‘Big Girl’ bed means trouble

The Princess recently moved into the “Big Girl” bed, and she was not at all happy about it.

I figured that, at a ripe age of 20-months old, she was ready for the change. Also, I took into consideration that her crib had recently been recalled and that she was apparently practicing for the baby Olympic trampoline routine in her crib each morning, which really dismayed the cats, who liked to sleep under the crib and have been startled out of some rather sound sleeps lately.

However, when it came to the ease with which I planned to make the bed switch, I failed to take into account the Daddy factor.

For the first year of my baby girl’s life, I had her sleeping through the night like a champ. I put her in her crib, she typically gave me a sulky pout and promptly flopped herself onto her mattress and laid down. Even if she didn’t fall asleep right away, she was at least quiet.

As I discovered once I moved her crib out of her room, on various occasions she was also using the time she was suppose to be in the land of Nod to peel the wall border off her walls. The wall border it took her father many evening and multiple colorful metaphors to hang at just the right height around the exact middle of her room. The wall border that is no longer sold at Babies R Us and not available on e-Bay. The wall border that is now stuck together with Duct tape.

But, ignoring the merry time she must have had destroying her wall, and apparently eating the evidence, I have lately been focused on her getting to sleep in her big girl bed. Which is not actually a big girl bed but more like a medium girl bed as it still utilizes her crib mattress.

When our son was ready for the move from the crib to a bed, he slept in a regular sized twin bed immediately. There was no middle toddler bed to gradually allow him to adjust. He did great from the first night, but the kid also loves his sleep. He’s the only three-year old I know who uses a snooze button when an alarm clock goes off.

The baby girl was a different story.

For she has somehow figured out in the back of her little baby mind that her daddy exists merely to be her dedicated servant.

He is the one who insisted on the pink and purple Disney Princess Toddler Bed with the matching ruffles and who also insisted I distract her while he was putting the thing together so that she would not realize the Disney Princesses on her bed were stickers and could therefore be removed, like her wall border.

My husband was still somewhat miffed by his infant’s complete disregard for all the time and effort he had spent putting her border up while she was still in utero, and he wasn’t about to give her the opportunity to chew up Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

When my husband gently and lovingly placed the baby in her new toddler bed on her very first night, he read her a story, placed her favorite blanky around her, turned off the light and left the room.

The baby then whimpered.

She has whimpered for me before, I ignore her, and she goes to sleep. Daddy, on the other hand, couldn’t handle the quiet whimper and immediately opened the door to find out what his little darling wanted.

Whereupon little darling immediately realized that Daddy had different rules from Mommy when it came to night-night and started crying his name until he picked her up, cuddled her, rocked her, and laid her back down.

Whereupon she whimpered again.

She does sleep in her bed all night, but getting her to the actual stage of sleep has taken my husband some time because she now wails for him as soon as she is tucked in. She doesn’t call for “Mommy,” just “Daddy,” over and over.

And he always comes.

Finally, I took control of the situation. I told my beloved and bewildered husband to allow me to put her to bed at night, and he did so with a sigh of relief. I put in her bed, and shut her door and she whimpered and I, well, ignored her.

She then let out a huge sigh, audible in Canada, and promptly fell asleep.

My husband begged to know what the secret was. I am still trying to figure out how to explain to him that the baby read him like a cheap quarter comic book and knows he is an absolute wimp when it comes to her.

Mommy is a bit more immune to her and she knows this because she has lived with it for 20 months now.

Daddy, however, is still extremely able to be manipulated by large wet hazel eyes and pouting lips over a dimpled chin, and whenever she can take advantage of that, she will.

The again, so will I.

So I don’t think I’m going to explain all the baby’s tricks right away. A girl’s gotta have some secrets.

Now I’m just trying to figure out how long I can get away with using Duct tape to repair Cinderella without Daddy noticing.

Tiffany Horvath is the mother of two and the stepmother of one. Her husband, Drew, was deployed to Iraq and returned home in December. She writes every Sunday abut life at home as a wife and mother.