He is a Big Boy!

Yesterday was the day we were finally going to switch Ryan to his big boy bed. Pat and I spent the morning moving his crib out to the spare room and decorating the "new" big boy room. I am so pleased with how it came out. We then let Ryan in to check it out. He LOVES his monkey on the wall, otherwise known as Curious George. He loves going into the big boy room. Pat and I try to reserve the bedroom as a place for sleeping, but we wanted him to be comfortable so we let him play for a while.

Afterwards, we went to the park to play for a while and then had lunch. When Ryan's nap time came around I was rather nervous. It looked like things were going well. Ryan was just playing with his animals on the bed. That only lasted a few minutes though before he was crying at his door. I didn't want to force it because: a.) he'd have to sleep there that night, as there was no other choice, and b.) I didn't want him to think his room was a punishment. So in the end we let the nap go and went on with our day. Needless to say Ryan was an exhausted boy.

Bedtime came and I brought Ryan into his room. I rocked with him for a few minutes in the chair and put him down. He was so tired that he went right to sleep in the big boy bed without so much as a peep. He did wake up around 12:45 though. I was afraid the big meltdown was coming. I put him back to bed and left. He walked to the door, cried for 1 minute, and then turned around, went to bed and slept until 7:45 a.m. I was so proud of him. Shortly before he got up I told Pat we should go have a celebration with him when he wakes up to kind of say "Good job, you big boy!" Ryan enjoyed our praise.

As I write this now, Ryan is taking his afternoon nap in his big boy bed too. He cried for a couple of minutes, but then he laid himself down and is peacefully asleep. I cannot say how proud I am of Ryan. I'm amazed at how well he is handling the change. I'm happy that he seems to understand that it means sleepy time when we go to the big boy bed. And I'm happy he is liking the big boy room. In fact earlier today he pulled Pat by the hand saying "big boy, big boy" into his room so they could look at the monkey. Ryan loves when Pat makes the monkey sounds. Overall, things are going really well--in fact going better than I thought they would.