Big Girl Bed for Brooke
Image courtesy of the Columbia Mom, Howard County, MD mom
So we’ve been talking about transitioning Brooke to her big-girl bed for AWHILE now! When we bought her crib (from Pottery Barn Kids) we bought it with the full intention to use it as a transitional bed, and we loved the headboard-part of the crib :) We actually decided to skip the toddler bed, and go straight from crib to FULL size bed! I know a lot of people do it differently, and truly when I think it comes to parenting it’s just all about doing what’s right for YOU, your family, your kids, etc. And frankly, we just didn’t want to transition her twice lol, or pay twice in this case too lol.
So this past fall we literally bought all the things: her bed transition kit (also from PBK), comforter set (from Target), new sets of sheets (they are sold out of the ones we got, but they were Lilly Pulitzer from PBTeen), got pillow inserts from Macy’s & Amazon, and her mattress from 5 Little Monkeys (which we actually had just ordered from Costco).
We bought all the things, we were basically ready, and then honestly I just got cold feet. Actually, truthfully - Grant’s sleep was a MESS. He was no where sleeping through the night, and I could not fathom transitioning my toddler until I had him at least sleeping fully through the night. I was terrified of Brooke also having a sleep regression, running out of her bed & room, etc. So in my panic & fear, we just decided to hold off for awhile. I think initially I thought we were going to do it around her 2nd birthday (which was back in Oct 2020), but we were just not ready.
Fast forward to now, Grant finally started sleeping through the night by January (aka 6 months old), we potty trained Brooke by Jan 7th (it’s now officially been a full 6 weeks and she’s ROCKING it!!). So I started talking to my mom friends & cousins once again, and they gave me the full courage to decide to full the trigger on the bed transition.
Funny enough, what was really fueling my next desire to transition her was knowing that she 100% does NOT fit in the pack & play anymore. And even with that being said, we would need the P&P for Grant anyways. Ironically, we have NO trips planned at ALL this year (as much as we want to!! praying that will change..), but if we wanted to travel, I would have to make sure Brooke is transitioned to a big girl bed, otherwise we’d be stuck lol.
So I guess you can say I did the transition in hopes that we could travel with the kiddos later on, but my mom-friends talked courage into saying that: if she already has good sleep habits now, she will likely continue them and be soo excited about the new bed!
And you guys - it was EXACTLY that!
Just like potty training, we chose a date: a Saturday (my husband works Sat AM’s, so we wanted it to be that night) that way we had at least one weekend evening to manage in case things fall part lol. And then we hyped her up ALL week about it! I know everyone says involve them as much as possible - like picking out the bed, going shopping for the bedding together, etc. But that’s been a no-go for us in COVID, plus we already ordered everything for her… SOO we just hyped her big time talking about it all week saying BIG GIRL BED! And that she was going to be saying “bye crib!”
Literally by the end of the week she kept telling her grandparents '“big girl bed!” and you can tell she was super excited!
It took a few hours of building (also because she took one last nap in the crib Sat afternoon), but Rich managed to put the whole thing together, including all the bedding AND the guardrails, and it just looked SOO beautiful!! I literally teared up when I saw it, and couldn’t believe how grown my little girl was!
Not only that, but Brooke was SOOO excited when she say it! Luckily we always do her bedtime routine 1-1 with her since Grant goes down by 7pm, so she had both of our full attention. We put her in bed and I cuddled up next to her reading a book, and said goodnight.
She was quiet after we walked out & said goodnight, but after a few minutes she cried out asking for her lovey & woo-woo (puppy dog) that a few minutes before she said she DID NOT WANT (but clearly changed her mind — she ALWAYS sleeps with them lol).
We had NO idea what to expect, and we were super nervous. We have a gate at the top of the stairs that we made sure was locked & closed all night. We didn’t get any special doorknobs yet, wanted to see how she would do first.
But honestly y’all, she crushed it!! Slept til 7:50am, didn’t get out of bed once! And it’s been a few nights now, no issues with nap or bedtime! I was worried our morning routine would now be a mess, but girlfriend is a trooper, and god I love her for it!