"Big Kid" Beds

I will admit it, the kids have been in cribs with the sides on well past their toddler stage.  Most of their friends at school are in real "big kid beds" - twin beds like a real child.  My kids? Cribs.

The motivation for moving kids out of cribs tends to be that they have discovered how to climb out of the cribs and there is danger of them falling and cracking skulls open.  Of my three, only one (Caroline) ever learned how to climb out and she was so proficient that there was never any fear of her falling.  All upper body strength and abs leading to a soft landing on her feet every time.  In fact, whenever the boys needed anything that had fallen out of the crib or wanted to get my attention from somewhere else in the house, they would wake Caroline up to help them out.

But Caroline has seen her "big girl bed" (a white sleigh bed we've inherited from friends) in the garage and has been asking for it.  So the summer was the time to take the sides off the cribs as an intermediary step.

So now they are in "daybeds", which seems to have affected them.  The children who once couldn't sleep if it wasn't pitch black in the room.  Now, they need night lights and the overhead light dimmed down and the door cracked open just a little bit.  

This means they can get out of bed and get me to go potty during the night, or because they're scared.  Some nights it is a challenge to keep them in bed or even in the room, but overall they have made the transition nicely.  Hilariously, Max rolls out of bed nearly every night and never seems to notice it.

One night, Daniel woke up sick and threw up all over the floor… berries, of course, because the only times my sons ever throw up is when they're full of bright red berries that are challenging to clean up.  I woke up hearing Daniel crying and saying, "Caroline, I need help! Caroline, I need you!" (To be fair, his pronunciation still makes it "Care-no-wine", which makes it extra adorable.)

I walked in, and Daniel was standing next to his bed with a pool of red vomit on the floor around him and poor Caroline standing just outside of it, clearly not entirely awake.  Even when he could get out of bed himself, he still called out for his sister in his time of need - so cute!   I took him into the bathroom to clean up and when I went back to cover up the mess and tell Caroline she could stand down, she was already curled up in bed and asleep.  Max never woke up.

The next step will be real "big kid beds", but that will involve moving the boys to a different bedroom, so let's hold off on THAT one for a while...