New Bed for the Little Lady

Aurelia finally outgrew her toddler bed 🙂 When we had Aurelia my grandparents bought us a crib that converted into a toddler bed and it has been the BEST. It starts as a crib with the mattress high for a newborn, we lowered the mattress when she started pulling up on the sides, then removed the side (converted to a toddler bed) when she was starting to climb the sides. I definitely recommend the 3-in-1 type crib/toddler bed. That one crib/bed has worked for little miss for almost 3 years.

Anyway, it finally got to the point where her head and feet were nearly touching the ends. I’ve known the bed I wanted for her since she was itty bitty when we first saw it at a friend’s house. A few weeks ago we went to this same friend’s house and Aurelia did really well with the ladder so we decided we would go for it.

The bed alone is $200 from IKEA so of course we watched the classifieds here for a few months and ended up buying it from a family close to our home, in like-new condition, with the canopy accessory and for less than half the price. Then we bought a new twin mattress.

This is the bed all set up in Aurelia’s room…

Here are the reason’s I love this bed:

1. Until (if ever) it’s used as a bunk bed, the under area can be used as a fun little play/storage area. We’ve already made probably 5 blanket forts just draping a blanket from the top 🙂
2. It’s lower than a normal bunk or loft bed. The top of the railing is only about 3’9″ tall.
3. When we want it as a bunk bed we just put a mattress in the bottom part. This means our next little one can have a big kid bed that is easy to crawl into.

We took the crib down but haven’t packed it away yet. I keep telling Daniel “just a little bit longer, just until next weekend”. Right now putting it away just feels a little too final and a little too permanent. I’m hoping we have a reason to keep it out before it gets packed away. 🙂