When I was living with my parents, nursing Zac, and working full time, he and I fell asleep everywhere and anywhere together. In a recliner, on the couch, in bed...really, the kid slept next to me better than he did on his own. I don't have firm memories of Zac as a newborn due to sleep deprivation, but I know he woke up every 2-4 hours for the first two years of his life. He would wake up, I would bring him into bed with me, we would shush, and then sleep.
Gradually, he spent more and more time in his own bed. He also grew into the flailing toddler stage in which most parents would agree not to go within 20 yards of their sleeping child for fear of getting an elbow or knee to the head.
Within the past nine months or so, definitely since I bought the king size bed, Zac has been wanting to sleep with me. "It's more comfortable with you. I'm more cozy" he would say plaintively, while giving me the puppy eyes. We create a pillow barrier between us and he rests on a nest of pillows on "his side" of the bed. We hold hands as we both fall asleep.
Wait? What? Yeah, you read that correctly. Either a 7 year-old is going to bed as as 32 year-old or the 32 year-old is going to bed at the same time as a 7 year-old. Actually, in my first trimester, I was more than happy to go to bed at 7:30pm and read until 8:30pm when we would turn out the lights. Most nights, I didn't even make it to the hand holding stage. I would turn out my light while Zac was still reading and wake up to a dark room with a sleeping child. I could swear there were some nights when he tucked me in.
Then my second trimester progressed (slllooowwwllllyyyy) and I wanted to stay up later. I didn't mind staying up until 9pm or 10pm since I knew I'd be waking up at 4am either way and usually going back to sleep. The problem with a family bed is that it's tough to convince kids that they should go to sleep on their own, without the parent in bed with them. The comfort they receive from having the parents close by is the primary driver behind the family bed to begin with. So saying to Zac, "Just go in my room, create the pillow nest, go to sleep, and I'll catch up with you in two or three hours." never really flew over well. Now after six months of pregnancy, trying to get him to sleep in his bed is like breaking an arm. I've talked to him about how he's going to have to sleep in his bed when the baby comes because Baby Bean will most likely be in a cradle in my room (particularly if my nursery is still occupied with KGII). He doesn't really understand why we can't have just one big, merry Family Bed with the three of us. I told him babies cry a lot and I didn't want it to wake him up. He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language because we both know that waking Zac up in the night is difficult, at best, impossible, at worst.
My favorite is when I tell people about this issue and they immediately (and rightly) place blame back on me. "Well, you're the one that let him sleep in your bed for six months. What did you expect?" This. The answer is, I expected this. I know I created the problem because there is a part of me that likes the family bed. If you've ever held hands with a sweet seven year-old to fall asleep to, then you know what I'm talking about. In the mornings, I see him resting on his pillow nest and it makes me melt inside. I think about all that Zac and I have been through and how hard it was for us to bond in the beginning and how my early, tentative steps at being a parent were so challenging for both of us and I just kinda melt. Put my kid, a down comforter, and a couple of cats in bed and I feel like I've reached the promised land.
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