Our big boy

Cason has made several big changes in the past two days. First, he started waking up from nap dry pretty consistently so on Tuesday I gave him the choice of wearing a diaper or undies for his nap. He chose undies and did great, he has woken up from nap dry the past two days!

The second change we had been planning for awhile. He crawled out of his crib a few times in January so we knew we had better think about switching him to a "big boy bed" aka take the front side off his crib and add the little toddler rail. He surprisingly only crawled out of the crib about 3 times ever but we knew it was time to make the switch anyway and we need him to get used to a real bed before our vacation this summer because he's going to be sleeping on a trundle mattress.

So we've been talking up the big boy bed for a month or so now, and pointing out his friends' beds (because I think ALL of his friends are in big boy beds by this point). I also ordered him this awesome Good Nite Lite. It's a cool nightlight that is programmable. I set his bedtime for 7:29 and so at 7:29 every night, it turns on and glows like a blue moon.



It is a blue moon all night long and then when it's time to wake up (any time I choose, right now I have it turn on at 7:01), it changes to a yellow sun. Cason loves his night light and understood the concept right away. He often wakes up earlier and we hear him just talking and singing to himself. At 7:01, we usually hear "the sun is on!!!" and we go in and get him. It also helps at night, he knows not to ask for another story because his moon is on. I got it because I was hoping it would help him stay in bed (or at least in his room) until his sun comes on when we switched his bed. So far, so good.



Anyway, yesterday morning, we took the front side off his crib and he instantly loved his new bed. We kept finding him in it throughout the day, reading books and playing with his toys. I was worried he wouldn't nap but he surprised us and went right to sleep and slept great! He did great in it last night too. He still sleeps like he's in a crib though (sideways and he flat out refuses a pillow).



The final change is that Cason still sleeps with two pacifiers -- up until yesterday anyway. After we switched his bed, he was playing in it and kept moving his pacifiers around. I asked him "when are you going to throw your pacis away?" He thought about it for a second and said "I'm going to throw my pacis away," and headed for the kitchen trash. I stopped him and explained to him that if he threw them away, we weren't buying any more, he would have to sleep without them. He still went and threw them away.

A little while later, he started talking about going to get new pacis. I told him "No, no more pacis. You're a big boy in a big boy bed and you don't need pacis anymore." That upset him so he dug them out of the trash. Sigh. I washed them off in near boiling water and didn't say anything more about it but later that morning, I found them in the trash again. So I got them out and hid them so he couldn't retrieve them again. He didn't ask for them at nap or at bedtime but he did wake up crying for them at 9pm. We explained again that he was a big boy and didn't need them and tucked him in with his favorite "softy blanket" and he slept great the rest of the night.

I'm glad that I took this picture a few weeks ago. It will be great to show his future girlfriends that he slept with a pink pacifier when he was two!