Right as Small Sophie turned 14 months old, I decided that it was high time for Young Sophie to learn to sleep in her own bed. 14 months is a large number! It has two digits! And I had endured many months of her rolling, flailing, and climbing on top of me throughout the night.
Although she has had her own bed for the majority of her months alive, she was in the habit of rolling into my bed and on top of me every night. You see, her bed was placed next to my bed: In one easy motion, she could exit hers and enter mine!
I pushed her little bed farther from mine so that it would require touching the floor to get to my bed. Then, getting in my bed, I told her, “This is my bed. That is your bed. You have to sleep in your bed.” She made a few attempts to be in my bed, but I carried her to her own little bed each time.
I think she understood my meaning, for she then climbed into my bed (“This is mine,” I reminded her. “My bed!”) and then moved despondently to the foot where she could lie on the floor and quietly contemplate how mean her mommy was being.
After some long minutes where I had felt my heart ache almost immediately after I realized where she was and how she might be thinking, she climbed into my bed and then climbed out to lie on the floor next to where I would be lying in bed. She fell asleep on the carpet with a comforting thumb in her mouth, at which point my heart grew a size and I moved her into my bed.
The next day, she made sure not to get in my bed fully. She experimentally bounced her torso against my bed multiple times and always glanced at me to see my reaction. She made sure to intersperse this with bouncing her torso off her own bed.
Poor Small Sophie!
The next night, I let her into my bed again, with all the sleep disruption involved. Perhaps 14 months is a bit young to start making her sleep in her own little bed the entire night.
