 or 4, my husband walked downstairs, unlocked the front door & went outside at 3 am... eeek! I don't want that kind of worry!
Oh, that was so funny. Let the kids explore and roam around all night long - whatever! Maybe if you have a nanny to stand guard and make sure they don't stick their finger in a socket and burn the whole house down. I prefer to keep my babies safe and contained while I'm passed out.
I love the way you write. Thank you for the laugh.
Our bed decisions have been largely economically driven. We moved our 2 year old to the twin bed we already had, right before her sister was born - because we didn't want to buy another crib. We moved our younger one also at 2 years old, to the other twin bed we already had, so that we could sell the crib.
I love that you let your kids sleep in their carseats too. My oldest had to be completely battoned down when she was a baby, in order for her to be calm enough for a good sleep. My younger one as a baby wanted nothing to do with restraints of any kind, and would only sleep if her body could be sprawled out as much as she could get it. Funny.
Also... LOVE that picture border!
Great post! Love it! LOL
Ok, first of all... I totally LOLed at your **.
Secondly, I've only been a parent for 9 months and can tell you that Maria sounds like a mental case. I don't necessarily think Tyler would hurt himself if he wasn't in a crib, but I'm certain that we'd walk into a disaster zone every morning, and I'd be worried that I'd step on him. Also, if she doesn't believe in containment, are we supposed to NOT have a baby gate up at the staircase? We sleep on the second floor, am I supposed to just let him roam around? Or is she a hypocrite who only believes a child shouldn't be contained to a crib, but SHOULD be contained to a room.
Like I said... mental case.
Err... sorry to rant.
I am not sure which I love more, the fact that you had Gee in the carseat in the crib, or that they are still in cribs. Either way, I applaud you.
I am however laughing my ass off.
I'm a firm believer in the "do this until you have to change it, cause the shit ain't working any more" camp. M was in a crib until B was born....cause I needed the crib. She was 2.5. B was only in the crib until she was 15 months, but that's because my dam husband broke the thing, trying to climb into it with her. Hint: 6'4" dudes are not supposed to fit in cribs. Hey, now I know when your kids shouldn't be in one...when it breaks. :)
Oh and also....I used to strap M into her car seat on the living room floor when she was a toddler, while she watched that evil Dora.
What? It was the only way to take a shower and have my house be in one piece when I was done. Plus, she loved the thing.
The nightmares about strapped car seats stopped after a few years.
Did Maria ever actually have children?
It was a sad sad day the day each time we had to take the crib down. So much is personality though - it took my oldest an entire YEAR before he realized he could get out of bed by himself (bliss!), my youngest it took just three minutes. And when we tried to gate her room the little stinker just hopped right over the gate. There went that idea.
PS I just tagged you for the new motherhood meme :).
How weird. I just googled "how long should a child stay in a crib" yesterday and today I stumbled by chance upon your post.
I'm trying to figure out when to move my 2 and 4 month son to a bed. My younger son moved really yearly to a bed and loved it. I'm just going to play it by ear.
BTW, I do love the Montessori method but the babies not in a crib thing doesn't work for me either.
This post had me laughing out loud. I am with you - I LOVEd the cribs. Cried a little when they had free reign, but they did okay. :)
And you know my feeling about markers.....nuff said.
My kids slept in baby bath tubs, bassinets, car seats, bouncy chairs, swings and cribs. ANYTHING to get them to sleep. I could really care less what the "experts" think. If they know better they are welcome to come make it work while I sleep! :) Lucas is a dare devil so his crib had to go very young. :( I love the photos on the wall as well.
Great post, which I thought was going to be about the game Cribbage. LOL!
Erick slept in his car seat in the cage for the first few months. We didn't buckle him in, he was wrapped like a burrito and laid on top of a blanket. This was the only way he would sleep.
He is about to turn 3 and is super tall for his age. I know we can't keep him in the cage because he is too big for it but I can't stand the though of him running willy nilly all about the house.
The only reason I moved my then 2.5 yr old of his crib was because his sister was coming and he needed to be well out of it by the time she came!
She is now a little over 2.5 and has shown no interest in climbing out. Ever. So you bet your patootie she is still in there. She can stay in it until college too!
I have a friend who gates her kids in their rooms. They can play in there, but they stay in there!
I swear this sleep shit is one of the worst things we go through as parents. The crib vaulter is now in a matress on the floor. Went through a week of HELL walking him back to his bed several times a night..sometimes a bit, well...forcefully ;) Now? He's sleeping AND napping again.
Glory glory hallelujah!
Yeah... Little Miss has been in a bed (full size) since she was 19 months old and decided she was done with her crib. BUT I threw the fear of God into both of them, and neither roams at night. In fact, in the morning, neither of them will get out of bed before I come to get them. Ahhhh....
The whole Montessori thing? Bwahahahaha! It so doesn't work for the wee ones. Totally.
That actually sounds like a damn good plan. Wish I'd been able to pull that off!
My youngest was a climber - and it always amazed me how quickly she could climb both in and out of her crib. After a month of dealing with her wandering the house, we finally put her in a regular big girl bed - just like her older sister - and it curbed her curiosity.
And I too was a door locker for my oldest... anything that works I say!
One of my kids (can't remember which, go me!), would only sleep in the car seat. I do remember it was one of the girls. My mom freaked out that we let her sleep in the carseat all night. I never understood why. It's safe enough to withstand a car crash! I put it on the floor right beside my bed. She slept, I slept. Life was good.
Holy hell dude, amen to cribs and containment. My kid started climbing out of his crib during his insomnia days and after two nights of putting him back in 303434 times, I hauled my ass to the store and bought a crib tent. He's been contained ever since and will be until college. I have no idea how we'll survive letting him roam the house so I plan on never letting it happen.
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