She’s All Grows Up:
Saying Goodbye to Diapers and Cribs

We’ve had some pretty big changes in the Keegan Gross house in the last few weeks.

First of all, Eleanor is pretty much potty trained. It’s happened kinda suddenly. She was only occasionally using the potty when she felt like it. But not with any kind of regularity. Then two weeks ago I decided to try another potty training weekend and go straight to big girl underpants. We had some successes and some accidents, but she seemed to be getting the hang of it. Since then we only put her in underpants when we are at home. No more diapers unless it’s nap time or bed time. She has accidents occasionally and needs to be reminded to use the potty. But overall she’s doing great.

We had still been sending her to school in diapers or pull-ups though until yesterday. I was telling her teacher how well she was doing at home, but that I was concerned that there would be too much going on at school for her to remember to use the potty when she needed to. Her teacher suggested we give it a try. So we did. Yesterday morning we put on our favorite Elmo panties and headed to school with a change of clothes just in case. Four hours later I picked her up and was surprised to find her in the same pants I had sent her to school in! Success! She used the potty a few times while at school and no accidents! What a big girl! So from now on she’s going to school in her big girl underpants! And maybe we’ll start attempting our weekend outings sans diapers!

The next big change is that Eleanor finally realized that she can climb out of her crib! She’s been tall enough for a long time, but only just discovered that if she throws a leg over the rail she could just pull herself up and over. And since we don’t really want her to fall and break her neck we decided to finally make the move to a toddler bed.

We were very anxious about the move. Eleanor has never been great about just going to sleep at nap time or bed time. We usually hear her in her room talking to her stuffed animals or bouncing in her bed for sometimes as long as 45 minutes after we put her to bed. I thought for sure we’d be spending weeks walking her back to her bed after she got up repeatedly until she finally tired out. And I was certain that she would never nap again.

But, Eleanor surprised us by getting out of bed only once on the first night immediately after being put in bed. We, of course, walked her right back to bed where she announce, “I not get back up again.” And she didn’t! She slept the whole night in her new bed and that’s where I found her in the morning. The same thing happened the next day at nap time. But since then she’s pretty much been going to bed and going to sleep just fine. She’s had a little trouble napping on the weekend, we’ve caught her playing in her room, but that’s not so unusual. She always has trouble napping when Josh is home. But most days she goes to sleep just fine and takes her nap like she used to. Bed time is even easier. No problems, since those first few night. She goes to sleep like she should, and she’s in her bed when I get her up in the morning.

The funniest part is that when she does wake up before we get her up, which is usually just on the weekends, she doesn’t leave her room. I think she thinks she’s not allowed to leave, which works for us. So we hear her in there playing until we go to get her.

I’ve heard from other moms that the novelty of the new bed will wear off in a few weeks and that’s when the getting up from bed repeatedly will start. I hope they’re wrong!

It really feels strange for her to be using the potty and sleeping in a real bed. She’s not so little anymore, definitely not a baby anymore. My little girl is all grows up, well not really, but it’s starting to feel that way. What a big girl she is becoming!

Tomorrow I’ll show you the photos of Eleanor’s newly decorated room!