Adventures in parenting: The Mickey Bed

We are flying through milestones here.

Pulled himself up on the landing and climbed the stairs. NBD.

As I've mentioned, since birth, sleeping has never quite been Dalton's forte. Now climbing - that's an area he has always excelled at. We never bothered with a ton of baby proofing, because he's too smart (#notbiased). Eric taught him to dismount feet first as a baby, and he's been found at shocking heights and places ever since. Parents of small children likely see where this is going.

We knew our time in the crib was limited, and, as selfish parents, we wanted it to last as long as humanly possible. One saving grace for us was that Dalton is on the shorter side. Even that was just a brief obstacle for him though. He started climbing out of the crib when we went in to get him in the morning, but only while we were there. Then he started climbing in and out for funsies during the day randomly. We were still hoping we had until at least the summer in the crib. Then, on Saturday, Royce was napping and Dalton was having quiet time in his crib (once in awhile he will nap, but mainly cry/play/talk to himself). Eric and I were hanging out and then we heard a huge thump, followed by screaming. Eric ran in and Dalton met him at the door - completely fine, just scared. 

At first we were like....ok, let's start looking at beds. I should mention that this was a super late "nap" time, because we'd been busy building at Home Depot and seeing the fish at the aquarium all day. 

FOCUS

Always with the hat.

By the time this all happened, it was like 4:30 pm. I did a little googling, found that the Babies R Us near our house had Mickey beds on sale and in stock and that was that. 

I ran out to pick up the bed. Dalton met me at the door yelling "bring Mickey bed?!?". He was so excited.

Trying to drag it to his room.

Meanwhile, Eric was at Dalton's door, realizing the crib wouldn't fit through the door frame. Off to a great start.

Because I am exceptionally dumb, back when I was pregnant with Dalton and even more clueless than I am now, I put a mini crib on my baby registry. I didn't even know mini cribs existed. I would go over to friend's houses and their cribs would seem so much bigger, but I was always like oh it must be how the room is arranged or the paint color or something. DUMB. It actually worked out that we moved up our second baby plan several years (#impulsebaby) because we needed another crib anyway that was big enough for a toddler. I got a free hand me down crib from a local mom exchange group. Except it was one of those drop side ones that are now right up there with crib bumpers in terms of how much you love your baby (if you own it, you don't). Eric rigged up a system of some sort of tools and duct tape so Dalton couldn't drop the side, and all was well. 

Until now. The plan was: take apart the mini crib that Royce was currently using, move the jerry rigged your parents don't love you hand me down crib into Royce's room as his new crib, and move Dalton into the Mickey bed. Immediately, if not sooner, because it was already bedtime.

Calling in reinforcements

Dalton insisted HE had to examine the directions.

Eventually Eric managed to McGuyver the crib apart, get the pieces to Royce's room, and Royce went to sleep with the original mini crib in the center of the room surrounded by new crib pieces. Dalton's bed was complete around 9pm. He was super excited to check it out. 

Will never sleep without his fishies (sea soother).

For the first night, Eric sat in the rocking chair until Dalton fell asleep, but he pretty much laid down in bed and ignored him. Of course, it was 9pm. He woke up a couple times and cried for a minute but fell back asleep on his own very quickly.

Seeing a giant Mickey on the monitor freaks me out.

It's been a week now, and so far so good - it seemed too easy! I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, truly. After our impulsive switch, I realized our timing was dumb because Eric had 3 basketball games to coach that week, so once the weekend was over I was solo for bedtime until Friday. I won't lie, I was scared. But we just kept his bedtime routine exactly the same, and everything was fine! So even if it goes downhill now once he figures out he actually CAN leave the bed on his own, basketball season is over so I have backup.

I got a little choked up looking around his room Sunday morning. I feel like he was JUST a tiny baby, but his room was now completely void of baby supplies.

Dresser no longer a changing table.

And our little Royce is now 9 months old! Less than 3 months out from his first birthday. Hold me.

COME BACK AND LOVE ME.

And that's the story of the bed.