Another Milestone

As I write this post, Daniel is asleep for the second night in his toddler bed. Most of the other toddlers we know have been out of their cribs for a while now, but we have been too chicken to try this before now. Daniel is a great sleeper, and I had the secret fear this was because he had no choice but to be in his crib. However, when he gets up in the morning, he is pretty insistent on getting me up at the same time, so I figured if he could play in his room, I would get another 15 minutes under the covers.

 The first night, Dan and I were watching TV downstairs, and we had the monitor on. About an hour after he fell asleep, we heard a sudden thud, and then nothing.  We kept expecting him to cry, but it stayed quiet until we couldn't stand waiting anymore. Dan snuck in to check on him, and found that he had fallen out of bed, but was curled up sound asleep on the floor! He was able to lift Daniel back in bed without waking him. We are grateful for a short bed and soft carpet.

So far, this has worked out really well.  He actually seems to be OK with staying in bed at night, and while I had to correct him a couple of times at nap time, he did eventually sleep. I am sad to admit that we used to just put him in bed and run away. Now we stay to calm him down by reading and singing to him. Its very relaxing for me to have down time with my little boy.

I think that by trusting our instincts, we might have actually found the perfect time for this change. We second guess ourselves on parenting all the time, but its nice to get it right once in a while.