Bubbye Crib

Linny napping in the crib, at about age two

Over five years ago, we trekked out to Ikea & bought a lovely little birch crib & mattress, outfitting it with mattress protectors, soft sheets, a fluffy duvet, & brightly coloured duvet cover & pillowcase for the flat little pillow. Once Linnaeus was about five months old, when he was nearly as long as the bassinet, we moved him into the crib in his little room. He slept in it most nights, spending part of many nights with us in our bed.

When he was two we decided to take the side off to convert it to a toddler bed & he slept in that for a few months until we realized he was nearly as long as the crib. Bronte was due in a few months, so we moved the crib to the other side of the bedroom & found Linny a longer toddler bed, a birch one in the same line from Ikea.

B waking L up in his crib turned toddler bed

The months went by after Bronte arrived & she too grew out of the bassinet, but bedsharing was easier for us this time around. She breastfed several times during the night then, so it made sense to just roll over rather than get up & go to another room to feed her.

Now that B is almost two years old, she's still in our bed, still nursing a couple times between when she sleeps & when we get up. The time she feeds just as I come to bed isn't a big deal, but when she wakes me up at dawn, then an hour later, depriving me of most of my last two hours of sleep, I get pretty cranky. I've started resenting having her in there & really want to have the bed for just Oli & I.

I think she'll probably night wean if she's in another room because it won't be convenient for her to just roll over & demand "noms". The thing that's held me back from moving her to Linny's room is that the easiest way to get her to sleep is to nurse her, whether that be for naptime or bedtime. Since she's been a few months old she has woken when I've tried to nurse her down then transfer her, so I just lie beside her & then unlatch her when she's sleeping deeply enough. Obviously I can't do that in the crib or even Linnaeus' toddler bed. I guess I could try to get her to sleep without nursing her, but if I still have the magical power of the boob to get her off to dreamland, I'm not going to fix what ain't broken.

All sorted & ready to go to its next home

This week, I finally admitted to myself that Bronte is never going to sleep in that crib: we need a twin bed for her. So we got one of those little loft beds (also Ikea, like pretty much every other piece of furniture in our house). Linny will sleep on top, Bronte on a mattress at floor level below. Because it's a twin bed, I'll be able to squeeze in there with her to nurse her to sleep, then roll out & make my exit.

Today I spent a few hours sorting all those clothes that filled the crib & packing up all the sheets, mattress protectors & baby bedding that goes with the crib. Time to sell it. Goodbye little crib, you served us well.

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