Toddlerhood

The little guy just turned 16 months and I had forgotten how much fun the age of 15 to about 24 months can be. They are into everything and impossibly busy and have no sense of self preservation as they yet again do that thing that is sure to get them hurt. But, you can also finally start seeing their personality come through, finally see a real person in there. They have that wobbly gait, tubby bellies, chubby little fingers that are always learning how to do something surprisingly new.

It is fun to watch how much they already pick up on. I put on his shoes, he goes looking for his coat. I take too long gathering stuff to leave the house, he finds my shoes or walks to the front door. He gets tired, he goes and looks for a book to bring you, as reading comes before bed. Mom’s in the kitchen cooking, let me find some pots and pans to help her. He’s hungry for a snack, again, he goes over to the lower pantry, which is now locked, where kid snacks are.

It seems daily he’s learned a new thing. Putting together his megablocks, trying to climb into a chair, putting cars down his car tower or balls down his ball toy. And daily that’s he’s into new trouble, throwing everything away in the kitchen trash, using yet another piece of furniture to climb up on and reach higher things, flushing the toilet, getting sister’s box of markers open to carry them all over.

I have always held there is a reason why kids are often 2 to 3 years apart in age. Between one and two is a fun age, they’re these adorable little creatures who have yet to learn they can disagree much with you. I see why many people think they’d like to do it again.

I think the second time around this is an even more enjoyable age, because I know what will come next, the independent twos, all the attitude threenager, and purposely misbehaving and trying your patience fours. Comparably, young toddlerhood while busy and tiring seems like a piece of cake. So, even if I have to lock the kitchen trash again, save the toddler from yet another high place, or deal with another fight over diaper changes ruining his current fun, I’ll be over here enjoying all the clumsy walking, poor hand-eye coordination and everyday discovery of the simple and ordinary as my toddler adorably explores the world.

Little People

Little People toys have been a well loved favorite of C. She got her first ones at either her first birthday or 1 year old Christmas right after. She got even more at her 2 year old Christmas and I found a few used items, a bus, train and tractor all with more figurines. All told we also have a Santa house, playground, airplane and newly gotten car tower/city, school set and several different figures. C has loved role playing with them. She’s lined them all up, moved them from the house to the park or from the bus to the airplane. They’ve done shows and trips and everything else she can imagine up. She plays with her My Little Ponies and Care Bear figurines with the Little People figures and playsets.

Little People are age rated 1 to 5 years. C has been moving on to duplos and legos and little princess figures for awhile. But, a few Little People are still played with, and she often still uses the larger play toys with all her figurines.

I tried to put a few Little People things up, R won’t really be old enough to properly play with them for another year or so. C, of course, had other ideas. (Even if I did put away a few figurines before she noticed and complained.) And we just got some Little People cars (because all the boys I have heard of love cars) and a car playset. It is of course new to her so has to be played with.

R is mobile these days. The nice thing about the Little People is that they are baby safe. Meaning C can role play with them, set them up and leave them on the floor where he might find them.. All her little princesses with little parts and movable (AKA breakable) limbs are not baby safe and need to be limited to her bedroom or tables where he can’t reach yet. But those one piece bulky Little People, made for toddler hands to easy maneuver, are also good for grabby baby hands and everything goes in my mouth teething baby.

Kids 4 years apart is an odd mix. Many of her favorite toys right now are much too little to be safe for him. And most of his toys don’t hold a lot of long interest with her. For now, Little People are closing the gap between toys they can both play with, while C set them up for a show, R can grab and safely teeth with them.

Baby Toys Still a Big Hit

Years ago, we had friends with kids over for a party. Oddly the two older grade school aged kids played with all the baby toys. The babies and toddlers spent the evening carrying and fighting over gateraid bottles. Partly this proves that kids don’t need fancy toys. Partly that all those buttons and lights and noises are not just for babies.

Two Christmases ago C got a bunch of new toys. A play kitchen and food to go with it, Little People and puzzles, more preschool aged toys she still plays with today. Having too many toys in the house I weeded out the last of the baby and younger toddler toys. You know the stuff with 6mo to 18mo on the box as age recommendations. As I was pregnant at the time with the baby we lost, I didn’t sell them but instead stored them away for later.

