Why I am co-sleeping with my toddler in a family bed now
HOW WE SLEPT AS CHILDREN
I used to sleep with my older brother until the age of at least 8 that I can recall, but my partner said from the age of 5 he was DYING to have his own bedroom and space away from his siblings and parents (they were poor and only had one room for everything – living, dining, sleeping).
I really enjoyed sleeping with my family in a big bed because I was very scared of the dark as a kid.
I had my own room and everything prepared for me but there is nothing like having another warm body beside you to feel safe and comfortable (not to mention warm).
Sometimes you just need that.
Even before Baby Bun if I slept alone, I felt cold and uncomfortable without my partner.
HOW BABY BUN SLEPT AS A BABY UNTIL NOW
From DAY ONE he slept alone. All of the nurses, doctors, were all saying WOW to these answers:
Does he have a pacifier? (No. He never liked it.)
Does he sleep alone? (Yes. Since day one.)
I was SO PROUD of my answers.
He used to sleep alone and he used to cry for a few nights sleeping alone but then he stopped crying and just slept alone without a fuss.
….then he grew.
And grew.
And started climbing out, opening the door two or three times a night and running into our arms.
After a week of NOT sleeping and stressing out, my partner made the decision for us to do a family bed.
I was so against it. SO AGAINST IT. I like sleeping alone with my partner, and I like our alone time.
Unfortunately, unless we locked him in his bedroom, and put up 6′ fences to the ceiling around the bed, there is NO WAY he would be staying in there. This is not even an option.
WHY I LIKE CO-SLEEPING
- He no longer wakes me up by running out of bed screaming or crying.
- He is cuddly. I can feel him cuddle up against my back sometimes & reach for me.
- I can sleep with him when he’s sick and pat him back to sleep if need be.
- I know when he wakes up, and when he actually sleeps.
- Now that my partner is ALSO there, I don’t have to always wake up to tend to him, my partner does it and sometimes suffers for it; now he knows my pain.
- I know Baby Bun loves sleeping with us, he likes feeling comforted by our warm bodies.
WHAT I DISLIKE ABOUT CO-SLEEPING
- No more private time alone with my partner just to snuggle.
- Baby Bun tries to roll me over, smacks my face in the morning & squeals “UP! UP!!!”
- He roundhouse kicks & punches my face a lot. He is very VERY squiggly in bed.
- He snores and breathes loudly in my ear because he wants to be close to me.
- Sometimes Baby Bun won’t sleep at the bedtime allotted & keeps us awake too.
8 Comments
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Sherry of Save. Spend. Splurge.
1. Not disagreeing that you need to say “No” a lot, and enforce loving structure, but have you done this every single time, without exception? Doubt it.
2. So I guess all the kids who sleep with their families around the world as a cultural thing, are all products of terrible parents who don’t know how to say “No”? I highly doubt that. I have been to Asia a few times, along with Europe, and I have never seen parents stricter in North America than they are. They just pick and choose.
3. I am not being ridiculous, I don’t want to have my toddler screaming and crying every night because he doesn’t want to sleep alone. I and my partner both remember co-sleeping until at least the age of 7, and we turned out fine.. or were our parents ALSO bad parents who didn’t say “No” to us a lot, enforce loving structure, and turn out kids who are highly dysfunctional and terrible drug addicts?
Oh wait. No. They didn’t.
My whole point is not to attack you. It’s to tell you that there’s another point of view, we have resigned ourselves to not winning this battle with him for sleeping because we’re empathizing with him as a child who requires this security of his parents at night until he decides he is old enough to be alone, and that is absolutely not at all an indication of whether I am a good parent or not.
You have to pick and choose your battles, or do your kids always listen to everything you say 100% and never talk back?
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hope
Whatever works and gets the kid and you asleep. We had both of our kids in a crib next to our bed. We took the side of the crib off and made the crib an extension of our bed. That way, kids had us close but still had their own space. We came to this compromise because my husband was afraid he would crush them in his sleep :). He is a very heavy sleeper.
Once kids were too big for the crib they went into their own beds, but transition took about six months.-
sherry@savespendsplurge.com
We are light sleepers and mine just roundhouse kicks us in the face constantly.
I wonder when he will be ready to sleep on his own…
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Revanche @ A Gai Shan Life
That reminds me of when I had to not co-sleep but share a room with my sibling and had nightmares. I’d go to my parents’ room but never went in, I have no idea why. I was scared but not willing to actually admit it?
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sherry@savespendsplurge.com
You were tough. My parents never had me crawling into their bed because I was fine with my older brother, but now their grandchildren beg to sleep with them so I guess they’re feeling it now!
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Taylor Lee @ Yuppie Millennial
My parents were pretty strict about not letting me sleep in their bed as a young child. Even if there was a thunderstorm or I’d had a nightmare, I’d get about 30 minutes (maybe, if they didn’t lock the door) and then be roundly sent back to my room.
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