Big Girl Bed

Kate now sleeps in a big girl bed! I feel like moving her out of her crib was letting go of the last sign of her babyhood. I thought since she was so attached to her crib this might be a hard transition for her. Wrong. She already seems perfectly comfortable in her bed and has proclaimed that the crib is now for Annabel to sleep in. I just hope she isn't disappointed to learn the baby won't be sleeping in it right away!

I hyped up the idea of her new bed for weeks, so she was very excited. Then we started out by just putting a thin mattress from Ikea on the floor for her. The first night she probably left her room about 50 times and it was 10:30pm before she went to bed. But there were minimal tears involved and she slept straight through the night! It only took her a few days to really adjust and now she hardly ever gets out of bed anymore (although sometimes I find she sneaks books into bed with her during nap time). After a week or two on the floor we moved the mattress onto the bed frame. We stuck some rolled up towels under the sheets to try to keep her from falling off the bed in the night. So far she has fallen off once--and that was when she was awake. So I think we will try removing the towels soon. She has done so well with the transition. I love listening to her on the monitor talking to her stuffed animals or reading books to herself before she falls asleep or right when she wakes up. And while she still is a major procrastinator when it comes to bedtime, I have found that since we put her in her big girl bed there are generally less tears and tantrums during the whole process. She does seem to be waking up more at night then in her crib, but she was sick a week or two ago and I'm blaming it on that. I haven't really worried too much about the night waking since her sister will be joining us any day now and I'm guessing that will take some adjusting before she learns to sleep through the new baby's sounds (Annabel will be in our room at first, but it is right next to Kate's because our house is tiny). Overall I'm super happy with the transition-and it seems like Kate is too.