Baby Transitions

We're trying as best we can to prepare Fidget for the arrival of her little brother. We talk to her often about "the baby," but, of course, she doesn't really get it.

Since we're planning on using the same crib for the new baby, we thought it would be better to have Fidget sleeping in a "big girl bed" well before we tried to move the baby into the crib. We didn't want her to feel as if she were losing her bed to the baby. As part of the transition, we decided to go ahead and buy a bed to put in her room. We thought it would be good just have it set up in there and gradually begin to nap in it and after we had naps established, we could begin trying to sleep in the bed at night.

We took her with us to pick out her "big girl bed" two weekends ago, and the mattress was delivered the following Monday (the box spring was broken, so we had to wait for another one to be delivered). We put the mattress on the floor, and told her that her "big girl bed" was here. She had a great time playing on it Monday morning and even opted to take her nap on it. It took awhile to get her to settle down and go to sleep. It was, to her, a new place to play, but I lay down beside her, and she soon settled down and went to sleep, and took a nap for an hour and a half! A rare occurrence for our little Fidget!

By Wednesday of that week we'd received the box springs, and the side rail we'd ordered was also delivered. So, when it was time to put Fidget down for the night, MAC asked her which bed she wanted to sleep in. She chose the "big girl bed." We decided to give it a try fearing we'd be chasing a free agent back into her bed over and over again once we started the transition to the new bed. Again, the excitement of the new bed made it hard to settle down at first, but again I snuggled in next to her and read a few stories until she calmed down and eventually fell asleep. That first night she slept much like she would in her crib--she had a couple of wakeful, fitful moments, but she was easily convinced to go back to sleep. The next morning she didn't even try to get out of her bed. Instead she sat and played with her kitty for a while until she'd had enough of that and then called for her daddy to come rescue her (the same morning routine as if she were in her crib).

Way to go Fidget!

Since then we haven't been back in the crib! She has figured out that she can get out of her bed on her own, and some mornings she'll get out of the bed herself, but so far we haven't had to chase her back into bed once we put her down at night. I'm sure we'll reach that point one day, but for now we're thrilled that the transition was so easy! And though it's great to see our little girl growing up and moving on to new things (even if it is just sleeping in a bed rather than a crib) it's sad at the same time to realize more and more of our "baby" girl becoming just a memory!