Camping Anyone?

Well, Nate does NOT want to stay in his crib. He's been really good at just coming out when he wakes up, however, if Ray is not here to put him down, he will not stay in until Ray is able to do so. I found this out the other night when Ray took Grace out on a pizza date and I had Nate home alone. When it came time for bed, I did our normal bedtime routine and within a minute, Nate was back out in the living room. We went through this about 5 times when I tried tying a sheet to the crib like someone suggested to me, but unfortunately, it did not work. I waited with Nate in the living room until Ray got home, and down Nate went, without a hitch. Yesterday at nap time, for the first time in like, EVER, Nate gave me a problem. He came out after putting him down for his nap. He never does this. He always goes down for naps so easily, but not yesterday. So, after his nap, I went to pick up Grace from school, and we stopped by Babies R Us on the way home to pick up a crib tent and Ray set it up last night when he got home from work. Nate seemed a bit confused by this new contraption around his bed, and when we tried to put him down in it, it was like we were reliving what we just went through a couple of months ago with trying to break him of waking up in the middle of the night for a bottle. He screamed and cried for probably a good half an hour when we went back in the room, comforted him, laid him back down and tried keeping the tent open to try to keep him at ease a little. However, that yielded into an escape once again by the little Nate-dog. We put him back in and closed up the tent, and after about 15-20 minutes of crying, he was finally asleep.

I know it will get easier as the nights go on, but its just a little frustrating because Nate was so awesome at going down to sleep, and now all of a sudden, he's having problems again. But, it will get better and easier each night, I know. Man, its going to be super fun around here when it comes time to take his pacifiers away. Ha ha. So anyway, here is a picture of the tent that now encases Nate's crib. Camping anyone?

In case you can't tell, the tent wraps around the entire inside of the crib (around all sides and the mattress goes on top of the bottom of the tent). This keeps pretty much anything from getting out and in. Then there is a zipper opening that you open and close and it keeps it pretty much so that the kids can't figure out how to get out. The reviews were really good on this with only a few bad ones at 2 out of 5 stars. The rest were all 4 and 5 star reviews.

As I was writing this, it was time to put Nate down for a nap. I put him down alone since Ray was out, and Nate cried for just a few minutes and now he is out. Phew! I told you it would get easier. Now we'll just have to see how tonight goes. Only 6 more nights to get him used to this tent and ready for grandma and grandpa because Ray and I will be gone for 5 days. I think he should be good by then. But, we'll just have to see.