I suddenly have a toddler!

I blinked and my newborn turned one. How did that happen? How did I get to the point where I'm putting up hooks for his little jacket (way down low where he can reach) and watching him put his dirty laundry into the hamper all on his own? How is it that he is opening drawers and cabinets while I question the practicality of child-proof locks and corner bumpers? I have baby gates around the stairs and sippy cups in the cupboard. Neither is particularly "Montessori," but I'm finding that I have to wrestle with what I've learned on paper with what I'm learning in real life. On paper, the Montessori method is a clear cut way to encourage independence within limits - a way to allow children to develop into their true selves with loving guidance, clear boundaries, and careful observation. In reality, sippy cups are easy, high chairs are practical, and a firm 'no' doesn't always cut it.

So here I am: stuck in the middle between what is real and what could be.

Case in point: the Montessori floor bed. A low bed that allows a child freedom of movement and independence within his room. When we were planning our son's arrival this was non-debatable. We were not buying a crib. No, sir. Not in this house. My dad built the bed frame, we carefully checked the room for safety, and imagined how sweet it would be when our son was crawling around and would be able to get into his bed and go to sleep without the confinement of crib bars. So perfect in our dream world.

And then we had the baby.

He spent the first two months in our room sleeping in a portable crib. Well... that's not entirely true. He spent the first three weeks sleeping in someone's arms (we couldn't put him down for more than 10 minutes without him screaming his little heart out), and then five weeks sleeping in the portable crib. When we moved him to his room it took a little while to transition him from the crib to his floor bed, but we finally did and he hated it. He's never been a good sleeper, he's just over a year old as I write this and he still wakes up at least twice a night, but I kept expecting it to work. I wanted him to wake up one night and in his own baby way of understanding think, "Ah... I'm on a floor bed. I guess my parents really want me to develop independence and the ability to make my own choices! Thanks Mom and Dad!" But that's not what happened.

Instead, he cried and cried and cried. The only way we could get him to sleep was to swaddle him. Despite my best efforts to break him of the "swaddle habit," he had to be swaddled until he was almost six months old, at which point he had started rolling in his sleep and scaring me half to death. Now, not only was he rolling while swaddled and ending up face down with his arms trapped at his side, but he was ROLLING OFF THE BED! They don't mention this in the Montessori books. On the contrary, this type of thing is glossed over and brushed aside as "unusual" and "rare," which led me to a couple of realizations:

1) Books can be wrong.

2) Floor beds aren't for everyone.

3) I was going to have to rethink this whole thing.

He went back into the pack 'n play and has been there ever since. At first we had a couple of pretty good excuses: a camping trip ("he can't sleep on the floor of the cabin - he has to get used to the pack 'n play"), a family vacation ("he just got used to the pack 'n play - we might as well leave him in it until we get back from the beach"), several weekends away during the summer ("I don't want to put him back on the floor bed if we're just going to put him in the pack 'n play in a couple of weeks. Let's be consistent.") Until it just became the norm.

Now we're ready to transition back to the floor bed. It's a work in progress that started last week. The first night was great! The second night was not. And tonight he's sleeping in the pack 'n play. But we're working on it! I know it will be a good thing (if we could just get it to work!) and I'm committed to making it happen. Stay tuned... the adventure continues.