For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 16, 2022

kids’ll be kids when emotionally attached to something

Can’t you just remove the front panel of the crib and let her continue sleeping in the crib til she’s ready for the big girl’s bed, Elly?

April is just over 2 years of age. Technically the toddler should be close to 3 years old to move out of a crib into a bed. Or do you want her to fall out of bed?

From what see there is no room in the crib for April.

Well, nobody else was going to sleep in April’s old bed, anyway.

Is that a smiling April doll look-alike in the crib, or the real April all snuggled in?

Chariced Toys one day Dust collectors the next .

Has April outgrown her crib yet?

I love the little baby doll that looks like April. :-)

Even the teddy bear put on a bow tie for the occasion!

It looks like April is in the crib with all her toys… But I think it’s just a doll that looks a lot like her…

My sister bought my niece, born in 1980, in Vancouver, BC, a toddler “Sasha” doll when she was about 3.

They were expensive, but well made, and sturdy… and very popular in Canada for their multi-racial skin tone, and natural appearance.

That doll, my niece, the doll in April’s bed, and April all have/had the same haircut, and look a lot alike… everybody thought at first that my sister had bought a custom doll.

It wore overalls just like April’s … and my sister bought some for my niece.

 

That could be one in the crib, with some artistic license, because “Sasha” dolls don’t have big smiles, as the designer considered that phony, along with bright pink cheeks and hair bows.

The funny part… my sister and her husband gave my niece a gender neutral name, like Chris only not Chris… and chose the doll partly because it wasn’t too “girlie.” They didn’t want her to feel “limited” by her gender.

But all on her own, she refused to wear anything but pink, and cried for ruffly dresses.

 

She loved the doll, but immediately named it Andrew, after her best friend, a little boy, and tried to give him her expensive new overalls.

When my sister prevented that, and sent her to preschool wearing them, she came home in a long bedraggled dress from the “Dress-up” box instead.

Hum, not a Barby doll in the bunch.

So maybe that big is a little too big for April. I’m sure they might have had a toddler bed in storage.

Cute

Where’s Waldo?

Not typical. Most little kids want out of the crib as soon as they notice it. Nobody else sleeps in a cage. I built a frame that set the mattress only a foot off the floor.

CRIB—Sleeping surrounded by your friends

BIG BED—Sleeping the middle of outer space.

Actually, leaving the crib up isn’t a bad idea. Corral all the stuffed animals and dolls. Elizabeth looks more than ready to have her own room.

When my son transitioned from a crib to a bed, his dad (my ex) built him a circus cage wagon bed. It was quite beautiful with wooden wheels, elaborate scrollwork on the upper section and a colorful circus paint job all over. It had rebar for cage bars close enough together so a toddler’s head couldn’t go through and was the perfect size for a crib mattress. It had missing bars in the long side of the “cage” for him to get in and out with no effort. I have a photo of him inside the bed wrestling with the mattress to get it in place that is adorable. He slept in that bed for several years until he asked for a regular bed. I gave the cage back to his dad to use as a prototype for building & selling them.

Don’t know why April would insist on keeping her bed. I have a grandson who will turn two next month, and he just learned to crawl out of his crib. Clearly he is ready to move on.

I remember feeling lost in all the space when I was younger and first moved into a regular sized bed.

Duh!

My grandpa built beds for us kids (all his numerous grandkids!) The bed had a “slanted” wooden side, perhaps 7 or 8 inches at the top, slanting down to the level of the actual side of the bed. It went about one-third of the way down the side. It was just the right length to make it easy to get in and out of the bed, but next to impossible to fall out. It had close-together “bars” of wood, so it didn’t cause a closed-in or claustrophobic feeling. I never saw a similar bed in any of my friends’ homes, and I don’t know where he got the pattern, or if perhaps he designed it himself.

Does anyone remember the bar that you put on the edge of the bed when starting a child from crib to their first bed? They looked a little bit like the side bars on a hospital bed. They still sold them in the early 2000’s because when my friends son transistion from crib to bed, which was actually my old twin bed that I had before I got married that I gave them for him to have,that is what they put on the bed for a couple of months until he got use to it and they knew he wouldn’t fall out of bed. It covered the area from headboard to about 3/4 of the way done the bed that way they still could get out of the bed by crawling down. I can’t remember what age me and my sister went from crib to bed, I don’t think Mom every mentioned it or it never came up in conversation.

I never noticed that before! But then, this is the first time I saw this pic in color.