Over the weekend, Chris took down the front railing on the crib and blew up an air mattress to place right by the crib. Given that it’s been about two months of Kaia avoiding her crib and refusing to sleep in it, meaning she has to co-sleep with us, I decided we really need to start cracking down on this. On Saturday, we successfully got her to nap on the air mattress and even sleep on it for about 2.5 hours at night. On Sunday, Chris got her to sleep on the actual crib mattress for about 1.5 hours. These are all baby steps, but steps in the right direction of getting her to sleep independently. On Sunday, I tried to have her nap on the crib mattress, but she wouldn’t fall asleep or get comfortable unless she was on the SAME mattress I was on. She was happy to go up and down from one mattress to the other to the floor and play, though. So it seems her aversion for the crib is dying down. This is really about addressing separation anxiety and just comfort with this room in general.

The things parents go through during their children’s development — it’s like every single day, I gain more and more respect for people who choose to become parents. Being a parent definitely gives you a perspective you’d never quite understand until you became one. And no, being a dog or cat parent is just not the same.