So, we pulled out the coveted "Big Girl Bed" that we built before Molly's birth. At that time we told her that she was allowed to look at it, but she couldn't use it until she was "big."
"Big" came earlier this week when we decided that "big" meant "big enough to kill your sister if you roll over on her in a dead sleep." We pushed her toddler bed up against ours and that became her spot in the mornings. It worked well enough, but Lucy really likes the toddler bed, so last night when she threw a fit, I let her sleep there all night. "My, how strong your parenting is" you respond. She went down without a tear and her night wakings were easy peasy to resolve.
Well, that left us with a mess this morning. Do we
a) put her in her crib tonight and pretend it never happened?
b) leave the toddler bed there and let her start doing full nights there?
c) move the toddler bed into her room and turn a new leaf by telling her she's just SO lucky that she can sleep in her big bed now and she doesn't have to try to squish into Mommy and Daddy's bed anymore?
Well, being the stupid young parents we are, we chose C. And we chose C on a night where we whisked her in from the car, stuffed leftover lasagna into her and threw her in bed at 8:15. Nothing like good planning and preparation.
I said to her, "Gosh Lucy, you're so lucky to have this nice big bed now! And if you wake up in the middle of the night, your crib is always right here if you need to move back in. (Her toddler bed is next to her empty crib for the time-being.) And you're so lucky that you don't have to sleep in our bed anymore! Whew! I was so worried that you'd have to sleep there for a long time since you weren't big yet. Aren't you glad you're big now and can sleep alone ALL night long?"
She fell for it, hook, line and sinker. She jumped in her bed and said, "Yeah!" and passed out feeling very big and capable. We'll see how the night wakings go. I anticipate they'll be a tad more difficult than the "Big Girl" line I was feeding her earlier.
But for now, my baby is in a big bed and sleeping peacefully with nary a fight or tear. So, so proud.
2 comments:
Nice.
We are starting this process with Gabe and it is not going well.
We've had Slade in a toddler bed for a couple of months now, maybe since he was 16 months old. Mostly, we wanted to set it up because it matched the walls, lol. But he took right to it! We leave his door cracked, and make sure all of the hallway doors are closed, the hallway gate is up and our door is cracked open too. Of course, if he wakes up in the middle of the night he's in bed with us soon after.
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