Nap time

We have been having some difficultly with sleeping recently. Tovina has been trying to convince us she is ready to move to her big bed but she likes to get out of it and wander around rather than go to sleep. We have been giving her big bed trials where, if she asks, she is allowed to lay down to sleep in the big bed but if she gets up and gets out of bed after that she goes back into the crib. It is not clear she understands the connection yet.

She has also started to employ delaying techniques. Water, toilet, book, and renewed requests for going back to the big bed are all popular.

It is reminiscent of the beginning of sleep training with her taking between 5 and 30 minutes to go to sleep. We have decided that we need to get tough for our own peace or mind. That led to today.

Today we put her down for her nap and over an HOUR later she still had not settled. She was clearly tired but if she wasn't going to sleep after over 80 minutes of 'quiet' then we might as well entertain the idea of letting her out of the crib - especially as she was beginning to ramp herself up. Michael stuck his head in to see what was going on.

Michael opened the door and saw Tovina standing in her crib.
Tovina, 'I pooed!'
Michael, 'Really?' This is what usually precedes requests for the toilet so a healthy amount of skepticism is warranted.
Tovina pointed to center of crib and used a new favorite phrase of hers, 'What happened?'
It was at this point that Michael realized Tovina was holding her diaper in one hand and with her other hand was pointing to a poo that was laying in the middle of the crib.
That was when he called me in so that I could witness this first hand.

We are very grateful that she did NOT decide to decorate her crib or herself or ignore what was going on and lay down in her crib and nap. Apparently she had a good reason for not falling asleep. Other than a little on her foot and a corresponding footprint or two, there was surprisingly little collateral damage. We managed to quickly strip the crib, get her cleaned up and in new clothes (same diaper though - it was still clean), and back into bed in less than 15 minutes. She was awake when I started typing this (12 minutes ago) but has already fallen asleep.