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Monday, January 12, 2015

Whose bed is it anyway?

The whole time we were in Utah Benjamin didn't climb into bed with us once. It was amazing.

Of course, he slept in a makeshift bed on the floor right beside our bed the entire time, but still...we thought he was cured!

When we came home he slept in his own bed for two nights, so we really thought he was cured...but there's this saying about not counting chickens before they're hatched and, uh, let's just say that only lasted two nights before he started waking up and climbing into bed with us again.

I wouldn't mind so much if he would sleep between us with his feet where feet are supposed to go and his head where heads are supposed to go, but he won't. His preferred sleeping position is the H position—the one where baby sleeps perpendicular between the parents—and he's getting a tad too big for such shenanigans.

On the positive side of things, this is irrefutable evidence that he's growing because the H position used to be tolerable.

On the negative side of things, I've been spending most of my nights trying to keep him from head-butting me in his sleep while Andrew's been dealing with constant kicking.

It doesn't matter how many times we walk him back to his own bed or how many times we reposition him in our bed. He always finds a way to reclaim his favourite sleeping spot.

Before we left to Utah I set up a makeshift bed beside our bed and started making Benjamin sleep there when he'd come padding into our room in the middle of the night, but Andrew cleaned that up when he did his grand sweep of the house after we were gone. I set it back up last night and when, quite predictably, I woke up with his face staring into my face, I told him exactly where he could park it for the night.


"If you want to sleep with Mommy," I said, "You have to sleep on the floor, right here, beside me. If you want to sleep on a bed, you have to go back to your own bed."

He was not happy but he defeatedly lay down on the floor to sulk about it.

I patted his back for a while before giving up that anything would ever comfort the poor boy ever again. Then I did my best to ignore him while I tried to fall back asleep.

"Me not 'ant 'is piwwy!" he said, tossing the pillow I'd placed in his bed aside.

He sobbed for a few more minutes, facedown on his now pillow-less mat, then got up and stomped out of our room.

"Is he going back to bed?" I whispered to Andrew in amazement.

"Maybe..." Andrew said. "But I wouldn't count on it. Wait for it..."

We lay there together, nearly holding our breath, trying to hear what Benjamin was up to, but all we could hear was the rain and then...Benjamin came shuffling back into our room, lugging his pillow with him.

"Me has mine piwwy," Benjamin announced angrily, plopping himself onto the mat beside our bed.

He spent a fitful night on the floor—he woke up several times and tried to climb into our bed but I didn't let him. Because I'm a mean mom.

Now I'm about as tired as if I'd just let him climb into bed with us in the first place, but hopefully tonight will go a little smoother since he knows ahead of time what his options are.

9 comments:

  1. Malcolm has recently taken to making flying leaps into our bed either just before the alarm goes off (like he senses it's coming) or if it goes off and we don't get up right away. He sleeps soundly all night by our bed, but once he's awake, we have to prepare ourselves for an aerial invasion. If he could crawl up stealthily, we might not notice and he'd have much better results. I wish we could have a chat with him about it like you can with Benjamin. :) Good luck!

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  2. Cheetah still sleeps in our bed every night. We try to start her somewhere else but she somehow always finds her way back in between us. We can never have another child. And yes Dr. J does not even bother telling parents not to cosleep anymore.

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    1. Hahaha! I love how his advice has changed. :) Some things aren't up for parents to decide, no matter how disciplined their parenting style.

      I wouldn't even mind if we all slept like this: | | | but we have to sleep like this: |—|.

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  3. Beth was waking up in the middle of the night and screaming if no one came and held her while she slept (in her bed, but you had to kneel on the floor and hold her). We got fed up with it and Robert started locking our door at night. She tried the routine a couple of times after that, but when she found our door locked and figured out that we weren't going to put up with it anymore, she went and got back in her own bed and went to sleep... Thank goodness!! lol

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  4. As far as I can tell I've won the jackpot with kids and sleeping. Gareth never tried to climb in bed with us. We never co-slept (moved him out of our room at about 2 weeks), so I don't know if it's that (no expectation that he can) or just his personality. He was always an awesome sleeper in pretty much every way. Malcolm has never asked to sleep in our bed either. Though he's still in the crib, so we could be in for a rude awakening when he moves to a big bed. But he's nearing three and still hasn't attempted climbing out of the crib, so I'm really hoping we just won't have to deal with this. Good luck with Benjamin. I hope you're consistently getting kick-free sleep shortly!

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  5. Haha I remember sleeping on my parent's floor on a fake fuzzy fur rug. I would stare under the bed at all the dust bunnies (it was a wood floor). I was like five so you might have a few more years. :) I wasn't allowed in the bed either. I bet he will get used to it soon enough.

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  6. I remember crawling in bed between my parents, but I HAD to. I was plagued with terrible nightmares--until about age 35 or more, frankly--and they were just too, too awful. I HAD to be between them, because if I was on the edge...who knows what terrible things might have happened. I can remember them being annoyed with me, but I am so grateful they let me, because honestly, some nights were so terrifying that I do not know how I would have survived alone. Or laying on the floor. I was completely frightened of under-the-bed. Eventually I stopped, but I don't remember at what age. I had to learn coping skills. Those nightmares were doozies. I once told Nancy one of my nightmares in the middle of the day and completely creeped her out. And I tried writing them down because I thought...horror genre sells well. If I am going to have such awful dreams, I might as well make some money. But they were too creepy to write down. Reliving them by writing them--too horrible. So, thanks mom and dad for letting me find safety between you on my darkest nights. I really appreciated it!

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    1. That sounds awful. Did something awful happen to you, or was this just your imagination gone nuts while you were trying to sleep? I'm glad you were finally able to get over them...at about age 35, geesh!

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    2. Just imagination, apparently. My dog nightmares were terrible, but I am not sure if dogs scared me first and then I had nightmares, or if I had the nightmares and so was terrified of dogs. The other themes of my nightmares, I have no clue where they came from!

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