After the last weekend’s try at sleeping in a big bed, we decided to go for it today and move Molly out of her crib and into her toddler bed.  Kit decided that it was time to give it a try.  Molly was so excited when we explained this development in the morning, as was Claire.  There was much jumping up and down and cheering from both kids.  I’m not sure why Claire was so excited; she was just in a really good mood, this being a Saturday morning and all.

We had saved Claire’s old toddler bed in the outdoor storage closet.  Before we could bring in the new bed, we had to find it, clean it  off, and re-assemble it.  Then we had to disassemble Molly’s crib to get it out of the girls’ room.  This was my job, and once I unscrewed and pulled off the first major part of the crib, Molly said, “Daddy’s breaking my crib!”  She may have been joking; she did not seem very upset.  Finally, we set up the new crib, and Kit put on the nice sheets and comforter that go with it.  Molly was thrilled.

One part of this transition, that Kit had set up, was that “we don’t use a pacifier in a big bed.”  This had been repeated to Molly many times, and she was ready to give up her pacifier to get a fancy, big girl bed.  Molly’s nap went fine, even without her pacifier; luckily she naps at school every day without a pacifier.  There were no attempts on Molly’s part even to get out of bed.  She just went right to sleep.  Molly is a real napper!

Bedtime that night even went fine, with only a minor disruption from Claire walking across the room to check on Molly, who was sitting up in bed.  Claire was concerned that Molly was sitting up and was trying to sooth Molly to sleep.  I told Claire that it was okay, and Molly would fall asleep on her own.  I think Claire had been excited about Molly’s new bed partially because she know she would have better access to her sister, and Claire has always been one to look for distractions at bedtime.  This same transition, when we took the side off of Claire’s bed to turn it into sort of a “big bed”, had been pretty tough with Claire a few years ago.  This episode involved Claire coming out of her room repeatedly and us walking her back to bed for several hours straight before she succumbed to sleep.  At the time we were going out of our minds trying to get Claire to sleep and wondered whether this was normal.  Now we see the other side of the coin.  Molly may have her own set of challenges, but going to definitely sleep is definitely not one of them.