… a few chicken tenders, a Caesar salad, and some mac and cheese, over three separate trips to IKEA. That’s what it took to get Zoe’s big girl bed. And two trips to Target and three trips to different mattress stores.
We spent all day Saturday assembling it (with a lunch trip to IKEA stuck in the middle of the day.) We knew we weren’t going to pressure Zoe into sleeping in it, and kept her crib set up in her room. However, all day we talked about how exciting her big girl bed is and how cozy it would be to sleep in it. Each time we mentioned it she’d ask it BubBub could sleep in it too. After reassuring her that BubBub was going to sleep where ever slept, Zoe got excited.
That first night, after bath and story time we laid her down in her bed and she immediately started screaming and pointing to her crib. We calmed her down and put her in her crib, but she cried again pointing to her bed. We put her in her bed, cuddled with her and kept reassuring her that it was her choice. She whimpered for a few minutes after we left the room, but then fell asleep for the night. We think she was probably a little scared at the beginning, but then regretting giving up so easily and wanted to give it another shot.
She cried for a few moments at her next nap, but now goes down easily with no problem. I had hoped that the process of switching over would take less than three months, but it only took one night. And now we have an empty crib for the baby!
