Andrea’s Weblog

It’s been almost a week since we started a new bedtime routine. With Elizabeth not really taking afternoon naps anymore, grumpzilla often dominates our evenings.

Until last Sunday, Elizabeth was sleeping in her crib beside our king-sized bed with me, Elena and Frank. Now that Elena’s established herself as a permanent member of the family, and we’ve all adjusted to the new addition, we decided it would be ok to move Elizabeth to her own bed.

The first step was getting her a bed. I looked online and decided that I could make a toddler bed based off of one I saw online. So, the McPherson chicks headed off to Lowes for supplies. Elizabeth selected a color I describe as Barbie pink. About a week later, the bed was completed, dry and in the bedroom. Next time I have to remember to make sure that my projects will actually fit through the door, because (to Frank’s amusement) I had to do some last-minute deconstruction to get it into the house.

But would she really sleep in it? Well, after moving out her crib, she didn’t really have a choice if she wanted any room to sleep, but she did sleep through the night in it, and has every night since! A few nights have been a struggle winding her down for bed in general, but last night we read and she hopped right into her bed and went to sleep. This is quite a step for her!

To accompany the new bed, we’ve started a new bedtime routine which starts with dinner at 6:30, books at 8:00ish and bed by 9:00. To get this to work, Frank has committed to being home by 6:30 for dinner if at all possible. If he can’t make it, dinner still goes on. This also means that I need to have dinner on the table at 6:30 is working so far. (Well, there was one night that I forgot to put dinner in the oven when it was done preheating, but we only lost 15 mins.)