My Least Favourite Milestone

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“Bruce! Why did you take Emily out of the cot?” my wife chastised me at lunchtime the other day. “It’s her nap time.”

“Sorry,” I called back. “I forgot.”

I didn’t forget. In fact, I’d just lied to my wife because I didn’t take our daughter out of the cot. But I consoled myself this small deceit was justified because the stakes were so high.

There are big moments in a young child’s upbringing which I really look forward to and they’re not the usual nonsense milestones people generally get all worked up about. I don’t really care so much about first rolls, first steps and first gurgled words. All too soon they’ll be rolling under your feet, running away from you in shopping centres and demanding you change the channel to ABC kids.

For me, the milestones everyone should be getting excited about are things like no more pureed foods, the end to bottle making and when the little tikes can poo on the toilet and follow that up with a successful bottom wiping. Now that’s something to jot down in a baby book!

But there’s one milestone I absolutely dread, and I’m afraid we’re about to come face to face with it in the Devereaux household.

“Did you put Emily into her cot at lunchtime?” Tracey asked me today when I arrived home from work. She’d thought she’d left Miss2 lying on Miss4’s bed but when she went back in our daughter was asleep in her cot.

“Um….,” I said, wondering if I could get away with it again today. “Sorry?”

“You didn’t,” said Tracey. It was a statement. 

“I can’t remember. I probably did.”

“No. You didn’t,” said Tracey. She sighed. “I didn’t think so. I think it might be time to put Emily into her own bed.”

“What? No!” I moaned. “She put herself into the cot. That means she likes the cot. We would be depriving her of her cot that she clearly loves being in. That’s not nice.” Then a brilliant idea struck me. I wondered why I’d never thought of this before. “I’ve got it!” I cried. “We’ll turn the cot upside down!”

“Brilliant!” said Tracey, although I realized half a second later she was being sarcastic. “No.”

No cot means Miss2 can jump out of her bed and join us in ours anytime she likes. This is the stuff nightmares are made of.

But on the bright side, we’ll be one step closer to that milestone where, in the middle of the night, they can go to the toilet and put themselves back to bed without any parental supervision at all.

Meanwhile, the next milestone I’ll be gunning for is when Miss2 can sleep over at Grandma’s place for the whole weekend. I might phone her up now.

🙂 please share 🙂

“Raising a family on little more than laughs.”

2 Comments

  • As I lie here with 2 children under three in a king size bed while gripping the edge to stop from falling out, I cant help but wonder why they don’t make cots for adults to sleep in. Upsidedown ones to stop anyone from climbing IN.

  • I can so relate to this. I was the idiot parent who suggested the “big girl bed” while my husband was the voice of reason. Now we can hear the shuffling little feet all the way down the hall followed by “Is it morning yet?”. I’d love a cot for me 🙂
    Loving the blog by the way. A recent thing for me but very enter and best of all no-one pretending that everything is perfect all of the time!

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