The Big Girl Bed Transition

Well, we did it! We officially moved Miss Mabel into Abigail’s bedroom the night we got home from Phoenix(which was last Sunday).

That means, Mabel is now in a big girl bed AND sharing a room with big sister!

We officially finished the remodel of Abigail’s ice cream bedroom back in May, so we’d just been waiting for the right time to finally make the big switch and move the Mabesy in.

We kept putting it off because we’ve had one crazy June and July! June was filled with super late nights with Abigail and Jim’s play, along with a few trips out of town. So, we ended up deciding to wait until after we got back from Phoenix to do it.

Since Jim had taken apart the crib to work on Finn’s room, it kind of forced our hand and made it so we couldn’t change our minds! (probably a good thing….though there may have been a “joke” made later about 1 a.m. crib reassembly…)

So anyway!

Night one:

We got home from Phoenix around 10ish? We finally got the girls settled and in their beds around 10:30, thinking that after a long, traveling day, they’d conk right out.

Except at 12:45 AM Mabel was still going strong, excitedly playing and jumping and yelling in her bed.

They finally fell asleep and were both up and running out of their room by 8AM (meaning, it was 6AM to their little bodies, since we were readjusting back from Arizona time)

Nap one:

She amazingly fell asleep really quickly, unlike at bedtime, so perhaps not having Abigail in the room with her was helpful. Anyway, she was doing so, so good until about an hour in she rolled out of her bed! Boooo. I just happened to see it happen when I checked on her on the monitor and it was completely hilarious/sad. She didn’t get hurt AT ALL she was just like, “what the heck?!” and that was the end of her first big girl bed nap.

Night two:

Up super late again. I think it was maybe 11 this time before she fell asleep?

They were both awake jumping on their beds by 7 am.

Nap two:

She fell asleep in the car on the way to the dentist around 11 am? Girl just can’t hang like big sis. She ended up fighting her nap super hard that afternoon which resulted in me having to wake her up when her nap went late.

Sigh.

We were all starting to feel tired…..

Night three:

Jim was gone. I put the girls to bed “early.” Abigail passed out long before Mabel did- apparently the sleep deal was finally getting to her, lol.

Mabel fell asleep a earlier thanks to me putting them to bed sooner- it was 930 I think?

And after that, the stars have aligned and things are pretty well back to normal!

We put the girls to bed at the same time, which has just been really, really sweet. We read books and pray and sing Jesus Loves Me(Mabel too- MELT MY HEART). This is typically around 830pm.

We use this clock (that I have mentioned multiple, multiple times) and absolutely love it. The rule is “If the light is red, stay in bed” and they both know as soon as it turns green that they can get up. I usually set it for 7:30am and it depends what time she goes down for her nap for what I’ll set her get up from nap time for. When we transitioned Abigail, the rule was just “don’t get out of bed until Mom or Dad come get you” but after about a year of that, we discovered the stoplight clock, and it has been something we have used ever since!

Abigail knows(after we learned the hard way the first morning, lol) that if she wakes up, and the light is green, and Mabel is still asleep, to quietly get up and leave the room and let her keep sleeping. And there isn’t much cuter than Mabel’s little voice excitedly shouting through the monitor, “green! green!” when she wakes up and realizes she can get up.

She is still using her one remaining pink paci and sleeps with her musical giraffe and her two “hop hops” (they’re bunny beanie babies). I moved the sound machine into their room, so they both sleep with that on, and we have a video monitor that we can talk through if we need to tell them something. I.e, LAY DOWN.

So, overall, it has been a great move and decision. Both girls have done so great. It was a tiring first few days for all of us, but we seemed to get over that hump pretty quickly and now it’s just so fun to see them in their room together.

I feel like already I’ve seen them bond and enjoy each other in new ways. They’re playing together more and talking to each other more and it’s just really sweet to see. I’m so excited for them to get to have each other to spend their days (and now nights!) together with for years to come.

Oh! And in case you were wondering, Abigail now takes her afternoon “quiet time” in the sun room instead of her bedroom. I just set the timer for an hour on the microwave and she quietly colors/crafts/plays in there. It has been working pretty well! Though, once school starts back up, that might end up being time to work on school that didn’t get finished before lunch. But we’ll see how it goes. We all really need/enjoy that quiet time!