Emily’s Toddler Bed

I didn’t get much sleep Emily’s first year of life. I’m pretty sure that is quite normal, but now that she is sleeping through the night I have become very protective of our routines. I love the ease we’ve had at bedtimes and nap times for the last handful of months. Because of this wonderful blessing, we were planning on keeping her in the pack n play until she absolutely could not fit any more.

Then pregnancy happened and the unusual but not unheard side effect of my pelvic bone separating happened at 20 weeks.  Out of necessity we decided putting Emily in a toddler bed was a really good idea.  I looked up a few plans, showed them to Andrew, and then we put our heads together and figured out what we really wanted out of a toddler bed.  Our requirements: high enough off the ground we could use the under bed space as storage; low enough to the ground Emily could get on it herself; easy to disassemble and store.

Andrew finished his thesis and then spent the following week creating detailed plans, complete with a 3D model, and shopping list. The next week was spent in the shop building this beautiful and functional masterpiece.  Emily knew he was working on it and would talk during the day about dad being at school making her bed. He brought home the headboard and the footboard on Tuesday:

On Friday the rest of the bed came home and he and Emily did the final assembly together.  He was back to school on Monday (yesterday) and I am so grateful he was willing to spend his two precious weeks off building this for us.  Actually we both would have liked to have built it together, but until we have a wood shop of our own (or a garage) to work in while children are sleeping, I’m grateful for the time he spends making our ideas reality.

Emily testing out her new bed for the very first time:

Sleeping at night has gone really well. She’s gone to bed at the same time and gotten out of her room at the same time as she did when her crib was in there. Andrew has been checking on her and she sleeps in all sorts of funny positions. This morning she was sleeping on the floor at the foot of her bed. Yesterday she took a nap on the floor by the door. A few times we’ve caught her with her feet at the head of the bed.  She also plays for about an hour during the day before actually taking her nap.  I think she enjoys the alone time in her room.  Emily after her very first night in bed:

Before we jumped into this new world of toddler bed sleeping, I took a few pictures to remember what her room has been like for the last year. We have lots of good memories in there and it is a little sad to see the changes, even though they are good and exciting.

Emily loves looking at these three pictures as she is going to sleep or waking up in the morning. We hear her talking about them to herself and she also brings them up when we are talking about temples, or our family, or Jesus.

Here is a flashback from October 2014 when I first put the pictures up:

With the new set up, we discovered there will be plenty of room for two!