Tag Archives: toddler beds

The Honeymoon Is Over

Mar
23

Posted by: Maggie

So, remember when we moved Eleanor into her new toddler bed? At the time I wrote about how she was doing a great job and going right to bed without getting up and that we thought it was funny that she wouldn’t leave her room after she woke up in the morning until we came to get her. Well, the honeymoon is over!

Just as my mom friends predicted, the novelty of the big girl bed has worn off. She now walks right out to find us when she gets up in the morning or after a nap and getting her to sleep is not going so great! Saturday night she just did not want to go to bed. We walked her back to bed every 3-5 minutes for about 4-and-a-half hours. We finally got to sleep around 1am! And guess who decided that she’d wake up super early the next day! Yup, that little Monster (don’t worry she takes that as a compliment, Monsters, Inc. is her very favorite movie right now) got us up at 6am the next day! So we were all running on about 5 hours of sleep on Sunday.

She also wouldn’t nap on Sunday. After putting her back in bed for about an hour, she finally stayed there. But she came out only an hour later (she always naps for at least two hours) looking very tired, which led us to believe that she hadn’t napped at all. We didn’t have too much trouble putting her to bed that night. We only had to put her back in bed 5 times before she finally stayed there. I assume she was as exhausted as we were from the lack of sleep the night before and no nap that day!

Today (Monday) she only got out of bed twice at nap time. But as I write this I’ve been putting her back into bed for the last hour and a half. I think she’s finally gone to sleep though. It’s been about 20 minutes since she last got up. I think that I did a better job tonight than we did the first night. We know that the trick is to consistently and dispassionately walk your darling Monster back to bed without saying a word or making eye contact. It’s pretty tough when you have to keep it up for four hours! We did not do a great job that first night. We mostly did what we were supposed to but sometimes we listened and responded to her complaints because she is a little sick and we felt bad about that, although I don’t really think that was what was keeping her up. And we were also exhausted and I was feeling pretty sick myself and just did not have the energy or patience necessary.

Tonight I did a much better job and walked her back without a word, over and over again. Although, I did have to interact with her a little when at one trip back to bed she showed me that she had taken her diaper off and put it in the hamper. But she’s finally asleep (I hope)!

My favorite baby sleep book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, claims that it should take about 3-4 nights of silently walking them back to bed to solve the problem. To that I say, “you have obviously not met Eleanor, who has the endurance of a triathlete and the stubbornness of her mother (super, super stubborn).”

So wish us more sleep this week than we got this weekend!

Fabulous Friday: Eleanor’s New Bedroom Decor

Feb
19

Posted by: Maggie

When we moved Eleanor into her new toddler bed we decided to do a little bit of redecorating. The Safari theme was never really Eleanor’s thing anyway. So I decided to go with something that I knew she would love! Owls!

She’s obsessed with owls lately. She walks around saying “Hear dat? Whoo hoo! It a Owl! Whoo hoo!” I started searching the internet, looking at etsy and some other sites searching for Owl themed toddler bedding. And guess where I found it! Target! Crazy right? Circo makes forest theme bedding that is super affordable and extra adorable. AND it was in stock at my local Target so I went right over and picked it up! AND they also had some awesome vinyl wall decals to go with it! I was so excited!

She had her toddler bed with bedding all last week and then Josh and I spent Valentines Day morning cleaning and reorganizing the room, taking out her changing table and putting up the decals. We took out the changing table partly because we don’t really need it now that Eleanor is pretty much potty trained and partly because she also realized that she could climb up it. On several occasions she has gone into her room, climbed up, taken off a dirty diaper and then yelled for me to help her get back down. So, as with her crib, we didn’t want her to fall and break her head open.

So here’s a reminder of what her room looked like with the crib and changing table:

And now:

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

Feb
18

Posted by: Maggie

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!

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