When I went looking through C’s closet for the next size up in baby clothing I found that tub of older baby and toddler toys. (I hadn’t actually put stuff for storage in her closet, my husband’s awesome cousin who came to help us unpack did.) I pulled it out since some of it we will need in a few months. I also got a few new toddler toys at a recent consignment sale here. A new sorting toy as we’d lost the pieces to ours, and Little People cars and ramp ’cause boy.

C has been playing with them as much as her preschool toys. First, she unloaded the storage tub of toys, adding to the mess of toys all over the house already. It was cute seeing her enjoy her old toys again. I finally had to store them back away in the garage. She has also dutifully tested out all the new consignment toddler toys for her baby brother. Slowly I am storing those away too, or will in the next weeks after she plays a bit more with them. Hopefully I don’t end up with fights between them when I do get them back out for R. Especially as many of C’s toys have small parts and thus R can’t actually play with them.

Budgeting for Baby and Kids

I am not much for budgets and really managing money. I am, however, frugal and a fan of not wasting a bunch of extra money on children. (Because let’s be honest, we waste a lot of money on children, a lot.) So, some tips I have found useful for buying items, and have been using for buying things for baby #2.

1) The only new things you need to purchase are car seats and breast pumps.

Car seats have very clear and important expiration dates. Plus, technology is always changing. So it is best to spend the big bucks for a brand new car seat. Look around though, because there are ways to buy “all in ones”, or “3 in 1s” if you want a separate infant seat that you can take out of the car. Also, you need not buy the most expensive brands. Mid-value brands are just as good. We own several Graco and Safety First car seats that we really like. These are also good for multiple kids as long as they are not expired. My kids are almost 4 years apart, but the infant car seat we bought four and a half years ago is still under warranty and being used. Gonna be a good $150 for car safety for two kids before we get rid of it.

A breast pump if you are breastfeeding is very useful. It’s a requirement if you want to work outside the home. But, I had to use a pump to get in my supply in the beginning for both my children. You can find these for sale used, in fact the pump I used for my daughter came very slightly used from a friend. However, something I have found out after, unless it is a closed system pump you should not buy used. An open system pump means that a bit of someone else’s breastmilk gets into the pumping machinery. You can change the tubes, but not completely clean the inner workings of the pump itself. Medela, the most common pump on the market, is an open system pump. There are still ways to save money here. Some insurances now cover the cost of a breastpump, Tricare my insurance does this. You can also rent a hospital grade pump, which is a closed system, in case you are not sure you will be breastfeeding or need a pump yet, and thus not waste money on something you will not use.

2) Resist the cute clothing.

Much easier said than done, because all the little clothing is oh so cute. I have bought a few items for my son, but have likely spent under $20 total so far in clothing for him. In truth, they will grow out of it so fast and the resale money you will get back for baby clothing is so little.

If you do end up having to buy clothing you can always find the same almost new items for under $2 at thrift stores, consignment stores and garage sales. And going garage sale prices for baby clothing is closer to 50 cents or $1 per item.

Otherwise, you are likely to get given clothing and clothing and more clothing than you need. Friends are often very willing to give you clothes just to declutter their own homes, especially if you know someone who is done with kids, or has a baby who is your baby’s gender and the older child is the opposite. Part of this, is those tiny clothes are well loved even if little worn and friends like to see them go to someone they know will love them the same. I may have saved some of my daughter’s really cute items for that possible child my youngest sister-in-law might get to, and I may be mailing off beloved OSU (okstate) baby girl gear to a fellow friend alumni who I know will love it as much as we did.

It is hard to resist the cute clothing, which means family will still buy you things. Make sure to let them know correct sizes and desired clothing, or even better needed clothing. People love to buy for babies and grandparents, aunts and uncles usually like to be able to do so, especially when they know you will love and use it. So, if they want to anyway let them spend their money instead of you spending yours. Little guy might now have three sets of wardrobes in his next size between gender neutral items I saved from my daughter, used clothing from friends, and then new gifted clothing like the four new sleepers from grandma this Christmas. The sleepers while not needed, are what I’m trying to mainly dress little guy in for ease, and they are all zippered ones, so exactly what I wanted and will be used.

All of this said, sometimes there just really is an item you want to buy, so buy it. Sometimes you find something on a sale or discount that is almost the price of used. And sometimes there is an item you just really want to buy. I bought a 3 month sleeper that said “Little Brother” from my guy as I really wanted it and couldn’t find one used. Clothes are relatively as baby things go cheap, so not being able to resist sometimes happens.

