Alternate Sleeping Option – Success!

Note: Maybe I’m the only one who cares about this (please see the title of my blog) but I’m not sure where to post the re-caps of our trip! The trip was from Saturday, July 14, 2007 to Saturday, July 21, 2007. For posts that refer to a specific date, I’ll post them there. For posts regarding general things, I’ll post them on the 21st, the date of our return and the day before this online blog existed, and I’ll tag them with the ‘from the offline blog’ category. There, I decided. Executive decision executed. Carry on…

In preparation for our Tour of the Midwestern Trifecta, I’d been trying and trying to get Claire to sleep in the pack-n-play. All attempts on the home front were unsuccessful. So, we decided to take it with us anyway, set it up in the hotel and hope for the best.

The first night was basically a stop-over in one state while on our way to another. We stayed with my hubby’s family, and because we were leaving early the next morning, we didn’t even take the pack-n-play out of the trunk of the car. Granny had the 41-yr old crib (Yes, it’s really that old, and I’m sure it was a great crib, and maybe it still is?) all set up in the nicely finished basement guest quarters, and we figured that if Claire wouldn’t sleep in the 41-yr old crib, she could sleep with us for one night. We would adjust our plan accordingly on our way back. (This was just a layover, with a longer visit scheduled at the end of our trip. This is purely a logistical detail that happens when you travel from west to east and back, and it by no means indicates that one side of the family tree is more important than the other.)

Sure enough, Claire cried and cried while in the 41-yr old crib, so she ended up sleeping with us. The guest bed is maybe the size of a double, maybe. Needless to say, we were one cozy family that night. Claire slept great! (And, really…when traveling with a toddler, isn’t that the most important part??) I slept with one eye open for fear of falling off of my 4.5 inches of mattress, and my poor hubby got kicked all night. I’ll let you imagine just where he got kicked. Poor guy!

So, I wasn’t sure what to expect for the next night in the hotel. Luckily, we had a room with a Queen bed (the size we have at home), so we had a little more real estate to deal with if she had to sleep with us.

After our day’s adventures, we got back to the hotel. Claire snuggled with us (and Puppy, of course) for a total of three minutes and fell fast asleep. I transferred her to the pack-n-play, and SHE SLEPT ALL NIGHT. Success!!

The rest of the trip went just as fabulously. When we got back to Granny and Grandpa’s house, we lugged that pack-n-play down to the basement and set it up next to the 41-yr old crib. The Travel Gods of Sleeping Toddlers smiled upon us! And there was much rejoicing.