The marriage bed is sacred. Okay? No children allowed.
Unless you spoil your youngest child or are too tired to keep carrying him back to his own bed. Or if you really hate sleeping in his bed with him.
But it's a king size bed. Plenty of room. Given, he takes up a lot of the extra room and encroaches on my personal space, but I have my excuses. Every night he is put in his own bed. Every morning he wakes up in our bed.
The older brother and dad had a cub scout campout on Friday night. I saved myself the trouble and let him sleep on his dad's side of the bed. It's a spacious king size bed. Did I mention that?
In the early dawn hours I awoke with his little body curved around mine and his hand resting lightly on my cheek.
I don't wonder why I'm tired all the time, anymore.
Unless you spoil your youngest child or are too tired to keep carrying him back to his own bed. Or if you really hate sleeping in his bed with him.
But it's a king size bed. Plenty of room. Given, he takes up a lot of the extra room and encroaches on my personal space, but I have my excuses. Every night he is put in his own bed. Every morning he wakes up in our bed.
The older brother and dad had a cub scout campout on Friday night. I saved myself the trouble and let him sleep on his dad's side of the bed. It's a spacious king size bed. Did I mention that?
In the early dawn hours I awoke with his little body curved around mine and his hand resting lightly on my cheek.
I don't wonder why I'm tired all the time, anymore.
(This piece could also be entitled, "What Nancy Does When the Family Sleeps.")
Reminds me of The Boy, he hated sleeping in his bed - started calling MY bed HIS bed.
ReplyDeleteHe slept in his own bed perfectly until he had to spend three weeks with his dad - he returned with dirty laundry and separation anxiety.
I used to bribe him with promises of 50 cents to spend in the junk machines at the grocery store if he could spend a night in his bed; later, I upped the ante to comic books.
Only after a stint in the hospital (where he had to sleep alone), was he able to quit coming into my bed.
His anxiety still remains, however.
If I send him into a store while I stay in the car? He thinks I'll ditch him.
When I work, he calls my job when he gets home from school, just to be sure I haven't run away without him.
If I'm not awake when he gets up in the morning, I can be sure that he's knocking on the bedroom door, to be sure that I still live here.
If I go over to the neighbor's house in the evening, he is the one to turn on the outside light for me. And he's the one standing on the deck, waiting for my return.
All of my kids have gone through a phase like this...I don't do middle of the nights well, so I usually just say, "Climb in".
ReplyDeleteI tell myself they're not going to be still wanting to sleep with me when they're 16 and enjoy the squashed sleep. None of them have lasted more than a year consistently. Even my little one has stopped coming in almost entirely.
Now I have a sleeping bag on the side of my bed for the rare night when someone gets scared. It gets used about once a month by someone. I don't know. I kind of like it.
I am actually surprised by how many people I know who do the family sleeping thing. Maybe it's a bad thing we have a king size bed.
ReplyDeleteWe started with a three-quarter bed and went to a double and finally a king-size as our family grew. When number six was born we often had all of them in the bed at once.
ReplyDeleteThen we moved back to a double and slowly the kids made peace with their own beds. Ah, much better!
According to all the parenting books, I went about it all wrong. I let the boys sleep with us until they no longer wanted to.
ReplyDeleteAnd now Sissy snuggles with us too. I kinda like being wrong.
Our son isn't allowed in our bed, except on Saturday mornings when I let him crawl in with us. He usually tries to stay still but can only do so for about 2 minutes before he grabs my hand and says, "C'mon, mommy, breakfast." He actually fell asleep this Sat morning for a whole hour. Too bad I didn't get any sleep that whole hour, and I have the bruises to prove why!
ReplyDelete