The Mamminas: Anthony Moves to a Big Boy Bed!!!

We decided to transition Anthony to his "big boy" bed a few weeks ago. We just wanted to make sure he was well-adjusted with that big change before he has to adjust to having a little brother (and Mommy's divided attention)!!! As of right now, we plan to have the boys share a room. Lucas will be in the cradle in our room until he's sleeping through the night. And we don't really plan on napping them together at first either...Lucas will probably take his naps in the cradle in the beginning, and then in the pack n play in our closet for awhile. Anyway, it may work really well, and then again, the plans may fall apart. We figure we can always rearrange the furniture again if we need to. But this way, Mario won't have to give up his "office" which is located in our guest room, and our guests can still have some privacy when they come and visit.

Anthony played a little trick on us and did amazingly well his first night in his bed. He went right to sleep, slept through the night, and waited for me to come and get him the next morning!!! We were sure we had a child prodigy on our hands!!! What a piece of cake this transition stuff is, right?!? Well, for the next few nights, we had some "middle of the night awakenings" with Anthony getting out of his bed and searching and crying for us...we left the door cracked for him. (I feel safer knowing he CAN get out if he ever needs to come get me for anything.) That tapered off pretty quickly, but then we entered the phase of resisting naps in his bed. He'd do everything but go to sleep! First, he just came out of his room looking for me. Then when he realized my persistence in taking him back to his bed, he got smart and only came to the door. He'd peek out for awhile, and then he'd open it a little wider and push on it so it would bang and make some noise and get mommy's attention!!! When he realized I would still come and put him back in his bed, he even got a little smarter and began playing quietly with his toys or dragging stuff out of his drawers!!! It was alot of trial and error (maybe more error than trial) on my part, and it did require some disciplinary action at times for disobedience, but we eventually found a plan that worked!!! About one and a half weeks after we started the process, he was doing great!!! Now, we read him a couple of stories before naptime, or we do his regular bedtime routine before bedtime. He goes to bed when it's time, stays there all night (or nap), and doesn't get out of bed until Mommy or Daddy comes in and says it's time to get up!!! WOW!!! We love this kid! Some days it took alot out of me, but the consistency is so worth it in the end! Occasionally I'll find him "reading" some books in his bed when I come to get him after naptime is over, but I don't really mind (even though he definitely had to get out of bed to get the books off the bookshelf!). He just takes them back to his bed to read, and he's usually so quiet that I don't even know he's awake.

"Getting ready for my first night in my big-boy bed!!!"