When the duck doesn't take to water and other stories

Raising your child is full of milestones. You're always moving towards something, they're always achieving something, you're always excited about them, or apprehensive about them or occasionally dreading them... Just as I write a friend has posted this status on Facebook:

Daughter can now open doors. Uh oh.

Milestones can present us with new challenges. Some challenges are fun and some are... challenging. But irrespective of the frustration it may cause, underneath it's another reason to be proud of them.

Some of these milestones aren't just about our children achieving. Some are emotional hurdles for us as parents too. I remember the first night I left E in her crib and went back downstairs at 8:30pm rather than just going to bed with her. I was glued to the monitor, terrified that she'd stopped breathing. Then at 10 weeks she was too big for that crib and we moved her into her room. I sobbed and sobbed and almost mourned for my tiny (well, as tiny as she ever was!) baby who seemed to be growing up so fast. Fast track to Christmas and my little girl was starting to walk. She was so independent, even if a little unsteady and always busy. I was GUSHINGLY proud but it was just another thing to get my head around. They don't need us in quite the same way forever. The list goes on. When we said good bye to bottles I was overjoyed that I could perhaps have a KitchenAid in 

place of a steriliser, but it was just another tick on the sheet signifying that we were getting into toddler-dom, waving goodbye to our baby days. The list goes on... The muslins being packed away, buying a toothbrush, when she started seeming to enjoy "helping out" with chores... Watching her care for her dolly. All amazing, heartwarming, but all a little bit sad. E has taken everything in her stride. I have been more worked up about all this than her! 

However this week we've come up to a milestone that I've not been apprehensive about. I've not been sad that the time has come. I felt that she was ready and I needed to support the girls at her nursery in something that was becoming a bit of an issue.

It was time for a bed.

I'm sure I've mentioned before but the one thing I will be a boasty-pants about is how good a sleeping E is. No nonsense, no messing around, sleeping though from very early on. So to me if didn't occur to me that swapping the cot for a toddler bed would be an issue.

And it probably could have been a lot worse. But night one was a nightmare. 

Despite an initial excitement for what seemed to be a small indoor trampoline, when it came to leaving her to it last night she screamed. And when I eventually felt the need to go back in, madam had found every tactic under the sun to delay my leaving again. Books. More books. Shall we read "un-ooor", she asked, holding up one finger, often used for negotiating TV shows on iPlayer and biscuits. Having read several more than "un" I went to leave again. Cue hysterics, door slamming... Eventually my husband found her asleep in her armchair. I transferred her, and she slept well until 4:30 this morning. I cannot recall what happened in that hour, but the travel cot was deployed at 5:30. She slept until 8:30, resulting in a lie in... Every cloud. 

So, options. Put the cot back up. Persevere. Bed guard. Run away and hide.

I decided that I couldn't just put it away. Mama H doesn't give up. She will win! So, I enjoyed lunch with friends and left with a borrowed bed guard... It was assembled pre bed (after she awoke from napping in her bed... She just went down asleep from the car...) and at bed time it seemed to dramatically change her opinion on the matter. Even if it made it trickier to get in and out of. 

I left her to it at 7pm. There was some shouting. Cow came over the stair gate. She made my feel bad repeatedly calling "mimi", furniture was rearranged and the door was slammed. It went silent at 7:45 and when I popped up she was reading in her arm chair. I returned at 8:10 fully expecting to find her snoring like Grandpa in the chair again. But no...

SHE WAS IN HER BED! And I was so elated I took a photo and then logged straight on to blog about it.

I know this isn't the end of the journey. I know that tomorrow night will still be tricky. I am fully ready for a 4am wake up tomorrow. But I feel like we've made progress and actually, I think my instincts were right. She was ready for this. I must trust my mummy instincts... She just didn't fancy it all that much to start with... And why not, those cot bars are all she's known since we left those plastic hospital cots behind.

And of course, I am AS EVER, gushingly proud of you, little E. As ever. Sweet dreams.