Overprotective

After my daughter died, another mother who'd lost her daughter told me that even now, 8 years after her daughter's death, she gets anxious when her now-teenaged oldest child is riding her bike around the neighborhood. I knew then that I had to be wary of being overprotective of my younger daughter. So far I think I've done well.

A few days ago, I had a dream all about my daughter's crib and her room. Since my older daughter died in her room, essentially overnight, it's easy to understand why I'm anxious about this. With a new baby due in July, I've been trying to figure out what to do as far as sleeping arrangements. My older daughter was on a twin mattress and boxspring and her younger sister was to share the room with her, sleeping in her old crib. That never happened. My younger child was in a portable crib until she was 10 months old, when we finally got a video monitor I was comfortable with, and we then put her in the crib.

Now, at 22 months, she's never tried to climb out of the crib and isn't yet too big for it. So I want to keep her in a crib. However, the original nursery furniture was pretty expensive as I thought it'd be the only set we ever bought. I've been looking at cribs and am freaked out at how flimsy some of them are. My daughter actually jumps in her crib like a trampoline, so I need something that's not going to shake, rattle, or roll. I also want to be able to convert it to a toddler bed so I don't have to go buy one when she finally is tall enough.

Basically, I want my daughter and her sibling trapped in cribs until they're 4 years old if at all possible. This seems OK though. A couple of friends have told me I should do whatever I'm comfortable with and screw the rest of the world and its opinion. Sounds good to me.

But, and this is a big but, my father was always what I considered overprotective. My brother and I were never left home alone until I was oh, in my 20s. The rest of my class went on a graduation trip while I stayed home. As a child, I never went on a trip with a friend, or attended any teenage drinking beer-in-the-woods parties. And I admit, I resented a lot of that overprotection. And of course I sometimes told white lies to be able to get to do what I wanted to do. I don't want my children to have to do that.

So ugh, yet another struggle. And I'm not sure exactly when my child will start struggling against me. Right now, my plan is to move my daughter to an unused bedroom in which we'll place a new crib. I'm not sure how she'll do. But she's a toddler, so I figure she can only protest so much and in so many ways. What happens when she's a teenager? Am I one day going to be arguing with her about my overprotectiveness because she thinks I'm acting out of fear? I try not to ever act out of fear.

As one of my followers said, anxiety is worry about tomorrow. Living for today is one way to avoid anxiety. I find myself reminding myself "one day at a time" an awful lot lately. Tough to do when you're trying to plan for a new baby, but really, I can only do something today, right?