Chad's big boy bed

Way back in December, Chad learned to launch himself out of his crib. We didn't trust him to have free reign over his bedroom at night, so we took the bottom of the crib out, put the mattress on the floor, and used the frame of the crib to make him a crib cage. 

 This is him in the crib cage a few weeks ago.  Note the teeth marks on the crib.

He didn't mind the crib cage, but it was a pain to get him in and out. And it looked kind of ghetto.

He got an inflatable travel toddler bed for Christmas, so one weekend on a whim, I blew it up and Chad got super excited.  We asked if he wanted to sleep in it, and he very much wanted to.

There were bumpers, yet he still ended up on the floor a couple of times that night. But he still wanted to use it over the crib, and to our surprise, he was very good about not getting out of it.  In the mornings he would wake up, and sometimes even sit and play with his Max and Scout, but he wouldn't get out of the bed and roam until someone came in to get him.  There was only one night when I heard some odd noises and found him out of bed, repeatedly closing his closet door.  He told me "It's stuck!" but I explained it could wait until morning and he got back into bed.

Last week I mentioned to a co-worker that we were going to have to go toddler bed shopping over the weekend, and he said he had a toddler bed that he was going to get rid of, and we could have it.  Score!  

Saturday we took the crib apart, and he had one night with just the mattress on the floor.  It didn't go so well.

Losing his pants during a nap on the floor.

We were very worried about how things would go when the bed showed up.

This is Chad's Face of Concern.

On Easter the bed came over, and Chad knew it was for him right away.  He kept saying, "My bed!  My bed!"  He didn't want to change his clothes, or brush his teeth at bedtime- he just wanted to get in the bed.

And we had some setbacks:

But once I moved his legs back in, they stayed put until morning.

And we have a happy Chad.