Bye-bye baby crib

Scott loves his crib.

Unfortunately, he's not allowed to claim ownership of it anymore, because his evil mommy and daddy are giving it to his baby sister.

I've read about 400 blogs, books and articles, talked to our pediatrician and sought out advice from anyone I could find about the best way to "transition" a two-year old from a crib to a bed.

Most people said Scott would let us know when he was ready by trying to climb out of his crib. And everyone warned that we needed to get the crib out of the room at least 2-3 months before the baby arrived so he would "forget" about it, and not get jealous that his little sister is stealing the crib.

Soon-to-be-born Baby Charlotte moves into her nursery and her crib at the end of February (we think), which gave us a Dec. 1 deadline for getting Scott into his toddler bed.

Unfortunately, he seemed completely and totally disinterested in giving up his crib.

Jim and I bought Scott a completely adorable Thomas the Train toddler bed back in late May/early June and set it up in Scott's room, alongside his crib. (Little man LOVES trains.) We had been told that having the bed in the room would give him the opportunity to get used to it, and that he would likely just "decide" at some point to sleep in it.

Didn't work. In fact, the couple of times we tried to put him to sleep in it, he screamed and cried, and lasted about four minutes. Most of the time he ignored the thing except to hit it with a hammer.

We also kept waiting for our monkey-like, will climb-on-anything-son, to attempt to escape his crib. Didn't happen. In fact, he consistently woke up in the morning and after naptime and just played by himself and talked to his toys for 15-20 minutes while he waited patiently for us to come get him.

We finally decided we could wait no longer, and I set the Saturday after Thanksgiving as official "transition to toddler bed" day. I watched the calendar days approach with outright dread, sure it was going to be a hellish transition.

And I am thrilled to say that my totally-awesome-completely-amazing-big-boy-son proved me completely and TOTALLY wrong by handling the change like a complete champ.

We did try to make it a fun experience, which I think helped. I went out and bought new Elmo/construction/toddler bed sheets, thereby combining three of his favorite things (Elmo, tools and trains) in one spot.

Father and son analyze the proper tools needed for the job.

Jim made a big deal of asking Scott to "help" him take down the crib. Scott used his tools (and some of daddy's) to hammer and drill the sides of his toddler bed. We also had a "big boy" day theme, using the word about 500 times, unveiling new "big boy" Lego sets (which actually weren't new, but previously given gifts we hadn't opened, gave him some of his favorite foods (fish sticks, bananas, etc) for lunch.

Construction underway. Scott handles assembly.

...while Jim dismantles the baby crib.

The completed product. I mean, what a cool bed, right? I'd sleep in it!

We put him in the bed for the first time at nap time, and made sure he had his favorite stuffed animals, and his favorite blankie from his crib with him.

He squirmed for about three minutes, and then let me tuck him in.  And that was it...

After all the worrying, and planning and fretting, it was almost anti-climatic. I closed the door to his room, waited for the cries that didn't come, walked through the child-proof gate we had put up to keep him from wandering, and waited for him to follow. But he didn't.

He curled up and went to sleep. For three hours.

Repeat that scenario that night, and then again the next night. He's been in the toddler bed now for five days and so far hasn't tried to climb out, hasn't had any trouble sleeping and has, in fact, been a total angel.

Seriously. LOVE. THAT. KID.

And am really hoping he doesn't remember the crib when we pull it out of storage in three months.