Aiden's Big Boy Bed

Last week, 2/22/09, Erik put together Aiden's new twin-size bed. Aiden has been excited to look at it and sit on it, but he has not wanted to go to sleep on it. We spent a week just getting used to it. We'd read stories while we sat on it, frequently covered by his new "cars" sheets. Yesterday, however, I began telling him that he was going to sleep on it when he went to bed. At first, when he was going to bed he cried, but within a few seconds he was singing along with the songs I was singing to him. I spent about 20 minutes lying next to him and singing (usually, this is about a 2 minute process). He spent the next 50 minutes talking to his stuffed animals before finally falling asleep (this usually takes under 20 minutes). A few hours later, I went in to check on him and get a picture. As soon as the camera started to go off, Aiden began to sit up and asked, "won't you sit down?"--See the bottom picture. I apologized and told him to go back to sleep, which, thankfully, he did. The top picture is from this morning when he was calling to me, "ma ma, I'm awake!" Today he took his nap in his big boy bed (it only took me a few minutes to get him down this time) and Erik just put him to bed tonight (again, it only took him a few minutes).

I'm expecting and not looking forward to when he decides to climb out of bed on his own. So far, he's treating his bed like the crib. He calls or cries when he's ready to get up. I'm not expecting this to last. Any thoughts on when and how this will happen would be appreciated!