The Grout Family: To Infinity and Beyond For Strummer's Sleeping!

So - The little guy has been in his bed for QUITE awhile - Just haven't posted about it! So here we go!

On Friday - October 29, 2010 we had someone come visit Brad and I at 1:45 in the morning. It was our little guy who just turned 2! We were first - SHOCKED that he was downstairs (considering he was supposed to be in his crib), and second - HOW DID HE GET OUT?

So - apparently - IN THE DARK - minus a small night light - Strummer somehow climbed out of his crib, walked from the kids bedroom - to the playroom - went down the stairs, opened up the bookcase door and came into our room. I honestly can't remember if the lights were on or not upstairs - he knows how to turn the light on....but hey - it was EARLY!

After a restless rest night (decided to just keep him in our bed - didn't sleep that much), we decided it was time to move Strummer into his big boy bed!

Thankfully a few months earlier, one of Brad's co-worker's was cleaning out her house and had a twin bed and box-spring that was barely used and was curious if we wanted it. The mattresses had been sitting in the playroom - and we decided to wait to transition him until we needed to.

On Saturday morning - Daddy and Strummer went out to pick bedding for his new bed!! When they came home - I was very curious on what Strummer decided on!!! He picked out Toy Story bedding!!! He's never shown extreme interest in a particular character - but now he's on a Toy Story Craze!! (He has since added a Buzz Lightyear action figure, RC and Woody and the first Toy Story movie to the things that he owns)

Happy Big Boy!

The first day was - interesting - it took a LONG time for him to take a nap - when Brad took him up - he was pretty upset and came right down. So - I took him up - we laid in his bed - he seemed like he would fall asleep - i put up the gate - and went downstairs. Listened to him in the monitor - for awhile - and he finally fell asleep! When he woke up - we found he decided to um....redecorate.

Made the gate more colorful

A sampling of what he did the walls

My magic eraser after trying to clean about 1/2 of it

We have a cabinet up in the kids' room - it has a child lock on it - Strummer can however get into it. He emptied everything out of it (cards, papers, stickers, etc), found a package of sidewalk chalk (which by the way was shrink-wrapped) - somehow opened it (still not sure how he did that), and decorated the walls of the room! He also completely emptied his bookcase and the books were everywhere!

Night time was a little better - we still had to go upstairs w/him and stay for at least a 1/2 hour - I laid in his bed w/him - we turned on his constellation turtle, turned on his soothing sounds machine and once he had fallen asleep - i quietly left. Strummer realized I left - started crying, but fell asleep w/in 10 min. (and thankfully didn't wake up his sister)

The 2nd day was even better and by Monday - he was sleeping during his nap time and sleeping at night! Thank goodness, because I was worried for Mischa coming on Wednesday and that he wouldn't go down for a nap!!

Now - Strummer LOVES his bed!! He likes snuggling up, getting under the covers, jumping on his bed and having sister playing w/him on his bed! There have even been times when he wouldn't fall asleep right away for his nap - and then when I would go up and get Edyn and he would be fast asleep under his covers!