Purchases for Lil' Missy!

This frugalista mama loves a good bargain! And boy have I gotten a handful today! First up are these two items I bought from Zulily today:
By Best Friend by Little Adventure
Orange & Fuchsia Flower Power Flip Skirt Set - Toddler & Girls
Includes tee, pants and reversible tutu
 
 
Hardcover picture book / 25 pages
Written by Andrea Alban Gosline
Illustrated by Lisa Burnette Bossi
Publisher: Scholastic Press


Next up is a crib set I've had bookmarked since before Libby was born:


I know it seems odd to be purchasing a crib set now that she's one year old, but she's only been consistently sleeping in her crib for the past three weeks. Until now, the crib has basically been a safe place for her to play for a few minutes while we used the restroom or got the laundry out of the dryer. She had napped in it maybe a half dozen times or so. We bedshared from the time she was about 10 days old until just shy of one year. It worked beautifully until a few weeks ago when none of us were sleeping well. She'd toss and turn and thrash all night and we each took turns leaving the bed and rocking her for hours on end until she'd fall asleep. Then we'd try to lay her back down into the bed with us and she's awaken immediately. It was quite miserable. Finally, on Monday, January 10 I resolved myself to launch "operation sleep-in-your-crib." We basically resorted to CIO because all of the other more gentler tactics just aggrevated Libby and made her more upset. I've spent months reading all of the sleep books, from Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution to Tracy Hogg's The Baby Whisperer; Dr. Sears and Dr. Jay Gordon and Ferber and Weissbluth.

I am not going to lie, the first night was hard. On me. Libby screamed and cried for about 30 minutes and then wound down to a fussy wimper. I had told J that we'd let it go one hour and reassess this approach. It was a killer. I cried in our room (we share a wall with hers) as I listened to her cry. We've never really let her cry, other than when we've been in the car and had no opportunity to stop. So to hear her wailing for an hour was rough. Around the one hour mark she had settled down considerably but was still wimpering. We decided to give it 10 more minutes. And wonder of wonders, she fell asleep! She slept in her crib two hours before waking, at which point I brought her into bed with us. I was emotionally exhausted. We got a great night's sleep though. The next day I felt awful and totally second-guessed my decision to transition her to her own bed/room and to do it by using CIO. But when I saw her that afternoon when I came home from lunch she was a smiling, happy, well-rested baby.

The next night we did the same thing and she fussed for 30-minutes before falling asleep. She slept for five hours before waking, at which point I brought her to our bed. The third night was similar. The fourth night she was out in 15 minutes and when she woke in the night I went to her room, nursed her and she went back to sleep in her crib. Same thing again on the fifth night. Night six she was out in five minutes and stayed in her bed all night and it's basically been that way ever since.

I never imagined I'd ever use CIO, but Libby needed it. And so did we. And I feel good about waiting until she was nearly a year old and can understand what we say. We talked about her sleeping in her own bed and she now brings us her favorite blanket and says, "nigh-night" and we nurse and rock and then I put her in her crib drowsy, but awake. Sometimes she fusses for a few minutes and sometimes not. Sometimes she babbles to herself for a few minutes and then goes to sleep.

Anyway, in honor of this transition, I decided it was time to officially outfit her crib with proper bedding. She's old enough now to use the quilt and we put a set of plain bumpers I got as a hand-me-down in there this summer when she was flopping over and bumping her head all the time when she was in there. I have a collection of random, gently-used crib sheets. So I am excited to get this set. It will be there when she's ready for us to convert the bed to a toddler and then youth bed. And it matches the quilt I've got on her daybed.


And finally, I scored this awesome wooden toddler-sized table and chairs for $40.00 off Craigslist:

Kid Kraft Table and Chairs in Natural

There were some random crayon and marker sribbles on the table top and one of the chairs, but some elbow grease and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser cleaned it right up! Libby was SO excited to see it! She loves it!


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