Get Low

I'll jump outta my crib to watch the Stanley Cup Finals!

Since I last posted, we took Baba G back to the pediatrician for his rescheduled 15-month appointment (a month late, because of his previous ear infections). I held my breath as she checked his ears, prepared for the worst. It was mixed news: the infection is gone on both sides, but he still has a little fluid in both ears.

As they don't like kids to have fluid in their ears for more than six months and we know it's been there since at least the end of March, if she can still see any when we come back for his 18-month checkup in early August, it's off to the Ear, Nose & Throat specialist he goes. The possibility of having tubes put in seems likely. I'm going to keep hoping that doesn't happen, but apparently my husband used to have a lot of ear infections as well, so it might just be Baba G's lot in life.

He's still waking up a few times in the middle of the night, but the pediatrician didn't seem to think that would be because of the fluid, since — once again, it's not infected or swollen or anything. We have noticed that he's peed through his diaper and onesie (which is under a heavier microfleece onesie — his room's pretty cool at night) on several occasions, so my husband's started changing him in the wee hours if he cries and seems really upset for more than a few minutes. After he's dry, he'll usually sleep through the rest of the night.

Being a little wet never used to bug him at night, but I'm assuming that the older he gets, the more conscious he'll become of whether he's comfy or not!

There was still the problem of him attempting to jump out of his crib, however. Once the pediatrician learned that he'd actually succeeded in flipping himself out and onto the beanbag twice, and that he was still trying despite our various attempts to distract him, she advised that we switch things up. Usually they don't like kids to move into a toddler bed until they're 2, but the issue is that Baba G is already as big as a 2-year-old. Her suggestion was that we put a toddler mattress on the floor and just ensure the room was baby-proofed. So he'd be able to run around the room if he woke up.

We thought we'd be able to baby-proof well enough to pull this off, but upon further inspection of both Baba's nursery and another room that might've been an option, we realized it just wasn't gonna work. As we were trying to brainstorm solutions, I asked my husband to see if he could remove the crib's mattress platform so that the mattress would be on the floor but the railings would still keep BG in.

It worked, kind of. There's a gap between the top of the mattress and the lowest horizontal bar, so we stuffed a bunch of really thick pillows and blankets in and hoped for the best. Here's the before (with the mattress on the lowest setting) and after (with the mattress platform totally removed):

Before

After

We were able to switch to this set-up the same night as BG's appointment, during which he also had three vaccine boosters. Watching the video monitor the first time BG woke up and discovered he could no longer reach his leg up to the top was at first really comical, and then a little sad. I got a glimpse into how my husband's mind works when he whispered, "Baba probably thinks those shots today shrunk him."

What?!? Um, OK... SURE he thinks that.

ANYWAY... Baba got REALLY mad at his inability to escape. But eventually he found his stuffed animal and gave up and went back to sleep. Since we look at the monitor to see what's going on whenever he cries, we've been happy that he hasn't messed with the pillows we stuffed into the gap. Yet.

The biggest problem issue with this new set-up is that it's pretty much impossible for me to put BG down in the crib horizontally without having to drop him an inch or so. The bars are too high and the mattress is now too low for it to be physically possible for me to do this. At least I think — I've tried a "mock drop" with BG while he was awake, but since my husband normally puts him to bed at night, I haven't actually had to do it for real yet. Both our nanny and my mom, who are shorter than I am, have been able to do it, though, so maybe I'll be fine when the time comes.

For now I'm just happy he can still technically be in his crib for a while longer.