Dart’s Room Makeover

Little Dart has becoming increasingly more agile. So ‘Trouble’ as my grandmother has nicknamed him, has figured out the crib. He can no longer be contained! After flopping on the ground and getting hung up on the crib once I was done with it. The mattress was on the floor next to the empty crib. Rearrange time!

After reading about Montessori info on baby/toddlers rooms the mattress is on the floor. Clumsy little guy doesn't need anything to get hung up on climbing in and out of bed.

Dresser had to be moved as well. Shelves were hung above. Dart climbed up on top and started emptying them. No good, fragile items. I love this adjusted kitchen cabinet turned dresser, however, it’s huge. Good for not tipping when toddler climbs up, not very well for space utilization. 

Also I have a corner area with the book at the end for the bed. All cardboard books are down low. Paper books are up a little higher on the dresser. He CAN still get up on top but it's not easy so he doesn't do it much...for now. It takes time for him to get up there so I have a chance to catch him.

The recliner has stayed. I need it for the night. And Dart now knows it as his nursing chair. He's gotten very good at asking too "narse?peas." before he tugs, not so gently on my shirt. I tried a nice pretty glider but the mauve recliner won. Many hours of nursing as well as sleeping of both mother and child spend in this chair. And no one has ever fallen out, I totally recommend it, I would have lost a ton more sleep without it.

In the middle of the room I added the old beat up 3rd hand-me-down baby mattress. What for? To jump and wrestle on. I saw something similar in Montessori inspired bedroom for babies. My boys love to wrestle and if I could I'd just plaster the rooms with wrestling mats but this will do. Plus they get to jump on the bed, really, how cool is that. At the end of the night it fit right in the closet. 

Last thing I add was in the corner behind the recliner. This was kind of a void space when again I saw a Montessori inspired bedroom and with a potty in it. This seemed like a possibility  Dart still has no interest in it and honestly I don't want to push it especially with this room change. But it's there and I added a box of activity for when we do attempt to sit with Mr. Dart and his very short attention span. 

After a few nights of waking up in a panic he seems to have adjusted fairly well. We've gone back to waking up at nights at least once, a major bummer. A lot of adjustments lately. The largest problem is that he won't stay in bed at bedtime. It's been almost 6 weeks and every night he pops up repeatedly. Bedtime routine has not effect and neither doesn't a mean or nice voice, or even not saying anything at all. We have made progress he usually goes down after 4 or 5 replacing instead of an uncountable amount. I wait until he's really tired then call Daddy upstairs, this usually gets him to stay. It's been interesting but then again, that's just Dart.