3) Buy larger items used and on sale and resell after using.

Except for those items you should buy new, everything else buying used in good condition is a great way to save money. In general babies and even toddlers go through equipment and larger toys fast. They are high price items that while sometimes almost necessary don’t see enough use for their cost. This includes things like pack-n-plays, bassinets, strollers, swings, bouncers, playmats, jumpers, etc. With my daughter we got many of these items as gifts from our registry and really it’s one way to go for a first baby. I sold a lot of the bigger equipment and have bought used or on sale for my son and plan to continue that.

Buying used is not hard to do for bigger items from consignment stores, resale sites and groups and garage sales. I will say, I can get a bit obsessive with checking local resale facebook groups when I’m really in a mode to buy something. I have a good idea of what I want and the price I want to pay. In general that price is 20 or 30% of the original price, which I find out online. The thinking is to pay about what I will resell for later, meaning I’m renting the item for a bit instead of actually buying it. I did this with the baby swing I got my son. I found one for $30 that plugs in and is mid-range in style. I’m glad I bought it used as he’s really not been a fan of it (my daughter LOVED her swing), so now when I resell I should be able to get $30 or at least $25 back. One note on buying used is to buy in good condition and make sure it is not too old or too used. No drop side cribs as they are dangerous. Nothing that’s 10 years old and likely expired and no longer safe. This can be difficult to tell, just be reasonable about what you do buy used.

Buying on sale is also an option. For a few big price items I wanted a specific thing, either a specific brand like the sit and stand stroller I got, or specific features like the bassinet pack-n-play I got. I looked for used and could not find either. I had used amazon to find what I wanted and kept a look on the prices with a wish list. By doing this I was able to get both on sale at almost half off the normal price. Meaning I paid more than I would have used, but will be able to get a greater amount of that cost back when I resell. Sometimes you can find deals on last year’s items, or deals during certain times of the year. I bought a winter cover for a baby carrier for my daughter cheap because I bought it during the summer. And sometimes you have to be flexible, like not caring about the color or style, or having a few items and buying the one on sale.

4) Not wasting money on toys.

About as hard to resist as clothing is toys as a child gets older. Toys also end up being the bulk of all that clutter in my house. This is likely the one I am worst about as I often see the money being better spent than say on clothing.

I buy used toys when able. Especially for baby and toddler toys they tend to be plastic, so cleanable, and designed to take a beating and thus not broken by a single owner. Again, you can look at deals and save them for later. Or go looking specifically and hope you find something you need now. I have given used toys as gifts. Really, my daughter is 4 and she can’t tell or care if the toy is new or used once out of a package. Remember that bigger kids also have big toy items that are always cheaper used. We have a play kitchen, art aisle and balance bike that were all bought used for much less of the full cost.

Buy on sale when possible. Especially if you can look year round there are some good deals to be had on sales or at discount stores like Ross Dress for Less. One of my sister-in-laws is a master at this and while she gives my kids great toys and often too many of them, I know she’s usually gotten them at steals of prices. Amazon wish lists and seasonal sales are good for this. Just be careful you don’t buy lots of an item a child might like now, but be past enjoying once it is given as a gift.

Ask people for needed toys as gifts for birthdays and holidays. Again, grandparents, aunts and uncles can be great sources of buying the toys you want if you help direct them in what the child likes, needs or would play with. Almost half of my daughter’s toys have been gotten this way.

Note, it can be hard for fall and winter birthday children since they get their gifts more clustered. I’ve taken to using Easter as a time to give a few extra smaller toys she needs but won’t have another gift time until late October. Also, sometimes you do just have to buy the new toy your child wants for a birthday or holiday.

 

This is what I have learned so far. I’m sure I will learn more as my kids age. As people buy them less clothing and they get even pickier about what they want to wear. As they get old enough to want that trending toy and as their toys get more electronic and expensive. But, these are the tips and tricks I know so far.

I might be a ludite….

So a fellow mommy friend was asking the other day for recommendations for apps for her toddler. They have an upcoming trip and need new things to entertain. I had none as my 2 year old does not use apps on a tablet. And while I’m not sure how long that will continue, it’s not a trend I see changing soon.

