No more crib tent

Amelia has not taken a nap for the last three afternoons. She unzips her crib tent, climbs out and plays happily with her toys. She doesn't think I know she's up - I will walk in and her reaction is to jump up and run back to her crib. I usually do that twice in a futile attempt to encourage her to sleep. She yawns, rubs her eyes, and looks tired, but apparently the allure of toys is just too much to give in to the Sandman.

Since she so easily manipulates the zipper on the crib tent and it makes her crib look kind of cluttered, especially with the extra blankets I put over it to help make it dark for naptime, I decided it was time for it to go. I probably should not have waited until five minutes before bedtime on a napless day, because Amelia got upset. She ran out to the living room and climbed into Daddy's chair and cried. It was a little fake, though, so I ignored it and finished my task. She came back in just as I was finished, but looked apprehensive. I took her pillow and put it in the crib. She said something about the striped sheet (I changed the sheet since I had to take the mattress out anyway) but then she ran back to the living room. Her little nose was red from crying, even though she wasn't wailing, but I guess she was a little upset. Maybe she thought she was in trouble? I picked her up and walked her into her room, explaining that she has a new bed since she is a big girl now (I've been using 'big girl' language for potty training, too) but that she still had her pillow and her two blankets (as I put them on her ... she really likes her one pillow and two blankets ... it's part of her bedtime mantra) and her music, which I turned on for her, and her turtle, as I turned on the green stars, and her Eyeore and her Ernie. I rubbed her back and sang her the "Go to Sleep" song I normally rock her to, and turned out the light.

Of course, the cat decided she had to go in the room and I hadn't yet turned off the hallway light. I peeked in as I closed the door again and Amelia had lifted her head and looked side to side a little. I heard a few noises from her but when I went in a few minutes later to check on her, she was fast asleep in the same position she was in when she laid down. (The flash on the camera makes it look like the lights were on, but it was dark in there.)

I am sad that she got upset, but I think that is an expected reaction to a mystifying change. I think I'd be frightened if someone came in and started messing around with my bed right before I was going to sleep in it. I am also a little sad because my baby is growing up.

I did like that the tent kept her warmer by trapping in her body heat during these winter nights, but the time had come to remove it. It will be a good transition to the freedom of a bed anyway, an interim step in preparing for that investment and change/adjustment. I am interested to see how she reacts in the morning when she wakes. She has always waited for one of us to get her out of her crib - even though she could have opened the tent herself.

For the first two months of her life, Amelia slept in her cradle until her first night feeding and then in the guest bed with me. I put her in her crib a couple of times around the 2 month mark, but then heard the cat jump in there on the second night (I was sleeping in the same room) and that was the end of the crib being tentless. So this is the third night she's slept in her crib without the tent, and the first night since she was about 2 months old. And, at the rate she is growing, she won't be spending many more nights in there at all. *sniff sniff*

[picture dated 2/26/08]