The Big Boy Bed Chronicles

With a second child on the way, it's time to move my son from the crib to a big boy bed. Sure, we've sold him on the new bed by telling him that he's growing up and such a big boy, but the reality is that we're going to need the crib for the new addition in a few months. So on Friday (Valentine's Day), we moved our son to his bed and new room. Since I'm now writing a blog post about this, you can probably guess that the transition has not gone swimmingly.

Friday, February 14th

Our son usually goes to sleep around 8:30. With the transition to the new bed and room and the fact that it was Friday night, we didn't really start putting him to bed until closer to 9:00. He didn't want to go to sleep. I laid in bed with him and dozed off several times, but he never went to sleep. After hyping the fact that moving to a big boy bed meant that maybe Ziggy would sleep in his bed, Ziggy actually joined us in bed. My son didn't seem to have a reaction to this. After moving from the bed to sitting on the floor, I finally left the room with my son still awake. It was then that I realized it was 10:30. 10:30! I left to load the dishwasher and let my wife take over. After unsuccessfully trying to get him to go to sleep for over 90 minutes, she got him to go to sleep in less than 10 minutes. The secret was singing to him and rubbing his face. She was basically Mariano Rivera!

Saturday, February 15th

He woke up at 6:30 AM after about 8 hours of sleep. While this doesn't sound bad, he usually sleeps about 10 hours a night and will often sleep nearly 11 hours on weekends.

Saturday night went well primarily since I wasn't involved with bedtime. My son and I have had a bedtime routine for months, but apparently, our routine is over. If that means he'll go to sleep fairly quickly, though, I'll take it.

Sunday, February 16th

He woke up again before 6:30 AM. Ugh.

Sunday night didn't go as well as Saturday. I ended up taking over when what worked on Friday and Saturday didn't work Sunday. He eventually fell asleep with me sitting on his bedroom floor.

Monday, February 17th

We woke up to my son crying at 1:30 AM. I went to his room to find him sitting on the floor holding two stuffed animals. For some reason, he didn't think to walk all the way into our room. It took some time, but we got him back to sleep.

7:30 AM. We wake up to find him sleeping on his bedroom floor.

Monday night. Short version: Put him to bed. About two minutes later, he walked into our room. We returned to his room, and I sat on the floor until he fell asleep after 9:00.

Tuesday, February 18th

Although we never heard him during the night, at some point between 11:00 PM and 4:00 AM (thanks to Ziggy for waking us up), he moved from the bed to the floor. This is now two mornings in a row where we started the day by having to wake him up from the floor. To me, the bed seems much more comfortable, but what do I know?


So this is where we are right now. He seems to like his bed except for the sleeping part of it. He hasn't napped yet and going to sleep has been a struggle. Any suggestions on how to make this entire process better?