Operation Bunk Bed

After much anticipation, our latest project arrived mid-afternoon last Friday.  Zach watched with eager expectation as the delivery-men assembled it, which led me to believe that at least one of our boys would make the transition well.

Transitioning Wesley out of his crib and into a big boy bed was not a decision we made lightly. In addition to the normal concern that parents have of whether or not their child will stay in bed, we were also concerned with Wesley's general safety.  Wesley still doesn't grasp the general concepts of fear or safety, which means that falling head first over the guardrail, or not watching placement of his body and sitting down off of the bed, resulting in falling into the ladder, are not events that would surprise us in the least.

Also, unlike most children who transition from a crib to a bed, Wesley does not understand what is happening to him or why.  This is not an exciting event for him where he gets to be a big boy and share a room with his brother.  He is unaware of why we would ever remove him from the comfortable confines of his crib.  Over the past two and a half years, his crib has become his comfort zone, where he can unwind after a long day of sensory overstimulation. And now, without any warning, his place of comfort has been removed.

As a result, we decided to take it slow.  Wesley is still sleeping overnight in his crib, while we use nap time to train him to sleep in his bed.  In the meantime, Zach is napping in our room and enjoying every moment of sleeping on the top bunk at night.  To help with the transition, during nap time we lay down on the floor next to the bunk bed to monitor Wesley and make sure he doesn't stand up, jump while holding onto the guard rail, climb out of bed, or fall in some way, shape or form.  Until today, one of us also stayed in his room as he slept, to make sure he did not stand up or climb out of bed after waking up.  After three days of him waking up and just sitting up and crying until we retrieved him from his bed, I put the baby monitor in their room today and am ready to make a run for it as soon as I hear him cry out.

So far the transition has gone much better than we expected.  Below is the breakdown of our experience so far:

Day 1:  Wesley learns that Mama means business!  He cried for thirty minutes while sitting, sucking his thumb, and holding his comfort burp cloth.  Then, he lay down and fell asleep. After forty-five minutes, he bumped into his guard rail, woke up, and cried for another twenty minutes before Mama determined he was not going to fall asleep again and just got him up. Wesley never attempted to get out of the bed on his own.  Overall, we considered day 1 a success.

Day 2:  Wesley finds Daddy's soft spot.  After crying for an hour, Wesley broke Daddy's heart, and Daddy got him up.

Day 3:  Wesley naps spectacularly!  Wesley cried for ten minutes or so, and then lay down and slept for two hours.  Upon waking up, he sat up, sucked his thumb, cried, and waited for me to get him up.

Day 4:  Wesley learns that when Mama says "no", she means it!  Wesley insisted on jumping while holding on to his guardrail and standing up to poke at the posts on the bunk bed.  For thirty minutes, he would stand up, I would say "no", lay him back down again, and then he would stand up again.  Finally, he was so frustrated with me that he cried angrily, lay down to suck his thumb and comfort himself, and fell asleep.  Again, he slept for two hours and sat up and cried for me when he woke up.  This time though, he stood up next to the rail when I went to pull him out of bed.  We'll have to work on that.

Day 5:  Exhaustion leads to success!  We got home from a doctor's appointment at three o'clock, so after one reminder to not jump, Wesley lay down, sucked his thumb, and fell asleep.  He did learn, though, that if you lie perpendicular to the bed rail with your legs up in the air and then roll over to where the bed rail ends, it is very difficult to get back on the bed again.  Thankfully he figured it out himself without my needing to get involved.  So far, two-and-a-half hours later, he's still sleeping....

While we still have a long way to go and a lot of things to work out before we'll be ready to transition Wesley to the bed overnight, we are currently very encouraged with how well the transition is going.