Toddler Bed Update

We’ve been doing toddler beds all week and it has gone surprisingly well.  I was dreading the worst with constant wake ups and sleeping through the night going away, but it’s been pretty easy.  Charlotte has been easy-peasy.  She LOVES her bed.  She likes that she can get up and read books and then go to sleep when she wants.  We’ve had no early wake up calls and no middle of the night waking.  She goes down easily for naps as well.

Cooper has take several days to get comfortable with the transition.  The first few nights took longer to put him to bed (although it got shorter each night), and then he would wake up after a couple of hours and be very confused.  Chris found him on the floor between the chair and ottoman crying I guess because he didn’t know to get back in bed?  He also had some middle of the night wakings and very early wake up calls (5 am!), combined with no napping.

He seems to be adjusted now.  He’s not waking up at night and needing our help to get back to sleep, he’s taking a nap (although he sometimes opts to sleep in the queen guest bed), and he takes the normal amount of time to get to sleep initially.  He’s still waking up about an hour early and crying to be let out (we use baby gates at their doors for safety).  So to help with the early wake up, we stole Elsha’s idea and bought toddler alarm clocks:

Monkey’s eyes open, time to get up. (Charlotte’s is green.)

Monkey’s eyes closed, time to stay asleep (Cooper’s is pink/blue).

Tonight is the first night using them.  I tried explaining the concept before bedtime, but they got upset when monkey’s eyes closed.  That and Cooper threw his on the floor when the eyes wouldn’t open and the face popped off (luckily it popped right back on), so we’ll see come morning time.

Here they are getting acquainted with their clocks.  Cooper was tucking his into bed while Charlotte was cuddling with hers.