Big beds

So, neither of the kids is sleeping very well lately. From the beginning, we thought Isaac was going to be a better sleeper than his sister, but he has defied us and is still not sleeping through the night at 9 1/2 months. Although Amelia wasn't a good sleeper during her first six months, after a LOT of sleep training, she became very reliable about sleeping all the way through the night for a good 11 or 12 hours. Since about Christmas though, Amelia has been waking up multiple times a night crying and wanting us to rock her or sing her a lullaby or tuck the covers around her. Sometimes it's only once a night, sometimes it's more like four times, but she's slept all the way through the night fewer than five times since Christmas. What this has meant is that Luke and I are up multiple times each night with both kids, trying to get to them as quickly as possible so they don't wake the other one up.

Doesn't this sound like a great time to introduce new beds into the mix??

Most of Amelia's friends have been out of their cribs and into twin or toddler beds for months now, but we've been waiting. Because Amelia was only 21 months and had never attempted a crib escape when Isaac was born, we decided to keep her where she was and get Isaac his own mini crib. Nine months later, she still seemed happy enough in her crib. My initial thought was to wait until things settled down again with her nighttime sleeping before introducing a new bed, but, more than a month later and no signs of improvement, I wasn't sure when that was going to happen. So, we bit the bullet on Sunday, figuring the nighttime sleep really couldn't get much worse. Isaac is now in Amelia's old crib, and Amelia is in her big girl bed -- a converted version of Isaac's mini crib!

A few nights into it, both kids are sleeping no worse than before (maybe better?), and Amelia is really excited about being able to climb in and out of her own bed. Next step: buy new bedding for Amelia. Right now she's using a 20-something-year-old comforter set that I used as a kid! Do you recognize it, Mom?