Big Girl Bed

We decided to take the plunge and transition Keni into the big girl bed. Honestly I'm sad about it. Keni loves her crib. She will tell me she's tired and wants to go to bed because she loves the thing. She doesn't really try to climb out unless Joe or I are right there and she says she wants to try it by herself. But alas, with baby boy coming in just a couple months we decided we better make the transition sooner than later.

She has done rather well--I guess. Seriously I think I just had it too easy with her liking the crib. She use to go to bed between 8:15 and 8:30 and not wake up until 9:00 in the morning. PLUS, she would take a nap at 1:15ish and sleep till 4:15ish. Now she goes to bed at 8:30 and wakes up at 8:15 or sometimes even 8:00. Her naps are much, much shorter too. She usually goes down between 1:30 and 1:45 and wakes up between 3:00 and 3:30. I know, I know. I shouldn't complain. She is still a good sleeper just not AS good. :]

Staying in her bed has been interesting. The first night was no problem. She was excited to have something new and hadn't figured out yet that she could actually get out and do whatever the heck she wanted. That came on the second night. I kept telling her she needed to stay in her bed like a big girl and she would get excited and say yes but then the second I shut the door she would come running out, crying. I would ask her what was wrong and she would say, "I dunno." Lucky for us, Keni's bedroom has a little lock on the outside of the door that I finally put on. I didn't feel bad after numerous times of putting her back in her bed. Now it's just routine to put the lock on. Every night as we are singing her the last song she always starts whimpering, "Don't put lock on door. Please don't put lock on door." I feel a little ping to the heart so I tell her she gets one chance. As expected, she pushes her limits and tries the door. It's funny because she knows she is going to have to go back to her big girl bed so she kind of just stands there waiting for us to take her back in. Then, we lock the door. Every night we hear her check to make sure the lock is on.

In the mornings she bangs on the door and says, "Who is it?" over and over until we come and unlock it. In fact, today I decided to just unlock it when she was still sleeping so she could just come out whenever but she still wouldn't. She just kept knocking, insisting I tell her who it it and come in.

She takes great pride in placing her stuffed animals in their exact places EVERY.SINGLE.NIGHT.

"Look Mom, I'm fixing my bed like a big girl!"