The Sprawl
Before we head to bed each night, we always sneak into Clara’s room to peek at her sleeping. Partly to tuck her in again (she always manages to kick off her blankets) and partly to see what weird position she has managed to wriggle into. Last night we found her like this:
Her two favorite stuffed animals had become pillows. Either that or they were victims of an attempted smothering. It looked pretty uncomfortable to us, but we let her be because she was, well, sleeping like a baby.
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What a sweetheart! When I sleep in late and my boyfriend gets up, I always manage to revert into my single girl sleeping ways. He finds me curled in a ball, completely twisted in covers, right smack dab in the middle of the bed. Funny how to learn to sleep differently when you’re sharing a bed with someone.
So precious.
I love peeking in at my girls at night. Their cribs are side by side so we often find them having exchanged stuffed animals and blankets. I miss when they were teeny and slept with their hineys in the air, but the sprawls are pretty cute.
Watch out, Sherry. Soon enough Miss Clara will surprise you with naked time. There’s been several nights in the last month or so that both girls (they’re two now) have removed all clothing and diapers before falling asleep.
Haha- we get that in the morning!
xo,
s
Hahaha, I had to laugh out loud with “surprise you with naked time”. I took that to a whole new level as a toddler about 2-3. My mother once got a call from the neighbor (I’m the youngest with two rowdy siblings)and told her to look outside.
I was in the middle of the street.
With nothing but tapshoes on.
Dancing.
Singing “bad bad bad bad boys” (song from the 80′s)
We lived on a main street in town.
I was also known for running full tilt as fast as I could outside after my mom had taken all my clothes off for a bath. There may or may not be a photo of me the way God brought me into this world on a swing set right after a bath one day.
Hahaha, thankfully I don’t still do those things.
Now that is a visual. Wow.
Good story!
-John
Naked time was HUGE problem with us! I ended up cutting the feet off of my daughter’s sleepers and putting them on backward so the zipper was in the back. Worked like a charm!
Gotta go for the gold, John.
Her kitty jammies are too cute!
Sweet girl :)
Aw she looks so content and relaxed with that arms open pose. She’s a sweetie.
So sweet! Love her socks! And well done with all the book work! :)
So precious.
My daughter wore the same sleeper to bed last night! So sweet.
She looks so long! Or tall? Long since she’s laying down, I suppose.
She is getting long / tall! Like a real little person!
-John
I was going to say the same thing. Yay for growing kiddos :)
Curious about the non-poufy crib bumber thing Clara has going on? Where did you find that? Does it keep her from getting her arms/legs stuck in the crib slats? Our 12-month old always seems to get herself stuck and I know that standard crib bumpers aren’t the safest…
It’s a breathable bumper we got from Babies R Us. And yep, it’s exactly for that reason – she started wiggling so much she’d get an arm or leg out that it’d wake her up.
-John
I bought the same breathable bumper from amazon and it made a world of difference…prior to that my son would wake up screaming because he had gotten a limb stuck in the slats of his crib.
When did you both start the breathable bumper? I have a four month old who has just started wiggling around the crib and sticking her legs out.
Thanks!
P.S. – Love the photo! =)
I think it was about this time last year – so maybe 9 or 10 months old?
-John
I started using the bumper around 4-5 months old.
We used a breathable bumper & loved it. Mainly for the arm/leg getting stuck thing but we found it also helped with #2 who slept with a pacifier & it helps it stay in the crib. Ours was called the Air Wrap & was readily available at all baby supply stores.
too cute!
I have a bunch of photos of my youngest in strange sleeping positions too. :) Mostly with arms or legs hanging out of the crib. She’s 3 now, and goes to sleep every night using her favorite bear as a pillow.
Can’t wait for the book!
Love those funky poses! Still go in and check my girls – ages 7 and 4 – before my bedtime and love to see the positions they’ve gotten into. My favorite part is when I kiss my 7 yr. old (my 4 yr. old never does this) and tell her I love her and she smiles in her sleep – just makes my night :)
Aww! So cute! And I love her little PJs! :)
So sweet! My son is a few months older than Clara. I find him in some of the weirdest positions, but my favorite is booty in the air. This kid, though, runs a marathon in his sleep. He is all over the place!
aw! so cute. looks like Clara might be ready for a pillow. i finally broke down and gave my 22 month old her own pillow in December because she would always scrunch up blankets/toys/whatever she had in the bed underneath her head each night.
i was a bit nervous at first, but she has done really well with it.
