Life WIth Ty #3 - The Big Boy Bed

The Big Boy Bed

 

 

This past spring, when Ty discovered the joys of climbing, we made the decision to transition him from a crib to a toddler bed.  I was a nervous wreck.  Ty isn't exactly the most calm sleeper.  In a one hour time frame during the night, he will lay in one direction on his stomach, sit up, flop to the side, sit up again, lay on his other side, sit up, and finally settle bent completely in half.  He closely resembles a fish flopping around on a dock, desperately trying to throw itself back in the water...all while he is in a complete dead sleep.  I had visions of my little fish throwing his entire body off the side of the bed mid-thrash, and never wanting to try sleeping in the bed again.  

 

Nevertheless, I was excited for my boy to reach this little milestone.  On "the big day" we spent the afternoon removing the front of Ty's crib, and adding a small bed rail to transform it into a true toddler bed.  Ty quickly discovered the art of bed-jumping, so we spent the evening practicing climbing safely in and out of bed.  He ate it right up!

 

 

Then bedtime arrived.  To our surprise, Ty stuck to his usual bedtime routine, and fell asleep easily in his bed.  I, on the other hand, woke up hourly to peek in on my little guy, and it was on these hourly check-ins when I discovered what really motivated Ty!  Not once, or even twice, but multiple times over the course of that first week, I peeked into the room only to find an empty bed.  After a quick scan of the room, I could usually locate Ty in one of two places - on the floor in front of his noise machine, or on the floor in front of his bookshelf.  Apparently, when a two year old wakes up in the middle of the night, changing the sounds on his noise machine or reading a book in the dark are very appealing activities!  

Though the nightly excursions ended after a week (thank goodness...we had a very tired toddler on our hands!), I do on occasion have to go on a Ty-hunt when I check on him.  My top three favorite places I have found him include halfway under his bed (which I had to lift off of him, because there was no way he was able to fit out the way he went under!), flat against his door in a dead sleep (which I had to use all of my weight to push open to move his sack-of-potatoes body), and next to his monitor (apparently he thinks we don't know he's out of bed if he's playing with his monitor?!).  He's such a stinker sometimes, but it always makes for a good laugh and an incriminating picture!  Little man always keeps us on our toes!

Fell asleep right next to his monitor!

Just couldn't make it back into bed!