Transition from Crib to Bed Weekend

This is Sophie's bed. Can you believe that it has no nails? The wood comes from the old beams of houses being demolished in Beijing. This one is made from elm wood, which is a nice hard wood, and coated in linseed oil. At least that's what the carpenter tells me. I believe him though, because there is no "smell" on the bed, and the wood has a nice warm and aged feel. The carpenter is a friend of a friend, and he actually builds these things as a hobby. Talking to him, he is passionate about the "old ways" of chinese carpentry, where no metal or nails are used, and everything is done by hand. The bed is designed (ahem) by the loving parents of Sophie, and the side bar is detachable. so we can take it off later, and it can become a small sofa. We think it will be pretty cool if later on she moves into her own house, and can tell her friends that "hey that sofa you are sitting on was my first bed!". The dimensions are 70 cm by 160cm, and it can bear adult weight, so actually she can use it for a really long time !

Anyway, we put set up the new bed outside her room first, and for all of Friday, we just let her play and jump in it, and (predictably!) she asked to sleep in the bed by Saturday morning. So we made the transition over the weekend.

The results were not altogether surprising. On Saturday, she had her afternoon nap and normal bedtime routine without any problem. We tell her a story, and walk out and close the door, and she falls asleep by herself.

Sunday we were a little overconfident, and we got home late, and by the time we were through with dinner and bath, it was already 8pm (Sophie starts bedtime story by 6:30pm so we had really missed it by a mile). I don't remember it being so difficult to put Sophie to bed in such a long time. It was one hour of stories and crying (when we tried to leave the room) and more soothing before she finally collapsed from sheer exhaustion at 9pm.

The verdict?

Now that she can climb out of her bed and open the door by herself, we just cannot miss the sleep "window" at least for the next couple of weeks until the routine has settled. Having a bed where she is "allowed" to come in and out by herself means that she has alot more freedom, but that also means freedom to get into mischief!

But overall I am glad to be doing this now rather than in 2 months when Kid No. 2 gets here. I have no idea whether she will want to use the small crib again when she sees our second kid getting into it, but we shall just have to see.