Graham’s big boy bed has been set up in his room for months, but we bought ourselves some extra time by discovering that he would not crawl out of his crib if he was wearing his sleepsack backwards so he couldn’t unzip it. I had been absolutely dreading transitioning Graham out of the crib because I couldn’t imagine any scenario where Graham would actually stay put in his bed without being restrained (like he is in a crib).
This morning I was watching Graham on the video monitor after he woke up and I saw him start to raise his knee up in an attempt to crawl out of the crib with his sleepsack on. Just like that, I knew it was all over and he had spent his last night in his crib.
Before Graham’s nap, we had a LONG talk about how exciting it was that he was going to be sleeping in his big boy bed and I let him know that he was not allowed, under any circumstances, to get out of his bed and he should call for Mommy or Daddy when he woke up and one of us would get him out of his bed. The talk went well and he seemed so eager to sleep in his big boy bed that he cried the entire time during his diaper change, asking to go back to his bed.
I got Graham set up on the trundle bed with a pillow at each end and stuffed animals lining the sides.
He was super excited to go to bed in his big boy bed and requested to go right to sleep after only one story. He made sure to let me know that he had understood our talk by telling me, “don’t get out of bed, call Mommy.”
I left his room feeling really good. He went from this to this:
For about 5 minutes, everything was perfect, and then the moving began. At first, he would just peek up from his pillow and look at himself in the mirror. Next, it was sitting up and playing with his stuffed animals. Finally, he ventured off of the trundle and onto the top bed (p.s. sorry for the blurry pictures, they were taken with the iPhone from the baby monitor):
I went into his room briefly to try and get him settled back on his trundle but he was already on the top bed again by the time I left his room and picked up the video monitor to check on him.
Graham spent the next HOUR (so now we are at an hour and a half since I tried to put him down) flipping through his books and happily reading to himself on the top bed:
The funny thing was that I wasn’t discouraged. Although Graham hadn’t fallen asleep and had moved to the top bed (and managed to rip apart one of his books), he had not gotten out of bed and he was playing/reading in a slow, quiet, mellow way (minus the ripped book).
When we added things like stuffed animals, pillows, and blankets to Graham’s crib, he had done the same thing; taken a really long time to fall asleep because he was getting used to his new environment but not necessarily fighting it.
After tossing one final book aside, my champion little boy did it! He flopped down totally exhausted and fell asleep!!:
We are over an hour into his nap and I call this a success! My little boy transitioned to the big boy bed!
When he wakes up, I plan on moving his books off of his bed and setting up stuffed animal barriers on both the top and bottom bed so no matter which bed he chooses tonight, things should be safe, soft, and not too distracting. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this will continue to be a smooth transition and all my worrying was for nothing.
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