Transitioning to Twins: The Toddler Bed

As the big sister, one of Scarlett's rites of passage had to be moving out of the crib. I had every intention of just moving her to a regular twin bed immediately. I didn't want to buy a toddler bed and then have to buy a twin bed later. It just didn't make sense to me. But then someone was selling a toddler bed -- with the mattress! -- on our base classifieds page for $25 and we were sold.

It caught us off guard. We planned on buying a bed over the summer, but this came available sooner than we anticipated, so we jumped on it. We initially thought we would just leave it in the garage until we were ready to move Scarlett. Then our friends gave us some great advice. They moved their toddler bed into their son's room with his crib in there, and let him choose for a few weeks which to sleep in. After about a month he was consistently choosing the bed and that's when they moved the crib out.

We decided to try it. Todd unloaded the bed into the garage and we prepared to clear some space in her room. But once Scarlett saw the little bed sitting in the garage she was immediately hooked. She started crawling all over it, and we were shocked. That night she chose the toddler bed and never went back.

There were some adjustments along the way. The first night we went in to check on her and the entire lower half of her body was falling off the bed. And this is how we discovered her every morning and after every nap for the first couple of weeks. She would grab all the toys she could reach and pull them into bed with her to sleep. I have no idea how this is comfortable.

And then she surprised us again. After sleeping in a pack and play for a couple nights at Grandma's house, she'd had enough. Much to our surprise she insisted on sleeping on the queen bed in the room she stays in. I was convinced she'd fall of the bed, but that has yet to happen. And just like that, cribs of all kinds are done. And just like that, she's all grown up.