Now don’t get me wrong my daughter plays with my tablet pc all the time. She loves to play ALL the videos on facebook. The other day she watched about 15 minutes of Sesame Street youtube videos, and was the cutest when picking the next one to choose to watch. She can also get into photo albums on facebook, scroll through them, then click to get back out. So, it’s not that she doesn’t already have the idea behind using a tablet. Oh, she can already swipe and tap like a pro and would pick up apps in minutes.

And it’s not that she doesn’t get screen time. She watches either DVRd programs or netflix when I tutor online. I do control the remote, and she watches mostly educational things, usually from PBS. I also sometimes do this when fixing dinner and my husband is busy or not home yet. Easier than having her underfoot while cooking.

We had a used portable DVD player, one of those 7″ Sylvania versions. Of course right before our holiday trip we’ve found out it’s broken. So we have to shell out $50-75 to buy the same or better item. My mommy friend and husband was mentioning that the cheap kindle was about the same price, and it would do videos and apps. And they’re completely right. Still, I think we’re going with replacing the DVD player and not essentially buying a tablet just for my daughter.

I like that the DVD player does not require wifi. Makes it perfect for travel in planes and cars. We already have a decent DVD collection, and many kid’s movies come with a Blue Ray and DVD disk. It also is likely a bit sturdier as the screen is not touch screen. We will have along that new DVD player, charger and a few DVDs in our travel bags.

But, in the end there’s the fact that I’d rather our education not be on a tablet. We do ABCs and numbers and colors and shapes all day, but with toys and songs and just me asking about and mentioning them. I am luck that my daughter does and seems to really like independent play too. Means I do not need to hand her a tablet with apps to entertain her. How much is having never done tablets, and how much is just her, who knows.

For the trip we’ll also have along a travel coloring kit, to practice that fine motor control she’ll need more come school. Instead of buying apps, I bought her a new magnetic alphabet travel puzzle book. She loves puzzles and is a bit obsessed with the ABCs right now,and it’s just as educational. I have a set of cheap dinos to travel with, numbers and colors right there to practice, and she can pretend play with them as well. It will be more stuff than a simple tablet, and maybe I am just old fashioned, but I feel like she’ll have tons of times in her life in front of a screen, for now we can go a bit ‘old school’.

 

 

Holiday Travel

We’re going home for Christmas for the first time in 5 years. I’m really glad I get to spend it with family, both mine and my husband’s. Luckily my little one is 2. She’s still getting the idea of Santa and Christmas down. Of course, this is after I’ve bought a nice used play kitchen for her. So she’ll get 3 Christmas’, one with my family, one with my husband’s and the kitchen when she gets home. And since we don’t have real traditions yet that the little one knows about, she won’t be upset that we’re not following them.

Of course, I’m already not looking forward to packing presents, some of them for the little one from Santa, in luggage. Then having to pack or mail them all back home. At least hopefully I don’t have to pack many non-gift toys.

Then there will be the added Christmas tree guarding. We have nothing breakable on our small tree. I usually hang those higher up on a garland out of reach. Something I’ve done for years because of our cat, who’s still worse than the toddler. But, since she can take things off our tree…

This is also the first time the little one flies in her own seat. Instead of lugging her car seat all through the airport, I just ordered a CARES harness. Hope that it works without toddler screaming her head off. At least they’re shorter flights, not too late, and there’s a nice play area in the airport we’re going through.

Expect another post of what all I plan to pack. Both for the holiday in luggage, and in our carry-ons.

 

Thanksgiving has come and gone.

It’s Sunday of Thanksgiving holiday. We weren’t able to get away for just those 4 days, so we did the holiday just the three of us. Small turkey and ham (since I don’t eat turkey), just the veggies and sides we really wanted. Enough for the meal and some leftovers. Hopefully we won’t have much wasted food.

I did manage a few crafts for the holiday.

Foam turkeys, pumpkins and leaves on contact paper. Cool idea. The pumpkins were left over from a similar one for Halloween. I used outlines of leaves from online for them. Close up of the turkeys with pompom feathers. I also used craft supplies I already had to make a turkey color matching toy.

Tuesday before Thanksgiving was a no nap day. For some reason Tuesdays are more common for that. We still baked up some cranberry pumpkin muffins. The little one loves muffins right now, and it’s a good way to get some veggies in her. We also made cute turkeys from toilet paper rolls and a paper plate. I wanted to do this as a paper ripping cut method, but little one doesn’t have the dexterity to manage that. Of course tear pages out of books we’re great at.

