First you know your child best. I think children can be raised sleeping in their parents bed or in a crib and still be well-adjusted fine human beings. So the people yapping at you the crib can stuff it.

I would like to offer a bit of advice if you don't mind. When my babies were infants they of course made the schedule, they ate when they were hungry and slept when they were tired. When they got older they all had to have a schedule. To this day if my 16 year olds don't get enough sleep they will have a very bad day.

Before they started school this was by no means a conventional schedule, we were shift workers so the kids and I would go to bed at 3 am and sleep until noon. Our windows were covered so you didn't know if it was noon or midnight in our bedroom. But schedules (which will be entirely dictated by you, Jer and your lifestyle) offers stability, comfort, security and it aids in digestion. Plus when you must conform to societies time clock ie he starts school you can make the necessary changes slowly like moving everything up 10 minutes every few days until you're where you need to be.

When my twins turned two, my older kids were out of school for the summer, I was able to quit working so I thought I'd be the awesome mom and just let them go back to that sleep when we're tired, eat when we're hungry thing. It just didn't work for us the kids became whiney and cranky.

Only you know what's best for Jer but especially now before he can verbalize what's going on, he'll find comfort knowing what's expected of him and what comes next. It sounds like you've started an excellent routine. My kids LOVED the Mary Martin's Peter Pan. They watched it every day after lunch before nap time.