Yesterday morning I heard K chatting away in her crib- a sign I usually have a few more minutes to lay in bed before getting her. But before I knew it I heard a bang and a loud scream. I rushed into her room and found her standing on the ground...outside her crib.
I had just spent the last couple weeks agonizing and debating about whether we should move her into a toddler bed when we move to a new place in May or if we should wait till after the baby is born when she's closer to 2. I eventually decided that I was going to keep her in her crib as long as possible. We wouldn't need the crib for the baby for a while because he or she will be in the bassinet in our room for quite a while.
This has pretty much been my experience for every transition K has gone through. I stress out about the timing and then when I've decided to wait a little longer, she goes and does it even faster than expected. I had never anticipated that she'd need a toddler bed before May. She's not even technically 18 months. K never got the memo that as long as we are still counting her age in months, she can feel free to still act like a baby.
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| Toddler Bed Setting |
So now we felt even if K wasn't quite ready for a big girl bed (or we weren't), it wasn't safe to wait any longer. She has no real fear when it comes to acrobatics and we were worried she may injure herself in a serious way if we continued to let her stay in her crib. This escape left her with a scratch on her forehead and a big red mark on her ribs. We thought we should quit while we were still ahead.
Cole switched her crib into the toddler bed setting yesterday before nap time and K had her first two sleeping experiences in her new bed. (We will buy her a new toddler bed when we move into the new house and put this bed back to a crib for the new baby). During nap time she climbed out of the bed a few times and took a little while to go to sleep and then only slept for an hour and half. That night she took an hour to fall asleep, spending most of that time crying while I periodically sat by her bed with her. She didn't climb out once during the night, which we were really impressed with. She did wake up a couple times after she fell asleep but it's hard to know if we can blame the bed switch since she's also got a cold right now and every time she woke up it was after a coughing attack- so she may have woken up upset even if she was still in her crib. After I gave her some tylenol at her 4am coughing attack, she slept till 8. Today's nap went really well- she only climbed out once right after I put her in her bed and after that went straight to sleep and slept for 3 hours (a long nap by K's standards).
I feel happy and sad that she's adjusting. I'm glad she feels secure enough to make this transition quickly and do something that probably makes her feel a little nervous. I'm sad that it's happening so soon. There doesn't seem to be much that's still "baby" about her. It's all happening much faster than I'd like- she seems to be in a hurry to grow up.
