These Developmental Milestones Are Whizzing By!

Dr Seuss once said, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been so busy moving forward and, in some ways, encouraging my Little Man to grow up, that I’ve almost missed what’s happened.  So much change in such a short time and so many distractions.

I don’t think I’ve been rushing LM and I’m not sad he’s growing up, but I don’t want to get so caught up preparing for the coming baby that I miss LM’s milestones.  I knew (kind of) that I was in for lots of changes when he hit two years old in January, but I really had no idea.  So here’s what’s happened in the past couple of weeks:

Milestone #1

The big boy bed!

When we moved into the new house almost three weeks ago, we set up a twin bed in LM’s room.  I had hoped he’d show interest in transitioning, but he didn’t.  Every night I’d ask if he wanted to try his big boy bed and every night he’d shake his head no, with gusto, and point to his crib.

One day about two weeks ago, when I was out of commission on the couch and Grandma (my momma in law) came over to help me, she took him upstairs while I was on the phone and put some stuffed animals in his new bed.  They played on the bed for a while and had a great time.  When nap time rolled around I took him upstairs for his nap (I had to get off the couch for that because he had a complete melt-down when Grandma tried to do it), I nursed him and when I was finished, he pointed at the bed.  I asked him if he wanted to sleep in his big boy bed and he shook his head yes.  Just to make sure, since sometimes he says one thing, but means another, I said, “you don’t want to sleep in your crib?” and he shook his head and said “no!”.

That was it.  No more crib for my baby!  There were one or two times he asked for his crib after that, but we didn’t go back and he stays in bed all night.  We have a safety lock on the inside of the door, just in case, so he can’t sneak downstairs in the middle of the night.  Now, instead of moaning when he wakes up, he knocks on his door and waits for me to come and get him.

Milestone #2

A while back, I posted a plea for advice on an extended nursing dilemma.  Little Man was starting to show less interest and, I felt, he was using breastfeeding as a tool for extending his bedtime routine.  I had put him down for his nap without nursing him and told him that if he still wanted to when he woke up, he could.  It made me feel so guilty at the time, but as soon as he woke up he asked to nurse and it was no longer a problem after that.

I should clarify that I was more concerned with my motives for stopping than the act after nursing for so long.  Not long following the switch to his big boy bed it became much easier for Hubby to put LM down for the night, but more difficult for me and I felt he was just trying to keep me in the room longer again, so I stopped.  I started spending the same amount of time I did when I used to nurse him, only I spend the time singing with him and stroking his face.  He did ask to nurse for a few days after I made the decision, but within three days he stopped.

It still breaks my heart a little, but I’m relieved, too.  I’ve loved nursing LM, but, after more time spent researching tandem nursing, I just couldn’t see it working out for me.  I’m proud of how long it lasted and I hope to last that long with baby #2, but who knows.

I can’t wait to see what’s to come next.  I know I’ll be distracted with baby #2 soon and completely sleep deprived, but I hope I can catch all these amazing changes.  I would hate to find myself crying because I missed them.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the RSS feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.