Big Boy Bed Transition!

I went back and forth a million times wondering "should I leave Cory in his crib until after baby comes or switch him before baby comes".  Not sure why it was a big deal to me but I guess I just wanted it to be a smooth transition and I have heard that once toddlers get that freedom, many of them go from sleeping great to getting up out of their beds and roaming into the parents room or playing or just not sleeping as well.  Cory slept wonderfully in his crib after he was a bit over a year old.  When I stopped nursing him at night he changed from a not so great sleeper to a great sleeper who always goes down between 8 or 8:30pm and wakes between 6:30 or 7am.  I know that's not sleeping-in much but I am an early bird anyway so it doesn't bother me as long as I am getting solid sleep at night.  Occasionally he will sleep until 7:30 or 8am if he is really tired or had a super busy day or went to bed later.  So in a way I was dreading changing him and he has never tried to climb out of the crib so I had my mind pretty set that I'd wait until he is climbing out or just see how it goes after he turns 3 and if he wants to pick out a bed I would let him.  Although my main reason to switch him now was that I will have the baby getting up at different hours in the night and if I switch Cory after the baby comes, then would I have 2 getting up in the night and what if they need me at the same time or what if they get up at different hours so I get no sleep.  I figured as he is getting taller he may figure out that he could climb out of his crib so did I want to deal with the bed situation after baby is here or do it now. 

Well anyway, after thinking it through I went on and switched him about 3 weeks ago and he has impressed me and surprised me yet again.  It shouldn't have since he has done so well with every other milestone just like he impressed me with potty training within pretty much 2 weeks of me trying and never has accidents anymore so I am just an overly proud Momma of the things he picks up so quickly ;)  John put the bed together a few weeks ago and Cory wanted to start sleeping in his big boy bed and has slept just the same as in his crib. There have only been a time or two that he has gotten out after I laid him down but typically I just lay him down and he stays in his bed and sleeps solid until the morning.  Sometimes when he wakes up he just calls my name like he did in the crib and I go to get him even though he has the freedom now to get out of bed himself.  Sometimes he does get out of bed when he wakes up in the mornings and opens his door and starts saying "Mommy".  I use his monitor still since our bedroom is on the other side of the house but it has been the smoothest transition I could have imagined which makes me so happy!  Okay so now time to see the cool bed he got.  I wanted to skip the toddler bed for several reasons but mainly because I didn't want him to have to transition beds again in a couple years when he's outgrown the toddler bed so I went on and went with a twin bed.  I was going to just get him a basic bed and add a guardrail to it but then I found this bed on a great deal and got it when it went half off the original price and I knew this was the one!  I know some may think beds should just be for sleeping and not playing but as long as he loves his bed and wants to sleep in it, I thought the bed with the slide would be a totally awesome bed for a kid!   It is a twin loft bed but it isn't super high and it has a ladder and the slide which is detachable so it is a bed he will be able to grow with and use for many many years.  If he outgrows the slide part we will just take it off.  There is also a fort underneath the bed where you can play, store toys and the fabric curtain can be taken off as well if we want to turn it into a more grown up bed as he gets bigger but I don't see him outgrowing this anytime soon!  It fits good in his room since he really didn't have a ton of furniture and he won't need a dressor or anything else since his closet is so big.  The slide and back of the bed are against the wall so it fits nicely in the corner and once we break down his crib soon we will have lots more space because we will move the train set to the other side which is currently in the center of the room!

This first photo is from the website I got it from (not Cory's actual room)

momsbunkhouse.com

 

And here is the excited boy in his room with his new bed that he loves!

 

 

And here he is going down the slide:

 

 

Here he is playing in his "clubhouse" under the bed

 

 

I really could go on and on about this bed and how much we love it but I will just say that I don't think he or I could be more pleased.  He loved it at first sight and has gone down the slide a ton and always wants to play in the clubhouse.  And what makes this bed even sweeter is that he is sleeping so wonderfully that it was like we didn't even change anything at night so we have kept the same routine so I am thankful no random wake up calls in the middle of the night from a toddler who has access to get out of bed now.  Hopefully though my bragging on him won't jinx me but so far so good :)  

 

 

 

Nursery Update part 2 - Painting stripes!

So this won't be a tutorial of how to paint stripes just because I am being lazy right now and not wanting to write out the details but all I did was google search "how to paint stripes on the wall" and picked the tutorial that I thought seemed easiest to me and I followed the steps.  I will do a follow up with a before/after post because while I am typing this post my wonderful hubby is in the room painting the stripes ;)  I am just so anxious and excited to pull off the tape and see how it turns out! John put down the base color which was just Behr's powdered snow and the stripes will be Behr's natural gray.  This room started off a dark pink color(from previous owners) which I really didnt like even if I were to have had a girl because it made the room feel so small and the color was just overwhelmingly pink.  So I am sooo happy to be getting this done now even though we have lived here for nearly 3 years...feels so great to be able to use this space that has been wasted for so long.  We pretty much used the spare room as a room to pile all of our junk in or stuff that didn't have a place to go so I have done lots and lots of purging things we dont use and just keeping what we need and it feels great.  Having too much "stuff" just weighs me down sometimes and I prefer openess and less clutter in this 1800 square feet humble abode of ours!  My mentality has truly changed in a lot of ways over the years and I do feel for me "less is best"!  I would much prefer a few things I love and use often then a bunch of stuff that rarely serves a purpose or gets touched.  If I haven't used it since we have lived in this house it either got tossed in the trash or boxed for goodwill/yardsale.  Can't wait to go through the entire house little by little and purdge!

