It’s been a little more than a week since we switched Simon from his crib to a bed. He’ll be three in six weeks and he weighs somewhere around 40 lbs, so I’m thinking it was about time.
You might have noticed it’s not so much a bed as a mattress on the floor. We’re working on that. The bed frame has been ordered (no bunk beds for now) but in the interim, he’s thrilled just to be in a close facsimilie of a ‘big boy’ bed. And the bedding isn’t even a close match to Tristan’s because when I bought it on sale seven months ago, it was supposed to go in the purple and yellow room next door.
By the time we finally got around to boosting Simon from his crib, there was no longer any need for the boys to share a room, but we had done such a fine job of selling the idea of room sharing that we couldn’t have convinced them otherwise.
They’ve been surprisingly good. One night, Granny came over to babysit and there was giggling and shenanigans until well after she left after 9 pm. Other than that, though, they’ve both been great about settling in and actually going to sleep.
Even more surprising, Simon is actually staying in his bed. Those of you who have known me for a while will remember Tristan’s nighttime wanderings when we liberated him from his crib at the tender age of 21 months. He was so incorrigible in his midnight-to-three a.m. wandering and I was so sleep deprived and exhausted (still working full-time, eight months pregnant, in December) that one night I checked that the gate to the stairs was in place and locked my bedroom door to keep him out. The next morning, I woke up to find him curled up fast asleep against the door. It was one of my worst bad-mommy moments and I can still taste the bitter guilt three years later.
That’s why I’ve been nothing short of astonished (relieved, but astonished) at how easily Simon has made the transition that I’ve been dreading for three years. The only hiccup came this past Saturday night, on the one-week anniversary of his liberation from baby-jail. On my way to bed, I checked in as usual to kiss both boys goodnight. Tristan was snoring lightly, and when I turned to look at Simon, the half-smile on my face faded in confusion.
Simon’s bed was empty, and we hadn’t heard a peep from him. I checked his crib, thinking maybe he had crawled back into it, but it was empty, too. I finally found him deeply asleep smack in the middle of my bed, duvet pulled comfortably up to his chin.
I laughed and laughed and laughed. I was laughing so hard I could barely call Beloved to come and see, and was still snickering when I finally crawled under the – still warm! – covers myself after putting Simon back in his own bed.
When I asked him the next morning why he had slept in my bed instead of his own, he answered logically, “Because I just did, Mummy.”
Tristan was my well-sleeping infant. We had to wake him up every three hours to feed him when he was a newborn. Simon, by contrast, didn’t sleep a full six hours straight until until well after I went back to work, sometime around 14 or 16 months. As toddlers, they have switched places and Tristan is restless through the night where Simon falls asleep in minutes and stays that way.
Funny how that happens.
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