big kid bed.

i've had a quite a few people ask how we did with the beast migrating to his big kid bed this week, so i figured i would just blog about it, so all stalkers can know. ha. but, he did uh-mazing! like for reals. i was terrified. he's a wild man at night time and i figured him having freedom would only increase that. but he's done much much much better than expected. 

first, i hyped up having a big kid bed. we've been telling him big kids do this, or big kids do that for a few weeks now just to make him more motivated to do things that he normally hates to do. so, while i was searching for a bed on craigslist and i would show him it and he would go "i want it, i want it, big kid bed". when i found the one i wanted, we went and picked it up the next day and he was very very excited to get it. unfortunately mom does not set up/take down furniture so he had to wait until dad was home and we were back from our trip to begin loving his big kid bed even more. 

but monday dad set it up and took away the crib and he thought it was the most amazing thing in the entire world. luckily he's not that kid who's super attached to his crib so he could have cared less that we took it away. we talked about how when you're in a big kid bed you STAY, and do not come out and he listened pretty good. levi said i over-did the telling him to stay, buuut he didn't come out of his room at all, so he can suck it. 

nap time the next day was trickier because he could see all of his toys. we had to move all of them out into the hallway and then he finally went to sleep after mom ruined everything and took them all away. he did so good that night and stayed in there the whole time. but, the toys are still in the hallway until further notice, and it kills me every time i walk down there. he has too much stuff, and we didn't even buy him most of it.  

then dad was home the next night so he thought it meant he could come out whenever he wanted. it was lovely. levi went and turned the door knob around so we could lock him in from the outside. he thinks this method is awesome. i disagree. i don't feel like he's learning how to discipline himself if he doesn't get the opportunity to come out and realize he's not supposed to do that. so we compromised and if he came out three times he got locked in there, like a prisoner. {still not my favorite method, obviously, but it works for a kid who isn't quite old enough to reason with}. but when it's locked, he gets bored, gets in bed and falls asleep within five minutes. we also told him that when he is ready to get up and it's locked to say "momma out, please" and he does that pretty good most of the time. 

for some reason whenever dad is home he feels like he needs to come out and hang out with us. probably because of the rarity of the situation, levi probably is home to put him in bed maybe 3 out of the 7 nights. but when i put him to bed and nap time, he just stays in there because he's tired of seeing me. haha. 

and because you can't have a big kid bed with baby blankets, we went to ikea and picked out big kid blankies which just so happened to have his top three favorite things on it: cars, trucks and bikes. and it was only 15 bucks so that makes dad happy too. i personally think that this has made him stay in his bed better, but the spouse would disagree with me because "kids don't care about that stuff". but i think he does. =) 

in any case, he has done so so good! i'm so proud of him! the thought of giving him more freedom is terrifying to me, but he has done amazingly so far. sometimes i feel like he's older than he is, because he's just so easy. toddlerhood is supposed to be tricky, either he is an amazingly almost perfect kid or he's waiting to make our lives really difficult doing something else. i hope it's the first one.