Like so many other poor and hasty decisions we’ve made with our twins, moving to big kid beds was a developmental milestone I was eager to reach, and my poor husband got schlepped along for the ride (i.e. he had to unscrew all the cribs and put together all the beds between the daytime nap and the evening bedtime routine on the day when I suddenly hauled the two boxed toddler beds out of the garage and announced “we’re moving out of the cribs”!)

My unwelcome plan was grounded in practicality; you see, Alex and Simon have always been early risers (the occasional 6 a.m. is a luxury!!!), and they generally wake up in a foul mood, screaming and crying in their cribs.  So by about 20 months, I had decided that if we could only move them to big boy beds, then they could simply get up in the morning and come to us, so that we could all snuggle together happily in Mommy and Daddy’s bed, and the hauling-ourselves-out-of-bed-at-the-crack-of-dawn-to-break our-backs-lifting-guys-out-of-their-crib routine would be over once and for all.  Right?  Well, sort of….

To my credit, I did all the right things, demonstrating great excitement about these fabulous new beds, and rearranging the tiny nursery to make space for the beds in such a way that neither bed would cover the hot air vent, while still allowing for actual access to the bed in order that they might get in without having to climb over one another.  (This was not an easy task given the rather limited size of the bedroom in question!)   Much to my husband’s chagrin, Alex and Simon were heavily involved in “helping” put the new beds together.  And in the end, the boys loved their beds and the freedom this new arrangement afforded them.  The first few days, they spent hours in their room climbing in and out of the beds, reading books in them and arranging their new pillows.  In the evenings, it was a laugh a minute while the boys got in and out of their beds and ran into the hall and back again, while my husband sat fuming downstairs muttering, “I told you they wouldn’t stay in their beds!”

Ahh yes, did I mention our nursery is so small we had removed the door in order to make space for the two cribs/beds?  Right, so, well, there was (is) no door to contain them.  So as well as the free access in and out of bed, this new big bed arrangement also guaranteed the boys free access in and out of the room itself.  Oops. 

I tried to assure my husband that so long as they stayed in the upstairs hall (and not on the stairs or in the bathroom), it would be okay, and after the novelty wore off in a few days, they would just stay in their rooms and eventually in their beds.

After two weeks, the novelty had not worn off.  Further, the boys grew so over-tired from all their running to and fro that they began to get cranky.  Alex in particular would become quite a bully and climb into Simon’s bed while Simon cried and cried.  Then, when Simon tried to climb into Alex’s bed, the latter would jump out of the former’s bed and start screaming at him!  What a nightmare!!!

Since we could not turn back (nor would I have wanted to—as I said, the boys really seemed to enjoy their new beds the look of the room as a result of removing the baby cribs), we had to move forward with “Plan B” in order to manage their shenanigans:  The Baby Gate.  “Locking” the boys into their rooms after one bedtime story and a tuck-in resulted in several days of screaming at the gate to get out.  A low-key return every 5-10 minutes to briefly soothe and reassure was more effective some days than others.  But we did NOT cave in by removing the gate or getting sucked into “just one more story”, and within a week, we were rewarded with a re-established nighttime routine.  Alex and Simon generally stay in their beds, sometimes bringing a book to read with them, and we usually don’t hear from them until the next morning.

Sadly, I must report that after all our efforts, the boys are still waking at roughly 5 a.m. and since the gate is in place, we still have to get out of bed to retrieve them.  Arrgghhh!

Next comes toilet training—I’ve booked off 5 days in late summer to accomplish the task.  We have the video, the book and a Blue’s Clues toilet seat.  It’s going to be so great.  My husband can hardly wait.

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