With the coming arrival of baby #2, it was time to transition Jonathan into a big boy bed. We weren’t sure how long it would take, so we wanted to start early. We got him a full size bed frame and dresser from Ikea. The mattress sits in the frame, so I went to Home Depot, got some wood, and made two side bed rails that slide down beside the mattress. After a full evening of putting the bed and dresser together and completing the stain and sealing of the bed rails, we decided to go ahead and try the transition. Jonathan had shown a great interest in the room. He would run in and jump on the bed and lay down. He seemed very excited, so we tried it out. It went much better that expected. We thought it would be a big change for him so we sat with him as he slept initially (in the video, this is the first scene), but that seemed to only distract him. So, we ended up leaving him in there. He got up a couple of times and cried a good bit, but once he realized that this was it and he had to go to sleep in there, he crawled back into bed and went to sleep. The next morning he was still sleeping sound (the next scene in the video). He is a stomach sleeper and still hasn’t grasped the “tuck in” idea. Once he got up, he went in and crawled into bed with Karen (the third scene in the video). That afternoon we tried it with nap time and he did well, but woke up early, so Karen went in and laid down with him in his bed (the last scene in the video). All in all, he did very well and the transition was much better than we initially anticipated. Below is a short video of the process.
Update: As of August 9, 2010, he is doing very well and enjoying his new room. He is beginning to grasp the “tucking in” and reaches up to hug and kiss us before we leave. Then as we leave the room he says “bye” and blows us a kiss! He’s such a good boy!
Video
1:01 minute video.
http://youtu.be/vZi4mw3sLUg