Laken’s big girl bed + our Tuft and Needle review

Laken got her official big girl bed for her second birthday and I would be absolutely lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous of how stinking cute it is!

I never really talk about this much, but Laken has co-slept with us since December 2017. That was never our intention, but we also never really fought it. Laken got super sick last winter and had to be on breathing treatments every 3 hours and it was just easier having her sleep on my chest so I could monitor her breathing. She got so comfortable sleeping so close to me that the habit stuck. As much as we love her little snores and waking up to her poking us in the eye, it’s nice not waking up with her poking us in the eye. Haha.

I’ll go over the details of her bed a little later in the post but seeing Laken’s face when she first saw her big girl bed was the cutest!! She watched me put it all together in her room but didn’t realize that it was hers. When I was done, I said Laken!! This is all yours! It’s your new bed! Do you love it!? I think then she realized that is was hers and her little face lit up with a smile and all she could say was WOW!. I taught her how to tuck herself in with her babies and stuffed animals and she was in heaven!

This sweet little girl is absolutely spoiled. Not only did she get a new big girl bed, but she also got a memory foam mattress and we love that she loves it. Kyler and I’s king bed isn’t a Tuft & Needle foam mattress like hers, but there has been a handful of times that we’ll sneak out of our bed to sleep in hers. It is so unbelievably comfortable!

I was fortunate enough to actually go to the grand opening of Tuft & Needle in Leawood, Kansas to celebrate their fourth retail store opening and to really hear about the brand! Their entire ‘selling’ concept is amazing and truly unlike any other mattress store!! Their idea of a showroom isn’t 100 mattresses just sitting out in the open. Tuft & Needle has two, yes two, major mattresses and they have the mattresses closed off in rooms so you have the privacy and have more of an at-home feel when trying the mattress out. Below I have some pictures from the grand opening!

The shopping center where Tuft & Needle is at in Leawood, Kansas is seriously the cutest. The strip is very welcoming and everything about Tuft & Needle from the logo to the showroom is a dream. I actually did instagram stories all throughout the night while I was there and the amount of messages I got from my followers saying how pleasing and beautiful the store is was insane!!

As soon as you walk into their store they have this on the wall. Thankfully I’ve only had to go mattress shopping once in my lifetime but I can relate to having to deal with more than a few of what is listed.

I wish I would’ve gotten more zoomed out photos to really show off how they set everything up, but above is a close up of the giant peg wall that held all their sheets, duvet covers, mattress protectors, and pillows!

I mentioned above about how they have small rooms that make you feel like you’re at home and above is one of them! During the grand opening they told us that each room is dimly lit so whoever is trying out the mattress instantly gets a sense of calmness and they don’t feel overwhelmed! They also use an actual bed frame that is also sold at Tuft & Needle and the best part…the door closes! You have the ultimate privacy while trying out their mattresses and it’s amazing. When the door closes, all employees know you are taking your time and don’t want to be disturbed. It’s smart!

Above are the two mattresses that Tuft & Needle sells and they are very different from one another! Here’s the breakdown:

Tuft & Needle MINT(black mattress) : 30% extra graphite maximizes cooling, sweeping 50% more heat away from the body, 30% more gel beads in our second layer add cushion-like support, and the open-cell foam technology is designed to allow air to flow freely through the mattress, increasing breathability. (all info from T&N’s website you can find here)

Price Range – $650- $1050

Tuft & Needle Mattress (white mattress) : We created our T&N Adaptive® foam to feel comfortable and provide great pressure relief without feeling too soft or like quicksand. Without support, a mattress may only be comfortable for a few hours. Our support layer provides the ideal base for a full night’s sleep. In addition to the heat wicking graphite and cooling gel in our T&N Adaptive® foam, our plush cover is extremely breathable to keep you cool. (all info from T&N’s website you can find here)

Price range – $350- $750

Some Q&A’s that I know I’ll get asked about!

Didn’t you just post about her getting a big girl bed a few months ago? Yes, I did haha. I loved that our crib transformed into a toddler bed but she hated the mattress, enjoyed climbing on it more than sleeping on it and it was so noisy! Some moms I know still use their crib bed for their little ones and that’s totally okay! We felt like the timing was right and that she was ready!

Does she ever fall out of her bed? She hasn’t yet! Our dog really likes sleeping wherever Laken sleeps so I usually have her big dog bed right by her bed. For pictures sake, I took it out of the photo. There has been a few nights that I’ll go in to check on her and she will be sleeping in Gracie’s dog bed but is tucked under a blanket. At that point I think it was her choice haha.

Does she stay in her bed? Yes and no! She was doing so good at first and now it’s 50/50. She has recently showed that she’s scared of the dark even though we have always kept her room pitch black when she sleeps. We strung some fairy lights on her headboard which she thinks is the coolest thing ever, and that seems to be working. There are also some nights that she will do really good in her bed and but we’ll wake up and see that she crawled into ours.

Does she nap in her bed? Laken is something else when it comes to nap time! 80% of the time she doesn’t nap and the other 20% we let her nap where she falls, literally. We always keep her bedroom door open and we never force her to take a nap. If she takes one, she takes one. When she’s tired she’ll walk herself up to her bed and tuck herself in. It’s the cutest thing ever and she really likes being able to do it all by herself.

Before getting Laken’s bed I actually did have a game plan! I have shown this inspiration picture before in my post Five gift ideas for a two-year old, and I ended up getting almost everything!

I love Laken’s room. It’s one of my favorite rooms in the house, so I had a lot of fun being able to put her bed together and buying everything for it.

I was torn between getting the Ikea Minnen Extendable bed frame and this one above from Overstock. I ended up going with the Overstock bed because the railings on the Ikea bed were very similar to her crib railing and I didn’t want her climbing over them like she was in her crib.

For her bed accessories, I wanted there to be a lot of texture. I love playing with the similar colors throughout a room and spicing it up with them all being different textures. If you scroll all the way at the top you can see that I did that with using pink velvet pillows, a pink furry pillow, and then a cream textured pillow. And of course, we had to give her a new alpaca. If you’ve been following me on instagram you know how obsessed Laken is with the alpaca dog toy that we found. It took some convincing, but we finally got a cute one. haha

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