Hallie's Big Room

Hallie has really given me a run for my money in these last fleeting weeks before a new baby arrives on the scene. In her defense, I haven't been the greatest mom either. We have pretty much made each other's lives miserable. When we built our house, the downstairs bedroom was intended for a nursery. We knew we would have two more kids. I also hoped to have my kids share bedrooms and keep the upstairs room as a guest room. As Hallie neared her second birthday, she showed signs of being ready/wanting to move into a big bed. As we would put the older two to bed, she would climb in a lay still, in hopes that we would let her stay. While I intended to put her in Montana's room, I concluded after a 15 minute "test run" one night that it would just be a big game and that we would get bunk beds for Carson's room, Tana could sleep in there and Hallie would not have someone to distract or be distracted by. When we eventually got the bunk beds, that didn't work out either. Not only did Hallie ask to go back to her crib, but Montana kept Carson awake, which stressed me out with school. So Hallie continued to sleep in the nursery. Meanwhile, I decided to turn the crib into the toddler bed to at least adjust her to that aspect. That was about two weeks prior to our vacation. After a couple of rough nights, she was sleeping fine in the toddler bed! However, when we returned from our trip, she stopped taking naps in there! She got into everything. One day I found A&D Ointment all over the place, one day she had all the wipes out, etc. By this point, I had decided we would have to give up the guest room to her, because I couldn't see any other solution. It seemed silly to "nap proof" the nursery at this point because of the imminent arrival of #4. So, in a 3 day process I quickly converted the upstairs guest room into Hallie's big girl room. (see picture above) No toys and nothing that she could hurt herself with during nap time. I was excited. When I showed her the room, she was excited. Then it came to bedtime. Not so exciting. There was an hour of my laying with her, leaving her, then laying with her again and finally she went to sleep. She woke three times in the night and I had to lay with her every time. So, basically, we had a week of no naps, bad sleep and we both had colds and I was at the end of my rope. I could see that she was not ready to move out of the crib, but I couldn't have her in there with access to everything that was in there. She wouldn't claim any bed. She says both of them are the baby's bed now. I decided I had to put the crib back into a crib and put Hallie back into there to sleep. Sleep was the most important thing to my sanity. I am resolved not to worry about having the nursery painted or set up for the baby at this point. But I definitely have a lot on my hands with this girl. I don't know if she is psycologically damaged or confused or what. She cries that the crib is for the baby, yet she asks to use a baby bib at meal times and wants to drink out of a bottle, (which will NOT be happening) which she wouldn't even do when I needed her to take one back in the day. Okay, I have to stop. Just know that this is a stressful situation and I still don't know the solution. The picture below was taken at one of her night wake calls. I set her on the counter while I was getting her a drink and I guess she was too tired to sit up.