My Big Girl Bed

My three year old daughter sleeps in crib.  She has no objections to it, in fact I'd say she loves the comfortable, confines of her crib.  It's the only bed she's ever known and sleep has always been her friend, so we've left her to sleep in her crib for eternity. 

She has NEVER escaped from her crib.  She has never even tried to climb out.  I know there is normally a point in time that you put your toddler to bed in their crib, then the kid scares the shit out of you by showing up in your own bedroom twenty minutes later.  This leaves you wondering how they escaped and hoping it was a one time, spontaneous event.  Was your kid is grave danger during the escape?  Was it a gentle, easy climb or did I just not hear the giant THUD when my kid landed precariously on the floor?    Lyla has never done this and I'm so grateful.  I don't need tiny children wandering my house all night long.  She stays put, so it's been a win win situation.

Around her third birthday, I decided it was time to go "big girl bed" shopping.  I only buy scratch and dent furniture because I don't want to get super angry when my kids scratch and dent it themselves a few weeks after the purchase.  These shopping trips totally depend on what the store has on clearance any given day.  I thought it would take a few weeks of looking, but the first day I went hunting for cute beds, I found one at Down East.  It is a very modern daybed.  Not the curly iron kind, it's a geometric pattern, white wood, daybed.  It's so unique (huge bonus) and the price was exactly right.  There was only one and I'd never seen anything like it before.  I was sold, and so was the bed!

  We brought it home and placed the daybed frame in a room we call "the Wii room", because it holds a couch, a t.v. and the all important, Nintendo Wii.  There was an open spot right by the only window in the room.  We left the frame there so that Lyla could adjusted to the idea of a big girl bed and I could buy a mattress.  A few weeks later I got a mattress and we put some cute bedding on her bed.  We wanted to surprise her and give her a Wii room preview of what her new big girl bed would look like.   She saw it and loved it, but so did the rest of the family.

We quickly discovered that having a bed right in front of a sun filled window was pure bliss.  That bed was a great place to read and get your vitamin D sun time.  I soon learned that I must have been a house cat in a past life.  I wanted nothing more than to rush home from my errands and lay down on the sun soaked day bed.  It was glorious and very comfortable.  Before I knew it, I was sneaking upstairs in the middle of the night to sleep on "my" big girl bed.  I loved it.....I still love it. 

We promised Lyla that we would take down her crib and move her bed into her room before summer arrived.  Well, summer is almost here and I'm not ready!  I think she'll like the bed in her room.  She isn't a baby anymore!  But I will be devastated.   No more sunny, day bed, means I have no place to cat nap during the day (sleeping on my real bed during the day makes me feel like a lazy pig.....no bueno.)  I won't have that brand new mattress at my disposal anymore.  The change isn't going to be easy, and I would hate it if I took her crib away and suddenly she wasn't such a good sleeper.   And of course if we have no crib in the house, that also means we don't have a baby anymore.

Maybe this all comes down to this one question.  Am I getting rid of the crib, or am I storing the crib?  I'm 90% sure that I should get rid of it, but I was hoping to be 100% certain.  Time will tell.  As for now, I'm busy mourning the loss of my big girl bed but Lyla loves sleeping in it. I'm thankful she was patient with my transition.