Addendum to previous post

Then, in the evening, she put herself to sleep. I was rocking her when she turned to me and said "I need to go to bed now." She walked over, got in bed (in our bed with Erich working on his computer in the same room, but still) and slowly went to sleep. And that was that.

It seems like all of these major changes from baby to young girl all happen together. She is now potty trained. She hasn't nursed in weeks (I won't go so far as to say she's "weaned" and will never nurse again, but she's been moving that direction for a while now). And now she's starting to be able to go to bed without being rocked or having someone next to her. Crazy.

I'm pleased that we generally allowed her to move at her own pace with these things. They don't seem to have been sources of stress at all, either for her or for us. And just to make it clear to any of our readers who are more "mainstream" parents: No, it does not bother us to rock her. No, we did not see any reason to "train" her to sleep by herself earlier. It hasn't been inconvenient for us (quite the opposite, really). And I do not at all think that it has harmed her development or stunted her growing "independence" (though I do question whether independence should be a major goal of parenting).

Serena tries to step of the soapbox and trips. Typical.