My daughter would do the same. Her favorite teddy bear was getting flatter by the day! I actually made her a tiny person pillow. I used some bright pink flannel (left over) fabric and stuffed her a little pillow. She loves it and I don’t worry about it being too fluffy or large for her to get underneath. It’s more the size of a tiny throw pillow and sort of flat.
Places like Bed Bath and Beyond carry travel pillows, which I found to be just right when my son wanted a pillow when he was very young. They are roughly 14″ x 10″, fiber filled and pretty flat, making them just about perfect for the wee set. 100% cotton cases were sold with them too.
How cute is that!! Sherry, she looks SO MUCH like you in this photo! She’s going to thank you both for the good genes when she gets old enough to realize just how blessed she is in that area :)
You know she loves those stuffed animals when she kicks off the blankets but takes her friends with her! Absolutely love the Clara updates!
Also, good luck on the photoshoot! Sounds crazy but exciting! Way to start 2012 off with a bang!
aahhhh.. sleeping babies… probably the most beautiful thing in the world.
Our little one sleeps in crazy, uncomfortable positions too.. and lately he has begun talking in his sleep. It’s hilarious!!!
Our daughter has those same pj’s!! We always ask her to kiss the kitties, and she bends her foot right up to her mouth. I wish we could sneak in on her and watch her, but the second the door opens she sits up, so we just leave her be.
Oooh, we should try that. We ask “what’s on your feet?” but have never challenged her to a kiss!
-John
Check in to a door bumper. Simply put it’s a piece of fabric with some stuffing stuffed in and a ribbon tied to the inside and outside door knob. You can shut the door to where there’s just a small crack and the latch won’t make noise when you open and close the door. Now if it’s squeaky then just a little WD-40′ll fix that!
There is a door bumper tutorial on Pinterest. =)
We have a tee-tiny little version of those pjs for our third little girl…Newborn size!
Awwwww, so cute.
xo,
s
My girl is almost 5 and still sleeps like that! She got a little sleep mask from a birthday party and now, she insists on wearing it to bed, with her nightlight on. We take it off her when we go to bed, but she looks so cute with it on!
So cute!
xo,
s
I have to ask, have you ever done any form of sleep training techniques or has she always managed to sleep through the night? My daughter is 17 months and still wakes up several times! Sigh :(
I think it’s just how she’s wired. Ever since she was born she has been a huge night sleeper and not much of a napper. She can stay up for 12 hours straight but then sleep for the other 12! I wish I had a secret tip for ya (sometimes I wonder if her high-stress birth made her really tired when she came into this world and then sleeping all night just became a habit?).
xo,
s
Just wait until she is in a bed…I have many photos of my son in strange positions in his room. Once I found him lying in his glider stretched across with his head on the foot ottoman and his lower half in the ottoman seat sound asleep. Another time I panicked when I opened his door and didn’t see him, that is until I tried to open the door further…he was sleeping on the floor behind his door. :)
Haha- that’s hilarious!
xo,
s
My son once crawled under his low queen bed. I woke to him screaming, and I freaked out when I could not find him. I had to pull him out by his foot.
She is getting so big! Looks like you really wore her out :)
Kids always sleep in such weird positions! I’ll never forget one night when my parents woke me up (it was probably like midnight) and dragged me out of bed, into my little brothers room. They were giggling and had the video camera – in his sleep he had pulled himself into a ball inside his shirt, then started pulling his head, etc. back out of the shirt neck, etc – except he got it wrong, and his head was coming out of a sleeve, and his legs through the neck, arms out the bottom…it was hysterical.
their sleep positions can get crazier as they get older. when i went in to tuck in our 2 1/2 year old before i went to bed one night, i found her kind of sitting folded in half. it looked so completely uncomfortable. when i moved her, she sat back up and folded in half again… crazy child. she woke up slightly and i convinced her to lay down.
Crazy!
-John
Do you guys have to put her to sleep every night? Or does she go to sleep on her own? Did you do the cry it out method?
She goes to sleep on her own. She’s been great at that every since she was 3 months old. For the first 3 months we rocked her to sleep each night. Then we transitioned her using a couple of stressful nights of crying it out, but ever since she’s never put up a fight about bedtime. Knock on wood!
-John
Awww… I love sneaking in to check on my sleeping girls. Something about that is so sweet. (we also have those same jammies.)
My 15 month old is an all-over-the-place sleeper too, she covers every square inch of the crib in a night. We use the breathable bumpers too and they are fantastic for keeping her from getting a leg or arm caught in the slats while she sleeps.
