The End of an Era

The end of naps...it's here.

Jett started out a really really crappy sleeper.  Both night time and nap time.  But right around a year Jett became an amazing sleeper.

He's napped wonderfully in his crib for almost 2 years.  And night time sleep is as of yet uninterrupted.

I suppose I should be grateful for that.

But after a month long struggle to not only get him to nap, but to keep him in his crib and even worse, in his room, during nap time, I'm calling time of death on naps for Baby Jett.

The beginning of March was the last time that Jett took a nap in his crib.

He now climbs out of the crib 5 minutes after I leave the room (after INSISTING he will stay in the bed for nap) and plays Legos for half an hour before exiting the bedroom and wandering around the house until he finds me.

I've tried everything I can think of to get him to stay in the bed or at least stay in his room, but all to no avail.

Part of me is glad he's doing this now several months before the new baby arrives so that we're not in the midst of a napping/sleeping transition with Jett AND trying to figure out how to deal with a newborn again at the same time.

But part of me is sad, sad, sad.  I've come to love nap time.  I do laundry or pick up the kitchen or read, or nap.  It's the only ME time all day and I cherish it dearly.  I'll be sad to see it go.

Thank god I'm out of the first trimester and not so tired these days.

He now passes out at 7pm...like a newborn.  It's not the end of the world, even though some days it feels like it.

We now need to transition him into a toddler bed since the crib has absolutely no purpose if he can and does climb out.  But I'm dragging my feet.

I bought him a new crib, which we just put together 3 nights ago but haven't put the toddler rail on it because I haven't painted that part yet.  I decided to get him a new bed rather than switch his bed to a toddler bed because it is HUGE with it's changing table and drawers (which he calls his ladder) and really doesn't fit in his room the way I want it to.  So new baby will inherit the big crib.

Big girly crib with "ladder".

New "big boy" crib, soon to be toddler bed.

Sigh.  Baby boy is growing up.  I'm not sad about the growing up part but I am sad about the changes.  I started out this parenting gig very ANTI schedule but ended up with a kid that does SO WELL with a schedule that I've come to love and rely on the schedule to get me through the day.

We're working very hard on "quiet time" now. The last few days he's only made it 20 minutes before exiting his bedroom.  I'm going to attempt to enforce an hour in the room playing quietly...we'll see how it goes.

And just to throw a wrench in my plans.  This was Baby Jett 2 days ago just after we put together the new crib.

Little update now, 3 days of the new crib and he hasn't climbed out ONCE, I guess getting rid of the "ladder" has done the trick for now.  Baby Jett is staying in a crib for just a little bit longer!