Sleeping Beauty

Our plan all along was to move Olivia into the queen bed we had when she outgrew her crib.  Of course, I planned to keep her in her crib for as long as humanly possible, and since she isn't a climber that probably would have been a long time.  Once we moved, there was already a queen bed in the room she was staying in and adding her crib would have been a tight squeeze.  So we got some bed rails and tried to make the best of it.  She had some good nights, but overall she was not a fan of the really large bed.

The two kids bedrooms are very small in our new place, so a queen wasn't going to fit anyway.  That left us with the choice of purchasing a twin or a toddler bed.  Her crib converts, but obviously we need it for Logan.  We went back and forth on the issue, but ultimately decided that Olivia would probably enjoy a toddler bed better.  We are about to introduce a newborn to the family, so going the route that was going to bring us all some more sleep was worth it.

She LOVES her new bed.  She loves her new room.  She has been sleeping so well since we've been here, and has actually napped multiple times this week!  That after MONTHS of no nap!

The one little problem we have is that she can now get out AND back in her bed.  Luckily, she's not a huge risk taker and tends to follow the rules when it comes to these sort of things.  So if she does get out of bed to get something, she always goes right back and gets in.  The problem was that she was loading her bed with big huge books and all of her stuffed animals, and then there was absolutely no room for her to sleep.  She'd remind us on our way out the door each night that she was not suppose to get out of bed, and as soon as we left she'd get out and start her little collection.  We did allow her to have books and stuffed animals in her bed, but it was never quite enough for her.

After a few weeks of these shenanigans (and a night of waking up at 1:30 in hysterics because Miss Laurie had removed the books from her bed while she was sleeping), we did a little rearranging.  All "big books" have to stay on the shelves downstairs.  That way, if she piles books in her bed, they at least are a smaller size and hopefully gives her room to sleep.  Since implementing this rule she has done pretty well and doesn't even get out of her bed most nights.

As we were going to bed the other night, this is what I saw on our monitor...

It made us laugh, because it pretty much sums her up.

The red arrow is her sleeping--with her hands behind her back?

The green arrow is her pile of blankets that she refuses to sleep under.  It pretty much lives at the bottom of her bed.  I could probably take them off altogether and she'd be happy.  On top of the "hill" are her stuffed animal friends, most tucked in under baby blankets.  She hates to be tucked in or have a blanket on, but one of her number one things to do with her "friends" is to tuck them in to go to sleep.

The blue circle are her books... perfectly stacked right on the edge of her bed.  She will, no doubt, be the kid with the flashlight trying to read under the covers when she is suppose to be sleeping.  I love my little book worm. :)