Right from the time the kids were born, we were certain co-sleeping wasn’t going to work for us. From a very practical perspective, there just wasn’t enough space and while the idea of sleeping with a baby seems so irresistibly sweet, the actual doing is considerably more uncomfortable.
The sweetness lasts for 3 minutes and after that, they turn into little sleep tyrants. They do windmills on the bed, monopolise every inch of space and before I know it, I’m squeezing myself into a 50cm strip of space on my bed.
Occasionally, their diaper leaks and I find myself waking up in a puddle of pee. That’s not my own. Not that I wake up in my own pee regularly (or at all) but it’s so much worse waking up in someone else’s pee. If I had to wake up in a puddle of pee, I’d choose my own any day. Just like if I ever got stung by a jellyfish, I’d much rather pee on myself than have someone else do it.
So from the beginning, we were diligent in getting them to sleep on their own beds. We did up a gorgeous nursery, bought them supercool toddler beds, gave them cold turkey and taught them to sleep on their own, feeling mighty proud of ourselves.
But…and you know there’s a but because there’s ALWAYS a but. The ‘but’ sometimes comes in the form of a dark stormy night when the kids wake up crying with nightmares. Or a persistent virus that requires through-the-night supervision. Or just a moment of weakness coupled with puppy dog eyes.
And when the ‘but’ happens, everything goes belly up very quickly.
Which explains why the nursery has been unused for several months now. The latest sleeping arrangement involves 2 mattresses laid out in our room every night and you’d think it’s for the kids to sleep but more often than not, we find ourselves on the mattresses while the kids usurp our bed.
We’ve been wanting to restart the sleep training but the though of having to sit in their room for hours through the night terrifies me. On good days, I get to crawl into bed at midnight and an hour in, I have to stumble my way into the nursery because one of them is awake and asking to sleep in our room. So let’s see, option 1 is to sit there with them till they fall asleep or option 2, cave and let them come over so we can all get some decent sleep.
Right now, we’re even contemplating turning the nursery into our secret back up sleeping room but they’re probably going to invade that too.
Seriously, how do you guys do it?
