Big Boy Bed

February 25, 2008

Saturday, Alex took his first nap in his big boy bed.

These days, I figure we have about a 50/50 chance that he’s going to fight going to sleep. Naptime on Saturday was a fight. I put him in his crib, and he screamed and wanted to be picked up. I don’t remember what triggered it, but he started pointing over at the big bed. “Do you want to sleep in your big boy bed?” I asked.

“Yeeaah,” he said through his tears.

So I carried him over to the bed, figured out how to work the railing we put in to keep him from rolling off the bed when he slept, and left him there. Now, before you start thinking that being in the big bed made all of the difference and he was now happy — it didn’t. He was screaming when I left him in the big boy bed, but I figured it was time to leave him in his room and let him fall asleep. Luckily, he didn’t figure out (this time) that he can get out of the big boy bed. He cried for a few minutes, turned on the light in the room, and fell asleep. (Yes, one disadvantage of the big bed is there’s a light switch within reach.)

I snuck in when things were quiet and took this picture:

Big Boy Bed

I tried the big boy bed trick again for the Sunday nap. It didn’t work as well. I had him in the bed and he was crying, “Downstairs! Downstairs!”

“No,” I said calmly.

Then he started trying to step over the rail of the bed, saying, “I do it!” So back to the crib he went…