He Is Secure, Even If I’m Not

This weekend, unbeknownst to me, Hubby transitioned my little tiny baby J into his big boy bed.

Okay, so he’s not so tiny. But he’s still a baby, right?!

J won’t be two till just after Christmas, and even though he has an actually tiny baby brother, he himself is still a baby. A toddler, maybe, but in many ways still a baby. He needs snuggles and has warm milk at nap time and won’t use the potty and should still be contained in his crib. 

But while I was out on Saturday, Christmas shopping with my sisters-in-law and my mother-in-law, Hubby put J down for a nap in the queen-sized bed (that’s already in his room for lack of another place to put it). We had been talking about moving him into it, and letting J get used to the idea, but hadn’t made any real plan for when it would happen.

With EK, we tried to move her to a big girl bed too early. We were preparing for J’s arrival, and just couldn’t get her to stay in her big girl room, so she slept in his nursery even after he was a couple of weeks old. She wasn’t ready, and she was not going to sleep there until she decided it was time.

Now on Saturday (with no warning, may I add), I just received a picture text from Hubby of the video monitor, pointed at the bed, with a tiny spot of J somewhere near the headboard. I couldn’t believe it! Tears came to my eyes when I thought of my little baby boy, asleep in that giant bed, without me snuggling next to him. Surely he can’t be ready! He must feel so scared and alone in that huge bed!

But he wasn’t scared or sad. He was ready. I was the one who wasn’t.

Upon further conversation, I learned that he didn’t go immediately to sleep, but he slept soundly once he was. He has even spent two nights and another nap in the bed, only escaping the room a couple of times before drifting off.

He isn’t even my last baby, but I’m not ready to lose the crib. What if he misses it? What if he asks to sleep there? But it’s my security blanket, not his. I’m the one that wants to hold him back. But he knows that his needs will be met, his fears will be stilled, and he can be brave because he is loved and taken care of. He is secure.