SteelyKid returns today from her weekend at Grandma and Grandpa’s, and there’s going to be a surprise waiting for her:
She hadn’t exactly outgrown her crib yet, but she was getting kind of big for it, so we decided to move her to a big girl bed. It’s a “captain’s bed” with drawers underneath the mattress, bought from the local unfinished furniture place (and finished by them, because we’re not that fond of the smell of varnish). A closer look at the bedspread Kate bought to go with it:
Before you say “Why’d you buy her a bedspread from the boys section?” remember two things: 1) Kate and I both hate the frilly pink Disney-princess crap that dominates the girls section in most stores, and 2) SteelyKid loves to talk about modes of transportation. “Truck! Vrooom vrooom!” was one of her earlier noun phrases. She’ll absolutely love the cars-and-trucks theme of this– it may actually prove an impediment to getting her to sleep, as she’ll want to talk about all the cool things on her bedspread.
We’re hoping that the change of venue will help move her toward a lower-maintenance bedtime routine, but we’ll see how that goes. Whether that pans out or not, it’s a big change for SteelyKid this week.
Hey,
Looks great.
Some unsolicited advice – put some non-slippery padding down on that wood floor next to the bed, or get the padded bumpers that go on the side of the bed.
When we transitioned our kids from crib to bed, it meant a week or so of a very high-intensity bed time routine. The kid just pops out of bed and out of the room since they are now free to do it. I spent about a week sitting on the floor outside the bedroom door encouraging the kid to stay in their room/bed as they fell asleep. It gets better after that.
What Steve and Martin said.
Also, I’m sure you have a water-proof mattress. There is no method known in the quantum universe to remove the accidental exudations of toddlers from a mattress.
Vrooom vrooom!, SteelyKid.
That’s a very measured response. Mine woulda been more along the lines of FOADIFF.
“We’re hoping that the change of venue will help move her toward a lower-maintenance bedtime routine, but we’ll see how that goes”
In the field of parenting, this is roughly equivalent to stating “We’re hoping that jumping up and down on the floor next to our torsion balance experiment is going to make our data easier to understand”.
On the other hand, I don’t know anything about the current bedtime routine … perhaps it is the equivalent of a elephant jumping up and down in the lab where you have your torsion balance experiment?
I got a big girl bed when I was 2 from what my mom told me years ago. I didn’t have a cool bedspread like that, but back in the mid ’60’s they weren’t making them either. She can drive her cars on the road part of the bedspread too, so it serves two purposes!
What did she think of the bed and bedspread?
I don’t have a daughter. I DO have a son at Williams, who would have LOVED that bedspread.
In the field of parenting, this is roughly equivalent to stating “We’re hoping that jumping up and down on the floor next to our torsion balance experiment is going to make our data easier to understand”.
In a narrow technical sense, jumping up and down next to a torsion pendulum would make the results easier to understand: “Our data do not agree with previous observations, likely due to systemic effects caused by jumping up and down next to the experiment.”
For the record, she loved the bed and the transportation-themed spread. It took a little while to get her to go to sleep last night, as she tried to explore all possible orientations of her body in the larger space available to her, but once she was asleep, she slept at leasta s wella s she did in the crib.
If this holds up, and if we can convince her that the mattress is not for jumping on through some method not involving a trip to the ER, all will be well with the big-girl bed.