All Tucked In

I blame my husband for this.

Makenna was born one ounce shy of 10 pounds (I don't blame him for this necessarily). We found that if we swaddled her that she slept much better as her hands didn’t tend to wake her as she stirred in her sleep, thus we got more sleep. As she was so big, those little swaddling blankets didn’t cut it for very long and we used two to get the job done. I wish I had a picture (and maybe if I dig hard enough I could find one,) of her all rolled up tight like a little sausage. The job was usually done by Chris as he could get it real tight and secure.

On to today…she still likes to be swaddled. Obviously we don’t encase her to where she can’t freely move but she wants to be tucked into bed real tight. Her blankets are tucked in all around her so that only her head is showing and it has to be tight on to her body. If one corner is allowing a hand or foot to peak out, it’s not acceptable. This is where I blame Chris because he started this tight swaddling, and now it continues.

I fear a fire and she ends up trapped under her cocoon, so I tend to be a bit more lax in my tucking. The problem is that it’s routine for her to get up in the middle of the night and tell us her covers are untucked. Whether it’s from a middle of the night bathroom trip or that she just woke up and realized that she’s no longer secure, she comes down and complains that her blankets are “stuck.” Which basically means, come up and tuck me back in tight. Chris usually tells me that I just have to tuck her in real tight so that this issue doesn’t happen. But then what if she’s tucked in so tight that she can’t even get out to go to the bathroom?

I usually hit Chris and tell him to take care of it. But I was feeling generous last night and got up and mumbled the whole way upstairs that she has to start taking care of this issue herself. She whined “no.” I told her to lie in bed and pull the covers up over herself. She again complained but did it when I threatened to just go downstairs and leave her lying there uncovered. I then hastily tucked her in much to her complaint and told her to “deal” with it and she’d be fine and I was going downstairs back to bed.

I feel like I have to find some therapy for her to realize that she doesn’t have to be strapped down to her bed by blankets or at least slowly wean her of this so that she can just get up in the middle of the night and go back to bed on her own without having the blanket police come up and get her secured. Unfortunately, If she does finally get to this point, I’ll probably still get out of bed and check on her as I usually hear her get up to go to the bathroom and until I hear the toilet flush I don’t feel “safe” myself. Then I patiently wait for her to come down and wake us up. So the day that it doesn’t happen, I’ll probably wonder if she got lost somewhere in between. I remember a couple of times where she’s come in to our room before and would just lay down on the floor and I fear one of us stepping on her.

I also feel I’m totally justified in blaming Chris for this, even though I may perpetuate it for the sake of sleep.

This picture is of this past Sunday. Chris’s dad officially retired from preaching and we went to his church to hear his last sermon and for a get together after.