Bobby and I have never co-slept with our kids. We have a few main reasons.
1) I am a terrible sleeper.
2) Bobby is a very heavy sleeper and I always feared he would smoosh an infant and not know it.
3) For the first 9 years of parenthood, we had a full-size bed. There was barely room for the both of us.
(We rectified this almost 2 years ago for our 13th anniversary. PRAISE THE LORD. King is king.)
Nevertheless, with both our boys, we have been forced into co-sleeping. Because…two parents too exhausted to throw little kids back into their own beds in the middle of the night. We eventually broke Joshua of it, but he was up in our full-size beds most nights from age 3.5-5. That was ROUGH. He loved to sleep ON my back and kick Bobby in the crotch. We’re lucky we were able to have Jonah after the abuse Bobby endured at the feet of his sleeping son. But finally. We broke free about 5 years ago. Sophie never tired to get in bed with us really (she might be my favorite) and Jonah never did either…until this fall, when he could finally get his bedroom door open.
Then it was game-on in the forced co-sleeping arena. Now Jonah sneaks into our bedroom most nights between 1 and 3 a.m. Since we have a king bed now, it’s not as bad as it was with Joshua. Although he still likes to sleep on my back or my HEAD, he pretty much leaves his dad alone. However, I am generally relegated to sleeping on about 1/16 of our giant bed as for some reason Jonah feels the need to push me as close to the edge of it as I can go without falling off.
Two nights ago, he didn’t come into our room until 3:55. And he was AWAKE. I was awakened by him plopping in between Bobby and I, sitting up, and LAUGHING. Then he said “Oh, hi guys!” and THEN he laid down and grabbed me and reached for Bobby and said “GROUP HUGS!” (He loves group hugs. We have a lot of family hugs, what can I say?) And our bed is so big, he never quite reached Bobby, and my darling husband slept right through the group hugs. Jonah made several attempts, saying, “GROOOOUP HUGS!” in a loud sing-songy voice while I muttered “No, no, no group hugs. Lay down. It’s time for sleepy. No group hugs.” He gave up on the group hugs eventually but not on the Wayne’s World-type atmosphere he felt should be happening that moment. He was up for at least another 30 minutes, as was I…it was really fun getting him up for #%&* 7:30 preschool that morning! Pass. The. Coffee.
Another “benefit” of co-sleeping is that when you get up early to work before your kids wake up so that when they DO wake, you can PARENT instead of work…they wake up to your alarm and then you’re just screwed in a variety of ways. Welcome to my Friday. The one day that Jonah doesn’t have to get up for school, he was up at 6:00 am. Womp-womp. Talk about your all-time backfires.
So, why don’t we stop this, you ask? Well, two reasons:
1) Oh em gee, so tired in the middle of the night.
2) Jonah and Joshua share a room. We put him back in his bed, he screams and cries like the tiny monster he is, and Joshua is all wakey-ville. Also his wall adjoins Sophie’s room. So basically, if we let him sleep with us, I’m the only one awake (sometimes Bobby, but mostly me). If we put him back in his room, all 5 of us will be awake. And, all three kids get up for school at 6:30.
MOMS: Taking one for the team since the beginning of time.
So basically, I think we’re probably going to be reluctantly co-sleeping until Jonah grows out of it, which, for his brother, happened around age 5. Only ONE MORE YEAR. Maybe. <Yawn.> Do you co-sleep in your family, and is it by choice or um, “child-led”?
