Moving to the Toddler Room

Gabriella is in the Infant room at day care. Infants are under the age of 15 months. Gabriella will be 16 months on Thursday and should be in the Toddler room by now. Gabriella is working with Early Intervention as she is not yet walking due to her lack of opportunities to practice walking in Guatemala and her language is delayed due to her sole exposure to Spanish during her first year. Early Intervention gave her a note to extend her stay in the Infant room by one month. My main concern is that she is going to get trampled while she is crawling around and all of the other children are walking. I am also concerned because the children are expected to be a bit more independent in that room than in the Infant room; Gabriella is not there yet. My mother spent a little time with Gabriella in the Toddler room yesterday, though, to begin to get her used to being there. My mother said she did really well and enjoyed it, probably because the kids are obviously older and are more interactive than the babies in the Infant room. Ken usually brings Gabriella to daycare, but I was able to go into work later today so I was able to bring her in this morning. My mother wanted me to observe her in the Toddler room. She seemed completey adjusted to being in the new room and seemed to enjoy herself exploring the new space. I almost started crying, though, because it hit me that she is not a baby anymore and she is getting more independent and needs mommy's help a bit less each day! It is, of course, my mission as her mom to raise Gabriella to be an independent and strong woman, I am just not ready for her to lose any dependency yet!