Big girl bed

When it comes to my children's sleeping arrangements, my philosophy has always been to keep them in a cot as long as possible. Since Lily still wears a sleeping bag to bed, she has never been able to climb out of the cot and shows no inclination to have it any other way. However, my rapidly expanding abdomen has finally made it necessary for us to approach the 'big girl bed' issue. I have been finding it increasingly difficult to put her in her cot and I effectively have to drop her the last few centimetres now. On the grounds that Lily is currently waking up at night at the moment anyway, I thought I may as well deal with any other sleep issues at the same time and get it out of the way with. Mark's parents were visiting today, so my father-in-law converted Lily's cot into a toddler bed for us while they were here.

Lily is a very fidgety sleeper, so when Mark's parents took the Podlings to the ball pool for a couple of hours this afternoon, we popped out to Mothercare and bought a bed guard. It actually covers about two thirds of the length of her bed, so I'm hoping that in the dark she'll just find it too difficult to get out of bed! Wishful thinking, no doubt!

Lily's quilt was handmade by my mum. Lily calls it her "tuck-ups"

As you can tell from the pictures, Lily is thrilled with her big girl bed. She loves the fact that she can get on and off it herself, though I'm hoping she won't indulge in this new-found freedom at three in the morning! We skipped her nap today, so combined with the exercise she had at the ball pool this afternoon she was pretty tired at bedtime and settled down without a peep. Whether this will happen every night remains to be seen! As to how she'll be in the night...well, I'll let you know!

Tom loves being able to climb on Lily's bed too and wanted in on the action!