A BIG bed!

Last September we took the crib rail off Claire's bed, giving her a toddler bed.  Recently, she has been having a hard time settling down at night.  Lots of rolling around and restless legs until nearly 10 pm.  When we've gone in there to tell her to lay still, she would beg to go to our bed.  She has never spent the night in our bed, so this was a very strange request.  After a few days of the same story, it dawned on me that she could be getting too BIG for her toddler bed!

Claire is a big girl for her age.  She's three and a half, but wears a 5t and I have actually bought her some size 6 pants.  I was a giant kid (I've been 5'8" since the fifth grade) so I anticipate that she will grow early too.  So this weekend we decided to make the final conversion on her bed and take the plunge into a full-size bed.  It hit me really hard that this is the bed she will have for the rest of her time at our house.  

We initially took Claire to Bed Bath & Beyond to pick out her own bedding.  She selected an elephant themed set that included and elephant stuffed toy.  After we got home, I realized that the six piece set wasn't a bed in a bag and didn't even include sheets.  I then went back to the store to get a more suitable set for the price, and settled on a darling floral print.  

Ryan made a bunkie board (a support board in lieu of a box spring so her bed wasn't too tall) and we rearranged her room to accomodate the big bed.  Claire has informed us that she no longer needs to go to our bed since she has a comfy bed of her own!  She is having a little bit of a hard time falling asleep, but it is due to excitement rather than an uncomfortable bed.  

Our Big Girl

We finally did it...we took the crib rail off Claire's bed!

She's 2 1/2 and I always said that we would wait until she climbed out to move her to the toddler bed.  She still has never climbed out, but she's getting so big that we decided to bite the bullet and remove the front crib panel and put the toddler railing up on her bed.  We got all excited and started to gear her up about sleeping in her 'big girl bed'.  We had a flashlight party in her room and had her show us how she could get off and on all by herself.

Claire is the type of kid that needs to be prepared for whatever is happening, so I kept reiterating the fact that she needed to stay in bed until mommy came in her room for the morning.  I honestly didn't believe that was the last time I would be in the room for the night.  We proceeded with our night-time routine; we read books together, had our nightly snuggles and I left her all covered up under the blankets and her 'friends' sleeping in their appropriate places.

I watched the video monitor for about 15 minutes and she was wiggling like crazy (a very common thing for her) but no talking.  I mean, no talking, nothing.  It was a miracle!!  She is quite the talker, talks to everyone and everything whenever she has the chance.  After 15 minutes, this was my monitor view.

I was elated!!  I still honestly cannot believe that it happened that way and I'm still mentally prepared for her to not sleep or stay in her bed in the coming days/months.  However for the first night she stayed in bed ALL NIGHT LONG!!  I will count that as a victory!  Here is what I walked into the next morning.  The second the door opened, she asked, "Mommy, is it morning, can I get out of my bed?"

I cannot believe that my baby is in a big girl bed.  If she knew I just called her a baby, she would tell me, "No, mommy I am a big girl in a big girl bed!"  I suppose she's right.

Next adventure for the big girl is getting rid of that pacifier, but that's for another day ;-)