Big Boy Bed and One-Month Update

My little Dominic has been sleeping in a big boy bed for about three weeks now.  At the end of October (on Christina's due date, coincidentally) he showed up at our bedroom door around 6am.  He knocked and said "Mama?"  It was rather surprising because it was the first time he opened his bedroom door by himself.  He first climbed out of his crib in August, and then he didn't climb out for a long time.  He had been climbing out again prior to that morning, but was stuck in his room.  We already had a toddler bed on order because we knew it was time to get him out of the crib, and you can see in my previous post that he helped Marcos put it together in early November.

We left the crib in his room for over a week in case he flipped out and couldn't handle sleeping in the new bed.  He has always seemed to enjoy his crib and has spent many happy hours in it, both awake and asleep. The day they built the toddler bed, I asked him if he wanted to take his nap in the crib or the new bed, and he chose the crib.  I asked the same thing at bed time and he climbed right in to the new bed and never looked back.

Picture of his room with two beds:

Crowded, but temporary.

Dominic slept until 6:40am the first night in his new bed - which is totally awesome for him.  We were feeling pretty good.  The next several mornings, he came to our room anywhere from 3:30-4:30am.  We let him get in bed with us several times. It seemed cruel to turn the poor guy away when he could see that baby Christina was in our room.  Big mistake.  He never falls asleep in our bed (though he tried very hard to be still and quiet) and I can't fall asleep when he's there either.  Loss of some precious hours of sleep when Christina was quiet made me realize this had to stop.  I told him as he went to bed one night, that if he wakes up when it's still night time, he has to stay in his bed.  When he came to our room at 4:30am the next morning, Marcos told him it was still night time and took him back to his room.  He cried for a very short period, and then laid in bed for about 30 minutes before returning to our room.  It seemed like a pretty good effort since it must have felt like forever to him.

Now when he gets in bed every night he says something like, "Still night time" and  I say, "Yes, you have to stay in bed if it's still night time."  And ever since, he has not gotten out of bed at all!  We can hear him awake on the monitor and he does his usual chatting and singing.  When he's had enough wake-up time, he shouts for Dada or Marcos. (He has picked up on me shouting across the house for Marcos when I need something).

More pics:

Now the toddler bed is in the crib's old spot.

He still moves all over the place and does not want covers.  He usually starts with his feet up on the rail or headboard.

One day after his nap, I saw him get out and return to bed with a book.

I started this post about a week ago, and now I'm publishing it on Christina's one month birthday!  She is actually napping right now, but her sleep patterns in the last few days are making me think my sleepy baby is gone! On Friday she went a 5 hour stretch of being awake during the day.  That's an eternity for a newborn.  It reminded me of Dominic, except we had the swing (Marcos called it our secret weapon) that could always be counted on to knock him out when he was tired and fighting sleep.  She is ok in the swing sometimes, but usually resists its powers.  But this lack of day sleep gave us a great night last night.  She went down around 9:45pm and woke to eat at 2am and 6am.  And I must say that at 2am, she ate and went right back to sleep.  In other news, she's been getting fussier too, which is to be expected.  It's supposed to peak around 6 weeks and end around 12.  She's still a good eater and soils plenty of diapers.  She has definitely smiled at both me and Marcos, though social smiles are not supposed to start until 6 weeks.  What can I say?  She's a genius.