In Which I Jinx Soren's First Night in His New Bed...

...by saying that everything is going perfectly so far. Chris and I got Soren a toddler bed last week, and set it up today! Yes, our huge 2-year-old was still sleeping in a crib as of this afternoon, but he wasn't climbing out, so we were happy with its toddler-imprisoning capabilities. However, we were finally persuaded to get him into a big boy bed due to The Bouncing.

Ever since he was about a year old, when we read that toddlers will often bang their heads against things to soothe themselves and then congratulated ourselves for not having a weird kid like that, Soren has banged his head against things to soothe himself. More accurately, he sits on the couch and repeatedly bounces his head against the back cushions. In his crib, he doesn't bang his head against the railing (he has that much sense), but sits against the rails and bounces his back against them, producing a headache-inducing banging sound. And gradually working the crib's screws loose. Anyway, if he's having a restless night, the banging can go on for an hour at a time, in several sessions. When you're trying to sleep, or if you happen to be sitting in the room directly under his, it's really annoying, as soothing as it must be for our little weirdo.

In order to build positive toddler bed spin among our constituency, we took Soren to pick out some sheets the other night; you will be surprised to learn that he chose Cars sheets. He was really into it -- he carried the sheet set all through the store, out to the car, and into the house. He protested a little when it came time to dismantle the crib and put the new bed in, but once it was all done, he was pretty excited (not necessarily about sleeping, but definitely about carrying his new pillow around and jumping on it). Once bedtime rolled around, we tried to tuck him in (he declined, preferring to sleep on top of the blankets), said good night, and closed the door... and he stayed in bed. And, judging from the fact that it's been quiet up there for three hours, he is sleeping. In the bed. Yay!!!! No drama!!!! So far, anyway. We'll see what happens when he decides it's time to get up -- he's usually happy to sleep until a decent hour, but he hasn't, until now, been able to choose to get out of bed and play at 5 AM. We'll see!