Then, Saturday morning little one decided she needed to start the day at 4:30am, sigh. We made easy sticky buns using puff pastry. No need to get it to rise, and very flaky. Although the butter and sugar burned enough to set off the smoke detector. Sticky buns were a hit despite that.

Then we watched out football team lose last night. And today’s a lazy day of catching up on chores and possibly getting out the Christmas tree.

 

 

The Second Year

My little turned 2 at the end of last month.

Turning 1 is a big deal and a bigger milestone than 2. We had kept this tiny new human alive and growing well for a year. It was a big thing. In that first year they change SO MUCH. They go from a tiny helpless proto-human to a crawling, almost walking, babbling, budding toddler. They learn so much and grow so much.

But, if I think back over this last year, the changes between 1 and 2 are almost as big. Not only is she such a bigger, more coordinated and talkative person, but her personality shows a lot more than a year ago. Some of the changes in 12 months.

At 12 months she was crawling, standing and cruising just on the verge of really walking. A year later she can run, jump, climb, twirl, turn on a dime…. Makes chasing her a lot more work, but it’s such a change.

At 12 months she had maybe 7 words I think: no, mine, I, mama, dada, kiki (kitty) and ba (for food). A year later she’s likely got a vocabulary of close to a hundred words. She often talks in multi-worded sentences even if they are short and sometimes still lack verbs. Every morning she wakes up ready to repeat and try out new words or word combos. And she clearly gets that words have power, as using them can get her what she wants (sometimes).

At 12 months she had down cause and effect, loved and knew schedules, and would surprise me sometimes with what she did understand. Today, she’s working on numbers and letters, even if she can’t really count correctly past 3, and she likes the end of the alphabet best. She’s great at matching, and knows colors even if we can never get her to say them correctly (they’re all blue). Her desire to figure out the world she’s had all along is quickly leading to making connections she’ll need in a few years in school.

At 12 months she loved feeding herself with her hands and most foods were soft or in small pieces as she only had 2 front teeth. Today, every meal is partly about learning how these forks and spoons work, she’d love it if I gave her a knife too. She can eat just about anything although it’s usually cut into bite-size pieces. It’s still surprising when she grabs an entire slice of pizza, taco or bagel and manages to bit off, chew and eat the thing as is. Oh and ‘baby food’, the last thing we used was the squeeze food pouches which she swore off at 15 months. Even the Gerber toddler meals are left uneaten as not being ‘real’ food.

At 12 months she could pick up small things (not always a good thing), mostly turn pages of board books and push buttons. She had no interest really in crayons yet. Today, everything must be colored on, it’s about her favorite thing find a writing utensil and mark all over the nearest object. She can turn the pages of regular books and loves to “read” herself books. And buttons… she knows which ones turn on the TV, how to swipe through my facebook feed, and how to click on video icons.

At 12 months her favorite activity was just figuring out that walking thing, and taking ALL the things out of every place in my house. For toys she liked things with buttons that made sounds and lights. Her walker to get around, and her books. Today, she’s very much into pretend play. She feeds her stuffed animals and doll. She hugs them and has them kiss each other. She enjoys cooking things and her Little People playground and house. She loves wooden puzzles and still loves books.

While she’s going to continue to grow and change and get bigger, I doubt it will ever again be as dramatic as these first 2 years have been.

 

 

 

 

 

Crying it out and restful sleep

I am certainly an advocate of “crying it out”. I think I’d like to not have to revisit the issue every few months. Just had a few rough nights and missed nap times, and yep thus a lot of crying.

Cry it out is why bedtime is usually easy at our house, and the reason my toddler gets a nap and thus I get time to myself and she gets rested to face the rest of the day. Sometimes I wonder why it took so long for us to get around to doing it, and then I remember how hard and difficult it was to do.

My own experience were as such. My daughter has been too awake since she’d been born. You know those few first weeks when newborns just sleep and sleep and sleep… Mine never did that. She’d be up about half the day in between napping. Too much world to see, too much she might miss, too much for her to think about, etc. About the only good thing those first few months was after a long day of only a few naps we’d swaddle her and she’d sleep 5 to 8 hours at night.

At some point the car seat, my arms and her stroller were the only place she’d nap. And sleeping through the night became harder once we finally took the swaddle away. Then I read up on books, because who has time to read books about getting babies to sleep when you’re actually working on taking care of and getting the baby to sleep. Turns out the books said we’d done everything wrong. We’d made sleep associations with breastfeeding and being held, and thus were doomed, sigh.

