He may be our 2nd, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Last night I put Garrett down to sleep in his crib. Like always, he went down wide awake and without a battle. Garrett is and always has been a great sleeper. This morning I woke up to Jackson at my bedside and the sound of Garrett coming from across the living room, who was standing up in his crib smiling saying “Mama! Mama!” He is always happy when he wakes up. He has always trusted that Aaron or I will come and get him. Sometimes when we think he is sleeping longer than normal, we will sneak into his room to check on him and find him peacefully laying in his crib wide awake.

Today I put Garrett down for his afternoon nap. He took his normal LONG nap which I am always extremely grateful for. Jackson and I were in the living room and we heard Garrett make a noise, so we knew he was awake. Jackson walked to Garrett’s closed door and asked me if it was okay to go in. I said yes. Jackson walked into Garrett’s room and in less than 2 seconds Garrett started screaming. In my mind, I didn’t know what to think. What happened? Jackson didn’t have enough time to get to Garrett and hurt him? What is going on?

I immediately run into Garrett’s room and see Garrett on the floor on his hands and knees. It took .02 seconds for everything to register…….What did Jackson do to him?….Did the door knock him over when Jackson walked in?…..WAIT….GARRETT IS SUPPOSED TO BE IN HIS CRIB!!!!….OH MY GOSH! HE CLIMBED & FELL OUT OF HIS CRIB!

Luckily, he wasn’t hurt, but at the moment, he cried. However, something about after that moment, Garrett had changed. He was so hyper, happy, him and Jackson were getting along great, etc. It was literally like he was proud of himself for his accomplishment of climbing out of his crib.

As silly as it sounds, our options sounded crazy to me.

Option A – Convert his bed into a toddler bed. {Are you kidding me? He will only be 18 months on Monday. He can’t be in a toddler bed yet! He will never stay in his bed and when he does go to sleep, he will roll out. Our house is baby proof, but a 18 month old roaming around the house in the middle of the night doesn’t sound 100% safe to me}

Option B – Keep him in his crib and see if he does it again. {He won’t do it again. That had to have given him a good scare. Wait! Given our FEARLESS child a good scare? How will I explain this to his doctor? “Well Doctor, he fell out of his crib yesterday and didn’t break anything, so we put him back in his crib. Now that he broke his neck I will convert it to a toddler bed.”}

Aaron and I decided on option A. Tonight after dinner, we got everything ready to convert his crib. I really wanted too SEE Garrett climb out, but before deciding to convert the crib I knew that asking him to show me how to climb out would only be practice time and encouragement for him. However, now that we were about to convert it, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.

I put Garrett in his crib. He tried to get out by pulling up on the side of the crib and lifting his leg over the front, but he wasn’t able to do it. We then left the room, stood where the hallway meets the living room where we were able to run in if he started climb out, and waited to see action. He kept trying and trying, while I started wondering how in the world he got out earlier. Then I noticed he was wearing thick cargo shorts, something he normally would not sleep in. I pulled his shorts off and he started to climb right out. I grabbed him as he was straddling the top on his crib like a horse.

This gave us 2 options – convert the crib to a toddler bed or make him sleep in bulky pants every night. haha. We converted the bed.

After converting the bed, I looked at Aaron and said “This isn’t going to be easy, but we don’t really have a choice.” Aaron looked at me, laughed, and said “I remember you saying that when we found out you were pregnant and Jackson was only 9 months old!!” Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do!

Now some pictures….lots of pictures!!! I have started using Windows Live Writer which makes uploading pictures so much easier, which results in happy Grandparents. :) (FYI – My camera lens is messed up and I have to have it repaired. I apologize for the quality of these pictures…..so, let’s just focus on the quantity!

This is tonight when we “gave him permission” to climb out -

only he didn’t care to be out of his crib because we were all in his room!

We moved to the hallway/living room and he was suddenly motivated.

He was having some trouble….

so he tried the other side….

Garrett frustrated, Mom confused!I took his shorts off and this was the last picture I got before he was sitting on top of the rail.

Ta-Daa!! That’s all it took and I get to be in this big boy bed!!!

Jackson helping Daddy! They’re becoming pros at this…. Garrett is a tad bit hyper about his bed -

I think his new “Tonka Small but Mighty!” shirt gave him too much confidence today.

Getting ready to go night night - He went to sleep without any issues. That wasn’t my worry though.

Our challenge will be him rolling out of the bed. We will probably have to buy the rail for his bed, but we will see how he does first.

As I typed that last line, Aaron and I heard a door shut. (11:30pm) We assumed it was Jackson going into the bathroom, but when I looked down the hallway, Jackson’s door and the bathroom door were opened. It was Garrett shutting his own door. I guess he didn’t like hearing the TV from the living room. When I went into his room, he was crawling back in bed like no big deal. The good thing is Garrett enjoys his sleep!

30 minutes later…. {small cries} “Mama….Mama….Mama.” I walked in, he points down to his baby that fell off the bed (yes, he has a baby…and a monkey…..and a blankie) and says “Baby….baby…..” I gave him his baby and all is well…for now. I think I am going to be a light sleeper tonight.