This is how the kids room looked before and after a trip to Ikea last Spring.
When we transitioned Geekygirl into the side-less crib/toddler bed in the top picture, just before her brother arrived, we did it gently. She had a full month or so of choosing between her familiar crib and the new bed. We, or at least I, was very anxious that she not feel replaced by the new arrival.
She outgrew that little bed she was was four. Geekyboy was two by then, and he had been climbing the crib rails and rattling it from its screws, so we decided it was time to graduate both into proper beds. I love these pictures but they touch my heartstrings. It still seems like just yesterday that we assembled that crib, bought with money generously collected by my coworkers, in anticipation of Geekygirl's arrival. I remember so powerfully just how tiny she and her brother seemed when we first laid them in its soft expanse.
Poor second child that he is, Geekyboy did not get a gentle transition to the world of the big boy bed. His crib was dismantled and the new bed installed within hours of returning from the store. We did try to explain the coming change to him, but I think it came as quite a shock. I will forever remember the look of horror on his little face when he walked into his room as Geekydaddy was in the midst of disassembling , and cried out "My bed. Daddy broke my bed".
Being the stoic little person that he is, he slept soundly thereafter in his new bed, but I still wonder if he was somehow traumatized by the abrupt removal of the only sleeping space he had ever known. To this day he points to the dismantled crib, which since it underwent three or four recalls in the four years we owned it isn't suitable to be handed down to anyone, and is stored in the garage, and says "That's my old bed. Daddy broke it".
