Toddler Bed Tales

So Roland is obviously not on his way to bed here, but posing for me to show the scale of the bed. The point of this post is to capture this hilarious time of transition from the crib, to the mattress on the floor, to the mattress as a bed. Thank goodness Brian passed along his sense of humor gene to Roland, otherwise I am sure this wouldn't have as easy as it was.

Roland loved his crib and never once tried to climb out of it. I've heard amazing tales of Navy-SEAL-stealth-missions to get out of the crib, but luckily Roland like being in his space. Mostly I think he just liked flopping around with his pillows. We chose to transition now so that when the new baby needs the crib there wasn't any attachment issues. Leave it to us adults to over-analyze everything. Brian took it down, put it in the attic and four days later Roland tells me, "That's the baby's crib." Duh. We did amazing amounts of bed research (ok, I did, poor Brian) and we still have some super ideas out there...but time, space and money being immediate factors we made this bolstered bed for Roland using his crib mattress. Two nights on just the mattress helped us realize there needs to be a separation of floor and bed, else it's just one big play gym mat. Tada, toddler bed.

How do you convince a kid to sleep in a bed that no longer has sides and is conveniently close to the ground? Coaching, threats, back rubs, whatever. Roland was pretty active the first couple nights, pushing the bedtime routine from 15 mins to about 2 hours. He climbed his dresser (?), piled every stuffed animal into bed with him (where'd he go?), would open and close his door - peeking at us - and on one occasion dumped out all the water in his humidifier (argh...).

Some funnies: I gave Roland a great massage, he squeezed my hand and told me I was doing a good job. Obviously that was not putting him to sleep. I sat in the recliner and just encouraged Roland to get back in bed and close his eyes for about 30 mins...Brian traded with me and two minutes later, hysterical laughter. Brian couldn't find Roland in the dark, finally finds his tushy to which Roland pops out of the pillows "Surprise" and rips one exclaiming "I tooted!" You just have to laugh. On at least two occasions I've fallen asleep before him resting on the floor... Tonight he flopped his tushy onto my head, by accident of course, and died in a fit of laughter...ha, ha. Brian still has the magic touch, he simply coaches Roland to bed with a pep talk, a good hug and kiss and he's out for the count.

Some great things we never realized about not being in a crib: it is so nice to be so close to them when you tuck them in. You are right there! And Roland wakes up super happy and usually takes his time leaving the room (loves to read those books!) It's funny how annoying our squeaky floors were, until you have a 30 lb quiet-as-a-mouse toddler trying to sneak into your room at 6:15 AM.

Anyway, great job Roland!