Jack's big boy bed

Last night was Jack's first night in a big boy bed. We'd been going back and forth about whether we wanted to transition him out of his crib. He's never tried to climb out of it, and it's been so nice knowing that once he's down for bedtime, he's going to stay there until we get him up. But in the past couple of weeks, he's been waking up really early, yelling that he needs to go to the bathroom. We figured it might be time to start the transition so that he can go to the toilet on his own. We still put a diaper on him at bedtime, but it seems counterproductive to tell him to just pee in his diaper at night but to go on the potty all the rest of the time.

A couple of other things were making us hesitant to force the move. One is that Jack LOVES his crib. We broached the subject of his having a big boy bed months ago with an eye to moving the crib to the baby's room. He was amenable to the new bed, but he said that he wanted both the bed and the crib in his room.

The other reason is that we don't actually have a twin bed for him. We have a full-size futon that we thought would be a perfect transition bed, because it's low to the ground and bigger than a twin. Jack is a very active sleeper. The first two nights we were in Spain, he had to share a bed with us because they didn't bring us the travel crib we requested. He fell off the bed both nights. I figured a full-size bed would give him room to roll around, but the futon is low enough that he wouldn't fall too far if he rolled off. The only problem was that Jack kept saying he didn't want to sleep on the futon; he wanted a bed that we got at a "big boy store."

Thank goodness for Winnie the Pooh. We bought a set of Pooh sheets for him, and all of a sudden, Jack couldn't wait to sleep on the futon. So we set it up last night, and Jack curled up on it at bedtime easy as pie. He did have a wake-up in the middle of the night and woke up earlier than usual this morning, but it's not entirely clear to us that it had anything to do with the new bed. He didn't fall off or come out, though, so that's encouraging. KNOCK WOOD. Hopefully that state of affairs continues.

Jack in the morning after his first night in the big boy bed

I asked him this morning if he wanted to sleep in his big boy bed every day, and he said yes. His crib is still in his room, however. I asked him, "What should we do with your crib then?"

"Put baby in it," he said.

"Should we put the crib in her room then?" I asked.

"No," he said. "My room."

"You want baby to sleep in the crib in your room with you?"

"Yeah," he said.

"But what about when she cries?" I asked.

"She won't cry," he promised.

Right...

Well, one step at a time. We're so proud of our big boy!