I’ve been extremely lucky as a parent so far.  My kids slept through the night at a relatively early age. The transition from bottle to sippy cup was never an issue.  They’re good eaters, preferring fruit at snack time and happily trading their mashed potatoes for my green beans at dinner time (oh, how I have them fooled!)  Naptime has always been fairly easy and bedtime was always a no-brainer.  With Connor coming along so quickly after Joshua, we moved Joshua into a big boy bed probably earlier than we should have but we needed the crib and, honestly, we never had a problem with him in the bed.  So when Connor started climbing out of his crib before he was even 2 years old, we knew we had trouble on our hands. First came the crib “tent” which worked quite well. Connor loved it and always requested that we zip it shut at night.  As we pondered converting the crib to his toddler bed we wondered if we were doing it too soon and, with all the bedtime struggles we’ve had lately, I’d have to say “yes”, we pushed it. So back the bed went to a crib, minus the tent.  Bedtime is now a nightmare with Connor usually climbing out 2-4 times before he actually falls asleep for the night.  Then add that onto him waking up around 5 am and coming into our room, couple with one mom who NEEDS 8 hours of sleep a night, and you have an ugly situation.  So now we’re at the point where we’re debating putting the tent back on the crib. Not only so he falls asleep faster but so that he stays in his crib longer in the morning. He turned 2 in June so perhaps it’s just time I acknowledge that I’ve lost the battle, convert the crib for good and come to grips with the realization that (gasp!) I have an early riser.  Why, oh why, did I push this? I could be happily settled into 8 hours of sleep a night and going in to wake my little man instead of being woken up by him way earlier than he should be up. Any advice from other moms out there?