As of last night, Marin and Silje are now in **sigh** Big Girl Beds. I sigh not out of frustration, because it has been a relatively easy transition. I sigh because it is yet another big transition that means my girls are growing up.
Over the summer both Marin and Silje finally transitioned
out of naps. NOT one of the prettier transitions! In fact, we are still working our way out of that mess. I'm sure this is the case with a lot of kids - it was certainly the case with Ailey three years earlier - that they don't
need the nap and have a difficult time falling asleep at night if they do nap, but they just can't make it all the way to bedtime without showcasing their exhaustion in some ugly form. *Sigh*
Then just a few weeks ago Marin got
potty-trained. In only a few days time she had a couple accidents, took 1,094 trips to the potty, and kicked diapers, pull-ups
and the training panties. She's a champ. About the same time, she decided that she
would spit out the toothpaste so that she could use Ailey's big girl toothpaste with flouride. *Sigh*
Since before Marin and Silje were a twinkle Andy's and my eyes, Ailey's Big Girl Bedroom was decorated just for her. That is, before we knew we were having
two babies who would need
two cribs in a very tiny little nursery. But we weren't about to take away Ailey's bedroom just because we were silly enough to have two babies at once, so we were lucky that we could fit two cribs in that room. But for three years now we've wondered what we would do when they grew out of their cribs. The room - even without the dressers and the chair - would probably not hold two twin beds.
Luckily, I have a twin-mom friend with girls just 18 months older than Marin and Silje. I tend to get a lot of hand-me-down things and ideas from her. Her girls just transitioned
out of their toddler beds and the beds were offered to us. So do we store two toddler beds until whenever, or get rid of the cribs now? Last week the thought occured to me that, since Marin and Silje aren't napping anymore and tend to drop like bricks into bed at night, this would be the perfect time to "drop" them into toddler beds while they don't have the energy to jump in and out of bed for hours after bedtime just out of curiosity.
So yesterday Andy took down the cribs and I washed the sheets. Ailey, Marin and Silje enjoyed some novelty time in a half-empty bedroom....
Then Andy went and got the beds and delivered them to three very excited girls who could hardly wait for the sheets and pillows and blankets to go on before testing them out. Their "new" Laurie Gilbert custom-made fleece quilted blankets sat at the end of their beds until it was time to tuck in last night (unbeknownst to Marin and Silje, the blankets were a gift almost three years ago, but they are "new" to them!). They are also trying out pillows for the first time.
Marin on her new bed.
Silje on her new bed.
It has only been one night, but if last night was an indication of how this transition will go it wasn't too bad. Marin and Silje did drop like bricks onto their pillows even after all the excitement of the new beds. But luckily they only floated like feathers as they took turns sliding out of bed in their sleep. I wish I had dared to take a picture of Marin as she slept with her knees on the floor and her head on the mattress. Or of Silje as she sat on the floor with her head laid back on her mattress. Those rails don't hold them in at all, but at least they don't have far to go to the floor!
