Midnight Mayhem

Yesterday E got her first toddler bed. She was so excited that as soon as it was cleaned off and set up she wanted to get in, have blankets put on her and told us to turn out the light and leave. It was 6pm. But she didn't go to sleep, she was just excited and wanted to try it out. We thought, "What the heck? If she's interested, might as well give it a try". We were hoping that by introducing a Big Girl Bed, we could graduate her out of the crib (for good) in a couple months so that R could move into our one-and-only crib.

So, after she got out of the bed and got ready for bed (at her normal bedtime)... we laid her peacefully to bed in her new bed. Fingers crossed, we hoped we wouldn't have a nighttime wanderer on our hands. She did great!... or so we thought. By the time we went to bed, several hours after her, she had only gotten up once use the potty (with assistance... she's not potty trained yet, hopefully soon we'll be more successful than we have been) and to get a diaper change. But at 5:30 am in the morning, during one of R's awakenings for nursing - I discovered that E had the light on in her room. It was pretty quite and she had not come to our room for anything... so maybe she just turned the light on and went back to sleep after playing a bit.

Not quite.

I slowly went to her door, opened it and discovered an almighty mess! She had emptied half of her dresser of clothes and scattered them across the room. All her stuffed animals that were on her bed were on the floor. There was a bag of unopened diapers (but probably wouldn't have been for long if I hadn't come in) in the middle of the room. There was also a few books open and lying on the ground. It looks like at some point (probably in the last hour from when I had found her) E had woken up. She had realized she could turn on the lights and get out of bed fairly easily. So she did. I think she started to read a book or two and got bored. Then it looked as if she might have decided to play and clothe her Mr. Bear Bear with clothes from R drawer (and maybe later would have given him a diaper change too). Then it looks like she had raided her drawer for clothes too and tried on a few. She was fully engaged in all this quiet play in her room when I walked in on her. Highly amusing but not quite what I was hoping for. (Sorry, no pictures, I thoughtthat running back to my room, grabbing a camera and snapping pictures might give her the impressiong that this was "acceptable".)

Well, after a quick pile-pick-up and a minute of rocking from Ian, she went back to bed - but this time in her crib. No repeats, please.

Tonight we're trying the toddler bed again. This time, we turned off the light from the ceiling fan fixture, so she can't get the light on. Hopefully this will curb most playing-in-the-middle-of-the-night desires. But I won't be too surprised if I find her tomorrow morning in the middle of her room fast asleep. Will post again on the outcome (oh, and I'll try to get a couple of pictures in her new toddler bed). Goodnight (so we hope)!