It had gotten bad enough between her being 6 months to 10 months old I was luckily if we did one nap. And then I had to be holding her during it, meaning nothing got done in my house, or the nap was while in the jogging stroller, great for me getting exercise, but again not so great for housework. At night we’d have to wait until she was completely out to put her down, hope she’d stay asleep, or repeat the process of getting her to sleep in our arms enough to try and put her in her crib again. Or just give up and take her to bed with us, which often happened in the middle of the night when she woke.

So, I finally got to reading about ‘crying it out’, and the books completely lied. They ALL claimed, that while crying it out was hard it would only take one night. That is complete crap. Try several bad nights, then weeks, and still a bit of crying before sleep months later. And there was a time that crying before naps was really common. Or having to redo it a few nights after anything has interrupted the schedule, like a trip. I have no clue what easy to get to sleep, not into crying babies those authors dealt with, but they were clearly not my daughter.

We actually did “cry it out” twice, in between we went home to the states and dealt with a 12 hour jet lag, then made the return to Japan and repeated the jet lag and eventually “cry it out” again. We hadn’t meant to do cry it out when we did. We had come to the conclusion it might be the only thing to fix all we’d unknowingly done wrong and get our daughter to figure out on her own how to get to sleep. But, we thought after the big trip, after she turned 1, would be the time to finally start.

Then, we just had one of those nights. After more than 3 tries at getting her down in her crib she still wouldn’t go to sleep. It was very LATE. We were all TIRED. Basically we’d finally gotten to the point where what we were doing was SO broken we had the stubbornness to try crying it out.

…. Three and a half hours of crying later. Really, that first night, she cried for 3 hours. We tried to go in a reassure, which only made it worse. Finally, she collapsed from exhaustion, literally, she face planted into the crib. Of course, an hour later she woke again, cried for another hour and finally slept the rest of the night. Again, one of the toughest things we’ve done as parents.

Night two I think she only cried 2 hours, and each night after it was less and less. Basically we’d gotten down to 5 or less minutes of crying when we went to the states. And we had meant to keep it up, but… night is day and day is night. That jet lag is horrible for an adult, try an 11 month old. After trying to get her to cry herself to sleep for an hour, I then had to walk her in our baby carrier to get her to sleep at all, and yeah, when she was asleep I completely just put her beside me in bed and together we managed about 2 hours of sleep that first night. She spent the rest of that 3 week trip sleeping with us and napping in the baby carrier.

So, we get back to Japan, wait a week to get everyone back on Japan time and sleeping through the night, at this point in our bed again. And then we did cry it out part 2. This time it worked better. I think she only cried an hour that first night. It did still take a few weeks to really get down to little to no crying at night again. But, having done it once, knowing we did not want a child in our bed for who knows long… it was easier.

Then, after we had sleeping at night down for a week, I tried with naptime. Until then, naptime was completely hit or miss, either on me or in the baby carrier or the car seat or the stroller, never in the crib. That first naptime the only thing we got was an hour of crying. But, it got better and better. But, naptime happens in the crib and I get alone time and time to recover and uncover and clean by house.

I’m not going to say everyone having issues with a child sleeping should do cry it out. It’s hard. Everyone is different, every kid is different. It’s what worked for us and everyone is usually rested and able to handle life.

But sleep problems are not a one time thing. Every new stage brings issues and there have certainly been crying at night. Such as the toddler either waking at night and wanting to be up and out of bed. Yep, early Wednesday morning at 2:30 am she wanted the sunlight on outside her window, so that she could get up and play. Sigh. Or when she’s decided that morning should be at 4am.

I will say that today there’s a limit as to how much I will let her cry now, unlike those first nights. After an hour I know it’s just not happening. If it’s nap time, we just miss it and our day continues, usually downhill as the toddler is now very tired. I have rocked her almost to sleep before to get her down for the night, but again that’s been maybe twice in the last 6 months. And middle of the night or early morning she comes in our bed so we can all manage a bit of sleep. But these are rare events, often brought on my overstimulation the day before, my active little toddler just not being able to quiet her brain enough to sleep on her own. Usually bedtime and nap time settling is a routine that takes 15 or so minutes, and then she’s on her way to getting herself to sleep.