If you want to feel like your little girl is a lot less little, simply put her in a crib.
We made the transition from Edith sleeping in a cosleeper next to our bed to sleeping in a crib in the nursery rather suddenly last week. I was changing the sheet in her cosleeper when I noticed mold on one side of the mattress.
That was the end of that. We’ve had rough luck with mold here in Portland: We moved out of our last house when I was in the second trimester after we set out a few mold test kits and watched a colorful and varied array of specimens grow. Mold just wasn’t something we wanted to mess around with.
So that night, we got ready to put Edith down in the crib that had, up to that point, been just a landing pad for stuffed animals and laundered onesies that needed to be put away.
I didn’t feel ready. The decision to change her sleeping routine felt forced upon us. I had slept with her within an arm’s reach of me since she was born, and a whole room’s distance felt very far.
So that first night, Eric and I blew up the air mattress and slept in the nursery next to the crib. (I know. It sounds ridiculous. But still.)
Edie did great: She woke up at her usual time, and I nursed her in the rocking chair. She was unfazed.
The second night we slept in our own bed. I got up fewer than a hundred times to check on her, so I count it as a success.
Since then, the nursery bedtime process has become routine. She even naps in her crib—at least sometimes.
Edith is napping in the crib as I type this. When I sneak into the nursery to peek at her, she looks so much older than the newborn photos we have stuck to the fridge. She’s even busting out of the swaddle sacks we have. At the same time, she is a tiny bundled caterpillar in the wide expanse of mattress.
Unlike some parents I hear, I don’t want Edith to freeze at any stage. She’s growing, and that’s a marvelous thing to witness. As she reaches new milestones, I’m grateful to be here with her, in awe of this small—but getting bigger—wonder.
