Toddler Beds for the Twins Before they Turn 2!

We went to Florida for Thanksgiving and during that visit the twins slept in mini-cribs. The first night in Florida they learned to climb out. Every night it was a process of putting them back into the cribs over and over again. We had to put a baby gate on the bedroom door so they wouldn’t fall down the stairs at night, except they eventually learned how to climb over the gate as well. Uggg… These two are wearing me out! Brielle was never like this. These two are a tag team of wildness that can barely be contained with the baby proofing available. Charlie is the ring leader for sure! I could blame Justin, as the gene contributor to the “wild side” of these boys, except that I too had a wild side- becoming a certified sky diver in my 20’s (yes totally, utterly crazy), and being a ski instructor while in college and skiing off trail and on blocked runs (even the double black diamonds). So I can’t blame Charlie’s crazy, adventurous side completely in Justin. I will take the blame as well. Now we just need to contain it to keep him safe.

Of course when we returned to Florida they figured out on the first night home that they could now climb out of their regular cribs too. Lots to fun (sarcasm). We would put them to bed and then minutes later we would hear one or two thuds. Often followed by crying, as it is long way down when climbing out of a crib. We realized they couldn’t stay in their cribs much longer for safety reasons alone! They were climbing out at all hours of the night too. Which wouldn’t be such a problem except they can’t climb back into their cribs. Ugg again…too many trips upstairs at night to get them back into their cribs.

Thankfully they are now safe and sound in their new toddler beds. We purchased two “project cribs”. They were nicely constructed, solid Graco cribs, but the finish was worn. Justin and I did a chalk paint project with a vintage finish (I will explain how we did this in another post as the result is really nice and easy to do).

Above is one of the toddler bed headboards after it was painted, distressed, and waxed with an antique finish. I chose a red color for the beds. I really like how they turned out. Which was a nice surprise, as you never how things will look until they are finished!

One of the two toddler beds after it was assembled. They love them to play on…not so much for sleeping yet. Below is how we found them around 10 PM on their third night of having the new beds. At least they are safe and not falling out of tall cribs anymore!

I sold one of the cribs on “Southlake Buy, Sell, Trade” page on Facebook. It sold in less than an hour and I had a number of people in line waiting to buy it. Alex’s crib was the one we sold. Charlie’s crib on the other hand…we set out for the garbage men to pick up this morning. Not joking. He chewed on that crib taking off lots of paint and making dents in the crib, rocked it against the wall so much that all the joints were rickety, he tore all four of the decorative spindles off over the past six months, and basically destroyed this crib. It’s not that he is “special” in any way (although aren’t we all “special” in one way or another?) or that he is violent. He is just a really wild, rough and tumble boy. If we turn our backs to him for two minutes he will be on top of our glass table in the kitchen. He thinks it is funny too. It’s hard to get mad at him when he is smiling and laughing about these things. Here is the ad I posted on Facebook on the “buy, sell, trade pages”. I got a lot of likes and funny comments about the posting…