Big Boy Bed!

I’ve always been pretty open to any wisdom parents of older kids have to share with me. One recurring theme I heard was ‘put off the big boy bed as long as you can.’ The more I asked around and looked into it, the more it was confirmed that to push them as close to 3 as possible before taking them out of the crib was preferable. 

Forest didn’t seem to have any complaints and never tried to climb out so we just let it ride. To be fair, he was in a sleep sack until past his 3^rd birthday so that was something that deterred him from climbing out. So that’s some of my advice to parents of younger kids: they make sleep sacks through size 36 months. Do it!!! 

When Forest had his 3 year well check, I asked about night time potty training. The doctor basically scoffed and said plenty of just-turned-3 year olds still wear diapers to sleep. When I asked if we should take him out of the crib to start training she kind of laughed and said ‘If he’s still in a crib, that’s the most important thing! Don’t take him out just for 

that.’ 

But after he turned 3.5 we did start to worry that he didn’t even have the opportunity to get up and go if he needed to. Plus he was nearing 40 lbs and it was getting seriously hard to lift him in and out of a crib. Plus he literally did not fit in a pack n play anymore so we needed another arrangement for traveling. 

So about 6 weeks ago we converted his crib to a toddler bed, gave his room a big boy makeover and tackled the transition. And……That’s about all I have to blog about it because he’s done awesome. Knock on wood, he hasn’t left his room yet. 

He slept on a pull out bed in Colorado for 7 nights and then again in Milwaukee for 4 nights and we didn’t have any issues.

And even though he still isn’t getting out of bed to potty in the night, he did wake up with a dry pull up twice recently so we’re hopeful that successful nighttime potty training is on the horizon. (Although he also has nights where he manages to somehow soak through a nightitme diaper.) 

He also FINALLY gave up his paci for good right after switching to the big boy bed and that’s been another thing that was easier than I thought it would be. I guess there is some wisdom to the whole ‘wait til they’re ready’ argument. 

Forest's special gift from the Paci fairy (aka Nana).

***************************************

I have to ammend this post. It was all scheduled to be published when I had my first middle of the night visitor. Jonathan happened to be in Angola so it scared the poop out of me when I heard someone trying to get into my locked bedroom at 3:30 AM. Turns out Forest couldn't find his lambie (pictured above) and needed my assistance unearthing him from his blankets. Then the next night, I hardly made it downstairs after bedtime before I heard the pitter patter of feet coming down. He was practically asleep when I left the room so I skipped the last 30 seconds of our usual bedtime routine and he was not having it! 

At that point I had a talk with him about how he only gets up to use the bathroom and if he has an issue he can call for me through the monitor in his room. We will see how that goes. Most of my friends said that once they figure out they can get up and leave their room, it becomes a never ending story. I'm hoping that since he was older when we made this transition, he can better understand the boundaries of staying in his room for naptime and bedtime (though he also confessed that yesterday at naptime he did leave his room just to check on his toys 'real quick'.)