 

Here I am taping off the stripes...I wanted to help somehow since John is doing all the painting so I did the measuring and taping. 

 

 

 

 

I had the best & cutest little helper as well (below)! 

 

So more to come next post with after pictures.  I often forget to take any before pictures but I will have to look for one with the pink on the wall. 

 

Lastly I got all of the clothes organized for the most part.  I hung up the current clothes he will be wearing and boxed up 4 boxes of different size groups and just taped on labels that I made on the computer and laminated and the boxes are on the top shelf in his closet. 

 

 

Lastly here I am at 32 weeks along taken last week. I didn't do an update but not much has changed other than my weight going up!

 

Nursery Part 1 - Theme Grey and Yellow nursery!

I don't think I have posted anything on the nursery yet except that the colors were going to be grey and yellow, so I wanted to give a sneak peak of a few things that I have bought so far and just do an initial post on the progress.  First I must say this has been so fun to pick out everything in my "dream" nursery and I already know I am going to love spending lots of time in this room!  With Cory's nursery, though I loved the monkeys and the fun jungle theme, I didn't actually pick it out since the jungle themed crib set was passed down to me from my sister, so I added some monkey wall decals and anything that I added to the room revolved around what we had already so there really wasn't much planning I had to do to get it ready.  With this one I started from scratch and got to pick out all of my favorite things and the color scheme and make it a modern but playful nursery.  It is no where near complete since John just got the first coat of paint down last weekend and another coat will need to be put on this weekend, then we will paint the light grey stripes the following weekend.  But after that I will get to start putting everything in it's place and organizing and John is also going to paint the furniture so that will be done in the upcoming weeks when the weather gets a little warmer.  Here are a few purchases I have made so far for the room.  We already had all the furniture so that was nice to not have to buy it, only thing is it is all oak colored so we will be painting it to match more with this room.

 

1.  The bedding "Not a Peep" (pic via Land of Nod): 

I bought this set and added a grey zig zag bumber from amazon to go with it since the Land of Nod doesn't sell bumpers.  I know they aren't recommended now but I was always a fan of having a bumper with Cory so his little legs and arms would get stuck in between the crib slats.  I also got the matching changing pad cover in yellow with white polka dots.

 

2. The Rocker chair (via amazon) 

Though I had a glider passed down to me from my sister it was in pretty bad shape so we are just going to sell it for cheap or give it to goodwill.  I found this one and liked the modern look and it is comfortable to sit in though it doesn't look like it would be ;) 

 

 

3.  Floor pouf (via target)  Instead of having an ottoman I got this floor pouf to prop my feet up on and to have something that could be used to sit on as well in the room.

 

4.  Giraffe (via amazon)  Of course we can't forgot the big giraffe that will be in the corner of the room;)  The room will have birds/giraffes in the mix. 

 

5.  The Sungabunny swing (via amazon)  Lastly I purchased this snugabunny swing.  I had actually borrowed a swing from my sister's friend when I had Cory and she needed it back when she got pregnant so I just picked out this one since it had mostly all postive reviews and I like how you can plug it into the wall instead of it only running off batteries.  I think it looks super comfy for Cameron to spend time in! 

 

 

After going through all my stuff from Cory, the only things on my 'items needed' list was a swing, a baby carrier and a monitor.  I already got the swing and will pick up a cheap monitor and my Mom is getting me the baby carrier.  I had a monitor for Cory but will pass that one on to Cameron so I actually just want a super cheap one to keep in Cory's room as well since I still like to hear when he wakes and he calls for me.  As for the baby carrier I have a baby bjorn but when I used it with Cory, it wasn't comfortable for me to wear for long and made my back and shoulders hurt so I thought especially now with having 2 kids I will be using the carrier a lot when I take them out places so I wanted it to be a good one.  So many people have said that the best baby purchase ever was their ergobaby carrier so my Mom got me this organic one at target and I absolutely love it and am so impressed by it already!  I can tell just by trying it on that it is going to have lots of lower back support and won't put the strain on my shoulders so I am looking forward to getting lots of use out of it and to still be able to stay active and do lots of outdoor activities with Cameron and Cory. It can be worn in the front when they are small or the back when baby gets older.  I could even carry Cory in it now on my back since it holds up to 45 pounds.  I love it and wish I had it with Cory when he was younger too and we could have done more family hiking and outdoorsy stuff without our backs hurting. 

 

I feel like we have everything else needed which is great...like stroller, high chair, clothes, bouncer, playtime activity items, breast pump, etc. other than buying the neccessities like diapers/wipes/diaper cream we should be good to go!  Will post more nursery updates as we get stuff done! 

 



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