Definitely not as comfortable as the crib but it works! |
It
shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone when I saw that when our son was first born
he would sleep just about anywhere. It didn’t matter if we were home, in the
car, or, as was the case last summer, in a hotel room. It was one of the
luxuries that, unfortunately, my wife and I didn’t fully appreciate at the
time. As he has gotten older and more aware of the world around him things have
definitely changed and it isn’t so easy to put him down for a nap as it once
was. Heck, even when he is exhausted at night he would still much rather be picking
blueberries than sleeping. Don’t worry, we learned our lesson (a refresher
really) during that trip.
His
considerable preference for his own bed is both understandable and frustrating
at the same time as his nap is in the middle of the day which means we usually
have to plan our activities accordingly. There have been time when we have
taken the risk and had him sleep in the car but this has only barely been
working as of late. With so many things planned throughout the summer we knew
that we were going to have to get him used to sleeping somewhere else besides
his crib.
We
didn’t have much planned this past weekend beyond the usual house and yard work
that needed to get done, so we coordinated with my parents to head over to
their house for the day. This was a long overdue visit as we couldn’t recall
the last time that we went to visit them. After going back and forth about when
we should leave we finally determined that this was as good a time as any to
try and have him nap somewhere else so we packed the car and made our way
across the counties.
Shortly
after we arrived and fed him some lunch we could see that our son was ready for
some quite time. As he rubbed his eyes and explored nearly every cabinet in my
parents’ kitchen, the pack n play was set up and situated in the living room
just inside the front door. Surprisingly, he didn’t fuss when we put him down
and before we knew it the kicking and babbling stopped as he fell into a deep
and lasting sleep. About an hour and a half later and we were relieved that he
was finally able to settle and sleep somewhere else besides his own bed at
home.
Thankfully,
our experiment bodes well for both future trips to see his grandparents as well
as the various travels that we have scheduled over the next few months. We
might actually be able to relax during our escapes and show our son even more
of the scenery and places around the towns in which we will be staying. Next
test will be determining the length of time that he can put up with being in
his car seat… I don’t think he will tolerate the seven hour drives like last
year. Hopefully it will work if we build those distances over the summer but we
will have to wait and find out. But at least he can sleep when we get there.
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