I knew this day would come, but I thought it would be a few months from now. Not one week after her 2nd Birthday! On Sunday night, Lily climbed out of her crib. So Monday morning we bought a twin mattress and set up her Big Girl bed. I've been very anxious about saying goodbye to the crib, because I thought it would mean saying goodbye to naps. But (knock on wood) so far, so good.
On Sunday night, she climbed out around 8:30 pm (shortly after being put to bed). Luckily, there was no thud and she didn't hurt herself. We just heard her knocking on the door and called for us. The timing was weird because we had just been mattress shopping earlier that day, but hadn't bought anything since it was our first day shopping and thought we'd have more time to look. So Sunday night we scrambled to get her crib taken apart and just put the crib mattress on the floor. It took some convincing, but she finally fell asleep at 9:30 pm and slept all night until 7:30 am (her usual wake up time). Not too bad for the first night.
Sunday night/Monday morning we made a quick decision on which mattress to buy and Lily and I went to the store when it opened. I brought it home in the SUV and set it up by nap time. She really likes the new bed and especially her princess sheets. At 1 pm, she told me "I go night, night". I fully expected her to spring back up 5 minutes later, but instead was shocked when she slept until 3 pm.
Last night, to avoid a fight at bedtime, we let her stay up and play in the living room until she showed signs of being tired.... which was 9 pm. A later bedtime that I'd like, but better than 9:30 the night before. She went down without a problem. Around 2:30 am I heard her wide awake, talking to her friends (she sleeps with about 10 animals/babies). She was also messing with the light switch since she can apparently reach that while standing on her bed. I went into her room, found her pacifier for her, changed her diaper, and told her to go back to bed. It took about 30 minutes of laying there and talking to her friends, but she finally went back to bed and slept until 9 am. I'd consider that a pretty successful 2nd night.
Today, nap was only 1 hour, but at least she still took one and it didn't involve a battle. We'll see how bedtime goes tonight and maybe I can eventually get her back to a 7 or 8 pm bedtime. I guess as long as she sleeps 11-12 hours, I won't worry too much about the start and end times. And I'll keep crossing my fingers that nap time sticks around for a while longer. That's my only time to get stuff done.... and sometimes Mommy needs a nap too. :)
It finally hit me that my Baby Girl is basically a Big Girl now. Diapers and her pacifier are really the only two "baby" things she has left. In the last month we packed away her high chair, packed away the crib, rotated her car seat to be forward facing instead of reverse, and switched from whole to 2% milk (not as big of a milestone, but still counts). Everyone says that "time flies" and I feel like it goes even faster with kids. The last 2 years have been blur... but a very happy and exciting one. When the next baby is born, I'm guessing his/her first 2 years will seem even faster since it will be a bit more hectic. I hope I can enjoy each day as it comes and savor all the special moments for Pumpkin like I did for Lily.
