Dang You Big Boy Bed!!!

Well...I mentioned about 6 weeks ago that we had transitioned Luke into the toddler version of the crib. At first I was bragging on my little man, telling everyone what a smooth transition it was, and it was...for about 2 weeks. After 2 weeks I think Luke realized, "Hey I really have a lot of freedom here!". So for about the past month we have been having big time battles. At first he was just not staying in bed at all. The second we left the room he would open his door and go into the loft. We have since gotten that better under control, although he still tries to escape his room pretty frequently. He is doing well at going to bed for the night, but randomly wakes up in the middle of the night crying and immediately leaving his room to stand at the gate at the top of the stairs. He also used to sleep in until 7:30 and then would play in his crib until I got him at 8, but now he is up as soon as the sun is up between 6-6:30!! This makes for one tired mamma! Now the biggest struggle has been naps. Oh how I hate them!! I started off not allowing him to get out of bed at all. Well that only resulting in me having to go in his room just about every minute. So instead we started letting him play for a little while, and then I would go in and make him get back in bed. This seems to work better, but he rarely goes to sleep on his own. I usually have to lay on his floor and make him lay there until he falls asleep. He used to take about an hour and a half nap, and now it has consistently been less than 45 min. Discipline is so hard at this age! We are a little at a loss on what to do when he comes out of his room, plays with the lamp, etc. After saying no so many times...we have tried taking away his bunny bear and even spanking. He doesn't really seem to care about either, so I am not really sure what to do. Any advice would be much appreciated for this very tired, pregnant mamma! The one good thing about his new bed, is that he is super proud of it. Whenever anyone comes to our house he very quickly says "Show big bed". Here are some pics of him giving the grand tour. With Isabelle. She has had the tour many times! =) With Kaylee...showing her how to jump on the bed. He even wanted his cousin Ben to check out his digs.

Ahhh, so sweet!

He loves his cousin so much, he wanted to give him Bunny Bear so he could take a nap. =)

Hopefully we will get this under control before baby girl makes her arrival!