Have you ever thought of using one of the wearable blankets/sleep sacks for Clara? We use one on our daughter and it meas I never have to worry about her kicking her blanket off in the night and being cold.
We used to use those with here but they seemed to annoy her. And since kicking her covers off doesn’t seem to wake her up, we figure we won’t mess with what’s working.
-John
Aww…at least someone in the house is getting some shut-eye!
Do you guys know when you’ll convert her to a big girl bed? I know every kid is different but since she sleeps so well it seems like itd be easy to get her to stay in bed.
Not sure yet, though we’re probably going to keep her in there as long as she’s comfortable so we don’t have to worry. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but maybe when she graduates to another room so the nursery becomes available… :
-John
So sweet! Is Clara paricularly tall? She sure looks long for a not-even-two year old toddler!!
She’s definitely on the taller side of things – I think she was 60% at her last appointment, maybe?
-John
Isn’t it funny the shapes they manage to contort themselves into? My LO always starts off on his tummy, knees tucked in, angles crossed, booty high in the air. When I go check on him before I go to bed he’s always in what seem like the most uncomfortable positions. They always make me laugh.
My son kisses his stuffed animals and then throws them over the crib rail. He’s a love ‘em and leave ‘em type of guy I guess. When it’s chillier in the room I find him sleeping with his rump in the air and knees tucked under him. During the warmer months he sleeps on his back spread eagle. Either way blankets never stay on him. I admit that when we first brought him home I used to check on him in the middle of the night to make sure he was breathing (he was 5 weeks early and had breathing issues for the first two weeks of life). If I couldn’t tell if he was breathing I’d poke him. And then duck down when he started to stir. Yeah, I was that crazy mom.
Hahaha. We’ve ALL been that crazy mom!
Oh my god, I do this with my dogs. I can’t even imagine how crazy I’m going to be when I have babies.
Oh yay! I wondered if the urge to peek in at our little boy would wear off, but we still have to every night and he’s 5 months old. It makes me so happy to see that it doesn’t stop when they get a little older. :)
haha, no it doesn’t stop Erin – mine is 17 and I still occasionally go in and peek at him sleeping. Just like in the book…
She is so precious! Question… What does she do when all of the photographers/chaos is going on in the house? Do you guys have a nanny? You guys are definitely blessed and I cannot wait until your book comes out!
She’s around for some of it, but she’s also clocking some quality time with Grammy and Tom Tom (my parents).
-John
Bah! She’s getting so big!! She looks pretty compfy…love how her animals are around her like that- SO cute!
I’ve been going in to see my son when I go to bed too. Lately he has been really into reading in bed, so this is a common sight http://www.flickr.com/photos/msboni83/6794304335/in/photostream/
hahah – too cute!!
She looks like a cherub angel on a fresco somewhere!
hahah – too cute!!
She looks like a cherub angel on a fresco somewhere!
I love it! My daughter has the same pjs and requests those or the monkey ones every night. She loves the ‘kitty toes’.
She is all over her bed while she sleeps (the sprawl, bum in the air, running man) a little worried about the transition to a ‘big girl bed’…
She’s looks so sweet. I forget how big she really is-she looks like she’ll be tall like John.
I love to peek in at my own little Clara while she sleeps. She still sleeps with her hands up over her head, it’s the cutest thing!
awwwwwwwwwww…sweetness….shhhh!
Awe; that is so sweet! I love her footie pajamas!
Our 2 year old used to sleep with his arms up in the air, Karate Kid style. Seriously. Like all the time! It looked like a bad Kung Fu movie!
Our newborn little girl is starting to do the same thing! It’s hilarious!
So funny! It’s in the genes!
xo,
s
Awwwww….such a precious sight! That photo reminded me of Clara’s weekly photos (now monthly) which I’ve forgotten to look at recently….so I did. Love that you are keeping up with them! 19 months: Clara kissing reindeer….adorable!
She is so cute!
Zipper PJs are WAAAAAY easier than snaps.
Your posts about Clara always brighten my day- she is just a little ray of sunshine!
She is so cute!
I used to sleep with my favorite stuffed animal as a pillow and whenever I feel sick I still do it. Makes me feel better!
So sweet. Checking on my babes right before I go to bed is one of my favorite times of the day. Especially when my daughter has fresh, clean hair all over the place. Love the pj’s – love Carter’s. (P.S. – Did you know Carter’s is so much cheaper at Costco?)
Awe! Big baby girl!