Zonked!!!

I think I mentioned previously that for Noah's 2ND birthday, Spencer and I bought him a brand new bed from Ikea (that place is great for kid stuff). We decided to go with a bunk bed- seeing that in another year and a half Ian will need to move out of the crib and into a bed of his own too. We figured a bunk bed would save space, save us money down the road, and provide years of blissful conjoined sleeping opportunities for our two sons. We assembled the bed last Tuesday night (Noah helped Spencer) and he's been sleeping peacefully in it ever since.

We didn't buy a mattress yet to put on the top bunk, and we chose not to add the ladder to the bed yet- we didn't want to encourage Noah to climb up top. We've been hearing horror stories about our friends kids who go for hours, night after night, climbing out of their own beds and running out of their rooms- it's made us question a few times whether or not if we wanted to introduce him to a big boy bed since he's still comfortable in his crib and hasn't yet learned to climb out or open doors; but we decided now is probably the best time to move him out of the crib since Ian's growing like seaweed and has practically outgrown his bassinet and needs the crib to stretch out into. Noah's quite proud of his bed. In fact- I think he's shown it off to every one who's come over to the house since we assembled it. He loves that he has his own big pillow, along with a matching blanket.

Every night, after we say family prayer and give kisses, I take Noah into his room, we turn on his turtle (it's a turtle that magnifies stars and constellations onto the ceiling of his room) and we grab his giraffe and elephant, turn on some soothing sleeping music and I lay down in his bed with him. I'll lay in his bed with him usually for 5 minutes, no more than that- and I don't say a word. Sometimes Noah will sit up in bed and just babble, but as much as I want to laugh or say something I stay quite. Once he's settled I kiss him goodnight and leave the room. Actually, the first night he slept in his bed, he kicked me out! And today when I put him down for a nap, he promptly waved me goodbye- he wanted me out of his bed and room! We haven't once heard a peep from him during the night over the last week. In fact, he hasn't even tried to make an escape either- it's been a blessing considering all the anxiety we had and horror stories parents have shared with us about moving their toddlers into real beds. During nap time, Noah isn't quite so quick to lay down in his bed- eventually though, after 5 or 10 minutes of playing alone with his toys he will go to sleep in bed. It's funny cuz yesterday I passed by his room just after I left him to nap, and I could hear him driving around his remote control truck. I checked in on him 20 minutes later and he was sleeping in bed. For nap time I usually let him pick a book to take in bed with him so he can look at it if he can't fall asleep right away. A couple of days ago when I went to wake him, I found him with 6 books scattered across his bed- he must had gotten bored with just the one.
Now that he's sleeping in a big boy bed, I guess he's adapted to sleeping on just any big soft surface- last night, just minutes before his bedtime while I was on the computer checking emails, I looked back to check on Noah and I found him zonked out on the couch!!! He looked like roadkill!

I still have yet to move Ian into the crib. I want to ensure that Noah gets used to sleeping in his big bed before complicating the picture and adding Ian to sleep in the same room with Noah. I can only pray that Ian is as easily adaptable as his big brother is.
Now that we've gotten the transition to the big bed settled with Noah- I'm going to try and train him on the toilet. He's already began to tell us when he goes poopy and he stands anytime he's in the bath if he has to wee- these are all promising signs that he's ready for toilet training. Any one have any suggestions??? I'm all ears.