Going to be some major changes in the next couple of weeks for Alice. The new daycare center is rearranging their classroom age ranges. Right now, there is a room for infants (6w-12m) and a room for toddlers (12m-18m). Each of the two rooms is physically split in half by a row of cabinets with changing pads on top. The new set up will have toddlers and infants in each room with the toddlers on one side and the infants on the other side. The theory behind this is to keep the children with the same teachers for a longer period of time and to reduce transition issues. So, starting tomorrow, Alice's room will be part toddlers and part infants.
We thought that Alice would stay on the infant side until at least October but we were told on Friday that she will be moving to the toddler side. This will mean lots of changes for our girl. She will still see the same teachers (which is good because she has finally started to get comfortable with them - no tears when I dropped her off this morning - yeah!!). On the toddler side, Alice will no longer be napping in a crib. She will be on a cot. Granted the cots are only a few inches off the ground but I am not sure how this one is going to work. Not sure how the teachers will be able to keep the kids on the cots. Also, this will be a specific, scheduled nap time and I would think that toddlers are not old enough to understand that they need to lie down and stay down. Another major adjustment is that the toddlers must be off the bottle by 12 months. They will have snacks and lunch as a class. We have already started introducing table food and sippy cups to Alice but they are not going over very well. (Funny story - I will get to that shortly).
I have seen the daily schedule for the toddlers and they stay very busy but I am nervous about how Alice is going to transition. I think that being with the "bigger" kids will be good for her - she will want to copy them and want to do what they do. I know that being the youngest with older kids really helped Nate advance quickly. I also know that the teachers have been doing this for a long time so they understand how to facilitate the transition but I am curious about this. I have lots of questions for the teachers as well as those of you who have children. I am sure I will be emailing a bunch of you shortly.
One of the other major adjustment is that John and I have decided to start putting Alice in her crib awake when it is time for naps and bedtime. I know that we have probably waited too long for this to be an easy adjustment but I guess I have been thinking that the time we have to "baby" her is so brief, I would make it last as long as possible. Well, in light of the daycare changes, we decided that it would be a good idea to start breaking our bedtime habits.
Saturday night, Alice sat with Dad and watched a little Sports Center until 7:45pm. She started to doze so I took her up to her room. The moment I put her in the crib, she woke up. She started to cry. I kissed her and said goodnight and left the room. She started to scream. I turned off the baby monitor on the table next to me and tried to ignore it. She continued to scream as if she was being murdered. I continued to ignore it but had to talked out of going up to get her. 30 minutes into the screaming, she seemed to settle down. Quiet for 5 minutes....then screaming for 15 more minutes. By 8:50pm, she was out for the night. Not too bad.
Sunday morning had been spent playing and talking to Gramma S. on Skype when she started the "it's nap time" behavior. I took her to her room and we rocked and talked about the morning. After 5 minutes, I put her in the crib. She started to cry but settled down very quickly when I rubbed her belly. She was asleep in 2 minutes.
Last night, we were all ready to keep with our plan of putting her to bed while still awake. We had decided to aim for 7:30. At 6:30 was in the kitchen making dinner. I came out to check on the two and discovered that Alice was already asleep. Completely dead to the world, in Daddy's arms. We put her to bed thinking that she would be hungry and awake soon since she was skipping her bedtime bottle. Nope...aside from a brief monologue at 3:30am, we had to wake her to get ready for school this morning.
This post is getting long so I will save the funny food story for the next post....ha ha, now you have to check back!!
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