The big girl bed adventures

The second your kid turns two, that magic number seems to trigger a series of milestones that everyone believes you should start achieving. Mia turned two a couple of months ago, but those two months were filled with stacks of bright orange BarBri books, streaming lectures, highlighters and flashcards (one flashcard was devoted to a list of said milestones awaiting bar completion). And this weekend, we started on one of the items: transitioning Mia into a regular bed.

Mia wakes up almost every morning, crying. If she wakes up at night for any reason, she's also crying. I read somewhere that though most parents take their kid falling from their crib when trying to climb out as the sign to switch to a bed, sometimes a toddler still waking up crying can be a sign that they are ready for some freedom. Hopefully, this was Mia's problem and we weren't going to be doomed to be woken up by a crying kid for the rest of our lives.

I had fully intended on moving her straight from her crib into a twin bed, but this month's budget is a bit tight, so that will have to wait. I didn't want to put off the transition though, so instead, we just turned her crib into a toddler bed by removing one of the side railings. Things went... about as you would expect.

The first night, she was thrilled at the novelty of being able to get in and out on her own. She gleefully climbed in, but about 10 minutes later, we had a little person peering at us in the living room from the top of the stairs. And then again 20 minutes later. And 20 minutes after that. So... that first night, B and I gave in to Mia's request to "sit der, on floor" until she fell asleep.The second night, bedtime went much more smoothly. She went down, and didn't get up. But, when we went to check on her, she was face down, on the carpet, with her head under the bed. Oops. That day, we decided to give it one more night, and if she was still falling off, we'd wait until we could get a twin bed and a bed rail.

Of course, in true toddler fashion, she spent all night in her bed, and woke up fresh on her own, and B found her quietly reading a book when he came to check on her after his shower. This is exactly what I was hoping for!