It got bad enough that we started contemplating moving her to a "big girl" bed then, and Jeff and R went browsing at Toys R Us. That's where they stumbled upon her dream bed - an adorable Elmo toddler bed. Even I couldn't resist its cuteness, and when she stopped injuring herself regularly, it was easy to agree that this would be her Christmas present this year. She's been wanting a big kid bed, we can't do much better than Elmo, and with two little brothers on the way, even after she moves into a twin bed, the Elmo bed can still be used.
Then two weeks ago she started trying to injuring herself on her crib again, and she found new and creative ways to do it. And this time, she succeeded. One night, our mini teenager was sprawled out and passed out with a foot dangling out of the crib. She apparently tried to roll over in her sleep, and the foot didn't roll with her. She woke up howling, and her foot was pretty banged up and swollen that night. Of course, it didn't slow her down at all, and the next night she injured herself while jumping up and down and holding on to the front rail. The rail got in the way of her chin coming down during a good bounce, and she got a nice bruise on it.
And so we decided to go ahead with the purchase of the bed. Thankfully, toddler beds are cheap,
and she had just enough birthday money left to cover the cost of the frame and mattress, so we headed off to Toys R Us for our big purchase. R was excited! She kept chanting "Big girl bed!" and we desperately hoped it was in stock. This was when the trauma for me began. I was not upset at the idea of my little girl growing up. I was traumatized because we didn't come home with the Elmo bed. Nooooo. Instead we came home with the Disney pink princess bed. Oh yeah. Despite all our efforts to raise our child in a gender-neutral environment, she has become an uber girlie girl. She loves pink! She loves dresses! She loves princesses! And ever since Jeff found out we were having boys, he's been a lot more encouraging of this side of R.We got home from shopping right at nap time, so we told R she would have to sleep in her crib one more time. She did, but not without laying on the floor, crying, and hugging the box with her new bed in it. She lamented "big girl beeeeed" as we tucked her in, so we decided we better get this silly bed put together.
That's when Jeff's trauma began. Two years ago, as we were assembling R's crib and changing table very late in my pregnancy, we were hit with the sudden hideous realization that when instructions said, "Your parents can put this together," it now meant us, and we've had quite a few assembly nightmares since then. (For the record, the changing table took over seven hours to assemble.) But the bed frame looked innocent enough. Disney wouldn't allow their logo on a crappy product, would they? So about an hour before R's bedtime that night, Jeff started assembling the bed. When it was not ready an hour later, R was okay with sleeping in her crib again because, "Daddy fix it!" What she didn't know, nor did we, was that it would take another three hours for daddy to fix the stinkin' bed. It was not a fun project!
The next morning, when R woke up, Jeff was able to lead her into the living room where her "big girl" bed sat looking not a whole lot bigger than a doll bed. She was ecstatic! She spent all morning playing on it. She carried all her blankies, dolls, and stuffed animals into the living room to play on the bed. She read books to them on the bed, cooked and served them "food" on the bed, and just loved climbing up and down from it. This was great!
Then came nap time, when we actually moved the bed into her room. She was so excited! And then she refused to sleep in it. This is when her trauma began. On the third trip into her room to tuck her back in, she looked at me and said, "Baby bed, Mommy." Due to no storage in our house, the crib was still in her room, awaiting a time in which we make room for a nursery for the boys. So I put her in her crib, and she immediately fell asleep.
After her nap, Jeff asked her why she wanted to sleep in her crib. Her answer was simple. "Safe!" It's hard to argue with that one, so we decided to take a different approach at bedtime that night and desperately hoped having the crib in the room wouldn't be our downfall. We made a point of showing her how safe her bed really was, and I even laid down on the floor in there and told her I would stay until she fell asleep. After over two hours of various tactics, R called me back into her room (I had given up on her sleeping with me in there after about 45 minute) and said, "Baby fall down!" Baby is one of the three beloved creatures she sleeps with, so I immediately started looking around for Baby. I finally found her in the bed and handed her back to R. Then she told me that Bunny had fallen down, and we repeated the process. When she told me that Who-Dey, the third and final friend had fallen down, I was pretty sure what was going on. Then she blurted out the truth. "REE FALL DOWN!!!!!" she wailed. So I built an extra-tall fortress around the bed, laid down on the floor, and within 5 minutes she passed out. Given that it was already getting close to 11:00, I nearly passed out too.
At 5:30 in the morning, she called me into the room. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, "Mommy sleep here!" I thought it best not to fight her, so I grabbed my pillow and an afghan, and settled back down to sleep on the floor. We slept until nearly 8:00 (which is insanely late for her) and she survived the first night in her big girl bed!
We prepared ourselves for continued battles after that, but it turned out that just getting through the first night was all she needed. Since then she has done quite well in her new bed. We are still awaiting the day in which she realizes she can get out of bed and play with her toys, but we are certainly enjoying things until that occurs. Having now made the transition from the crib to a bed, we are ready to move on to potty training!
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