Two Baby Boys in One Room; The Epic Journey Begins

Right now, we're struggling a little with the dilemma of needing to have two babies in one room.

We were kinda hoping that Rowan, {now 18 mos} would be ready to move out of his crib in time for Cid {now 3 mos} to take it over.  But at this point, we've barely even thought about how to handle the sleeping situation and Cid is such a big guy that he's already pretty much breached the limits of the bassinet in our room.  Whether or not any of us are ready, we need to find a solution, pronto!

Just a couple nights ago, Roger and I both agreed that Rowan wasn't quite ready to make the switch to a "Big Boy Bed". We conceded that we would have to suck it up and buy another crib for Cid.  Then Rowan did something that made me think maybe, just maybe, he was ready to upgrade.

He's been having a few rough days/nights of molar pain {poor guy, this is the worst!} and I got up with him in the wee hours one morning to snuggle on the couch.  He laid on the couch with me for a while, then grabbed his blankie, got down, and started off towards his room, motioning me to come with him.  He wanted to go back in his bed.

He's led us to his bed before when he was tired, but I just felt like this was different.  I kind of figured that going to his bed was just the routine that he knew he was supposed to follow.  This time he had been given the opportunity to stay up and do whatever he wanted and what he chose was to go back to bed. I thought, if he would rather be in bed than be up and about, maybe he can handle a bed that doesn't contain him.  

It occurred to me that Rowan's crib converts into a toddler bed and I thought it should be a pretty quick job to take the front panel off and put the two side rails up, so Sunday morning I impulsively began to disassemble.

Rowan is kind of young to be explaining to him the whole "Big Boy Bed" concept, but he was actually very excited about the taking apart of his crib.  He was eager to "help", climb on the crib frame, and jump on the mattress.  He handed me the pieces {that I didn't need quite yet} and "tightened" some of the screws for me.  I thought the assembly would be a lot easier than it was.  I think the mistake I made was reading the directions, which would probably have been better English if they had used Google Translate to create. Plus, the pictures were all wrong!  But after a little sweat and common sense, we had our toddler bed. The very last step was to put the storage drawer back underneath.  Roger and I were struggling a little with this, but before we knew it, Rowan came to our rescue and held up the center while we found the rails on both sides.  And yes, this was actually a big help! Did I mention that sometimes he blows our minds?! Even though it wasn't intentional, I'm glad Rowan got to see and be a part of the conversion because that way, he saw that this was still his bed, just a better version of it! 

Once the conversion was finally complete, I said a little prayer that I wasn't going to have to change the whole thing back right away ;)

Here's the breakdown of Big Boy Bed Day 1:

- Converted the crib to toddler bed with Rowan's help
- 1:00pm Rowan seems a bit sleepy so we start his nap routine and put him in bed.  30 seconds later, we hear his door open and see him peaking out at us.  We didn't force him back in bed because it was still early for his nap and Opa was visiting....not really fair.
- 2:00pm Rowan is pretty tired so we try again.  A couple minutes later, we hear him turning the doorknob so Roger coaxed him back to bed.  He slept there until 3:30pm, when he fell out of the bed onto the {carpeted} floor :(
- Nighttime - Normal routine. He goes right to bed around 7:30pm.  We wake up at 6:30am to someone trying to open his bedroom door ;)

So Day 1 went pretty dang well!  I'd rather wake up to Rowan turning the doorknob than to him crying, which is the usual sitch.

Plus I LOVE that I can give him a kiss when I check on him at night {I couldn't reach with the crib}.

Not sure if this will last, or if he'll suddenly feel like he misses the comfort of the crib confines.

I still think we may have to buy Cid a crib so that Rowan can adjust to his converted crib for a while before he gets a real bed, but I'm thrilled that Rowan took to the conversion so well.

I'll keep you all posted on the steps we take to get the two boys in the same room.