Big Boy Bed

Camden is growing up SO fast!  I feel like we just brought him home from the hospital and here we are preparing to do that with Baby #2 in just a few short months!  Eeek!  Camden is totally embracing his "big brother" role so far.  He loves to kiss and hug my belly.  He talks about "Baby" all the time.  Today he brought his little doll over to me and said we needed to change his diaper.  We spent the next ten minutes pretending to change his doll, nurse him and burp him and Camden completely involved himself in the pretend play.  It's pretty cute to see him starting to ready himself for this big change.  I'm sure when it actually happens it isn't going to be such a smooth transition, but the fact that he's preparing himself now is great!

Just last week we decided to start the process of transferring Camden to a toddler bed.  We are moving him into a different room, in a different bed, and want the transition to be complete long before our second child comes along and "kicks" Camden out of his current room and crib.  We are home for a couple weeks with no overnights away and thought it would be a good time to start seeing how he did in a big boy bed.  We found a beautiful wooden bed at a yard sale in New London (at a big, gorgeous house where you know they only buy the best and take good care of their belongings) and had it set up in this second bedroom for a few weeks now.  Camden enjoyed reading books on it, and got used to climbing on and off, but we weren't going to push the sleep thing just yet.  Well, last week we felt like we were ready.  We rocked with him in the rocking chair like we always do and when he was sleepy we plopped him down in the bed (with a pillow and blanket and everything!) and he slept for a solid 90 minute nap!  He did that twice that day, so we figured we would try it overnight as well!  We stuck with our normal bedtime routine and Camden slept soundly in his toddler bed until morning!!  We were (and continue to be) a bit shocked!  When he wakes up in the morning or after a nap, he sits on the bed and waits for us to come in and get him.  He's never climbed out or tried to walk into our room or anything!  AND, I have to say, I think he's sleeping better now!  Morning wake-ups have been pushed closer to 5:30/6:00 instead of the typical 4:30 pattern he had been in and he's very rarely waking up at night.  Now, he points to the crib in his old room and say's "Baby"...he knows it's not his bed anymore!

We are so proud of our little guy and so thankful that he's transitioning well during this time!  Let's all just keep our fingers crossed that the positive trend continues!