Bye Bye Cribs!

Last week was not the best week for sleep in our house.  Addison & Mackenzie have been struggling with stuffy noses from allergies or a spring cold and were very whiny at bedtime.  Our bedtime routine has reached epic proportions lately, with tears and pleas for "one more story", "one more song", "rub my back", and "rock me!!!".

After one particularly stressful night this week, Jeremy and I began to tentatively discuss taking the front rail off the girls' cribs and turning them into toddler beds.  Our theory was along the lines of--hey, if we're going to try to change up the routine, let's just go all-out and REALLY change it.  I began to throw out the idea of "big girl beds" to the girls, emphasizing that they would have to be good at bedtime and show me they were ready before they could make the switch.

They responded well to the idea and quickly cleaned up their behavior when I reminded them they had to act like big girls to get to change their beds.  I also talked up the idea that once they were "big girls", we would sit together on one bed to read their stories, then I would rub each of their backs and put them to bed.  No more endless rocking and no more whining.  (Ha!  Okay, maybe a little LESS of those??)

On the spur of the moment Saturday morning, Jeremy got to work in A & M's room, removing the front rails of the cribs.  The girls were so excited and would hardly leave him alone to finish the job.  They immediately hopped up to try out their "big girl beds" and told us over and over how much they loved them.

After a busy Saturday with no naps, I knew bedtime could go one of two ways--easily, because they would be exhausted, or very badly because they were overtired.  Thankfully, it was a relatively easy night.  To my slight surprise, both girls stayed in their beds just fine and went right to sleep.

I couldn't resist sneaking in to take a blurry, middle-of-the-night picture:

Mackenzie

Addison

My BABIES!

While we were out shopping on Saturday, I let the girls choose from a (presorted by me) selection of toddler bedding at Target.  They discarded my favorite choice and picked coordinating sets in two different colors.

I don't want to jinx anything, but so far, so good with the new arrangement.  The routine has gotten back on track and no one has fallen out of bed (yet?).  Though Addison in all her three-year-old spunkiness (more on that later...) has told me, "When you turn out the light, I am getting out of bed!", they have both stayed put so far.  It's a little funny that they still call for me in the morning, just like always, even though they are now perfectly capable of rolling out of bed on their own.  (NOT complaining!!!)

So, there we go...an unexpected weekend milestone.  Who decided these babies could grow up so quickly???