Children’s sleep is a much discussed topic, in parenting
communities, in the media, on social networks and in families. Often, when a
new baby is expected, well-meaning souls warn of the sleep deprivation to come
and the challenges of getting enough rest. Before I was a mother I too thought
of the difficulties of being awake tending to a baby when I’d like to be
asleep. Being a naturally owlish being, I wasn’t too worried, yet the horror
stories came my way as friends ventured into parenthood and I heard tell of
those who used all manner of devices and strategies to persuade their little
ones into the land of nod, from dummies to driving, music to white noise, it
seemed an unsolvable conundrum.
When I became pregnant, my family and I took great joy in
turning a room, which at the time was my office space, into a ‘nursery’. Walls
were stripped, books moved to other place, the desk heaved out; my workspace
was transforming to create the space for a new being to be. It soon became the
best room in the house, with Farrow and Ball paint, an expensive carpet and a
suite of ‘baby’ furniture purchased with the love and funds of the grandparents
in waiting. A friend did suggest that in
the early days it may be best to sleep with the baby in our room, and, at the
time, I thought we’d do this for around 6 months, and then move he’d move gradually into his own
room, probably with us employing a range of strategies to ensure he stayed there.
I was wrong. When our son arrived, I hadn’t anticipated our
fierce and animalistic need to be together. He slept by my side and in a moses
basket and moved between the two as suited us best. Waking in the night took
some getting used to, but I hadn’t factored in the wonderful sleep-inducing
hormone hit that breastfeeding provides to induce sleepiness in both mother and
baby. The nursery beckoned with it’s
freshly gleaming walls and specially chosen textiles, yet it remained empty.
Six months came and went in the blink of an eye and suddenly
the moses basket was a snugger fit than desirable. What to do?
We live in a
small terraced house, we have a standard double bed; family began making noises
about it being time to move our little one into his own space, so we could get
our space back, and surely, as he’d outgrown the basket, now was the right
time. We were horrified ~ our space had become our space, for all three of us.
We loved sleeping with our child, so the hunt for a solution was on. I scoured
Ebay looking for a specific model of cot, an extra narrow one, no longer in
production, to allow us to continue to be together. Luck was on my side, and I collected and
drove my prize home, happy to rearrange the furniture that than be separated
from my little one. These actions were
met with a certain amount of suspicion and concern from others, who pointed out
that we had a bigger bed in the ‘nursery,’
and wondered why we didn’t use it.
A year came and went. We continued to share our space, more
often than not bedsharing with our son, who began the night in his new cot,
then joined us when he needed to feed and to snuggle in what had become the
‘family bed’. This felt so instinctive and right to us, even in the face of
warnings and scare stories, that we made sure we knew how do to it safely, then
got on with what suited our family best. I found out later that there are books
available which explain the reasons why some families might want to sleep in
this way; I still haven’t read any of them!
After a year, despite some expressions of disappointment
from family, people generally stopped asking about our sleeping
arrangements. Breastfeeding whilst lying
down and not having to get out of bed at all to tend to our son’s needs seemed
such a no-brainer, I couldn’t see why I’d want to make my life more difficult.
When eighteen months had passed, I became pregnant again and we continued to
bedshare.
When our son was two, and I was massively pregnant, again,
questions were asked about sleeping. Again, the thought of having to get up in
the night was such an anathema to me that I didn’t even consider making a
change. Also, our child was happy, healthy and very capable of making his needs
and choices known. The ‘big bed’ was where he needed to be and we savoured our
nights together, even though his activities meant we often woke in a kind of H
shaped constellation. My partner made occasional hints about changing things,
but became very emotional in response to any proposed actions pertaining to
this. Working full-time and very long hours, he cherished his connection with
his little boy in the dreamtime hours between darkness and daylight. We also
came to realise that our arrangements facilitated easy travel; we had no need
to lug the ‘lightweight’ monster of a travelcot around with us, and our son,
even in strange surroundings slept well, settling away from home into the home
that is our togetherness.
Our daughter’s arrival was imminent, and so the moses basket
dutifully reappeared along with a brand new mattress. A wise friend questioned
‘are you really going to use that?’ I thought we would need to, with our small
bed and well snuggled in boy, we’d need somewhere for the baby to at least
start the night, wouldn’t we? I purchased a bed guard too then, just to be sure
we had all bases covered. Family
mentioned the ‘room’ again; yet we knew we needed to keep our closeness,
feeling alienation from the family space would be a sure-fire way of
exacerbating what might already be a difficult transition into siblinghood for
our son.
Then the tessellation and musical beds began. I wanted our daughter at my side and I wanted
our son too. Our son clung to me and soon we were attempting to squeeze four
people into a small standard double bed. Our daughter luxuriated in the cocoon
I curled around her, my son limpet-like attached himself to my back and his
feet, at a ninety degree angle to my partner, were extended to push his father
across the space into a precarious and drafty dangling position, in which he’d
have to brace himself to stay on the bed at all!
It wasn’t working; something needed to give and my back was
one of the things that protested as I frequented the chiropractor’s clinic
complaining of twinges and twists. We were initially at a loss and all
suffering, until we hit on the idea that we really weren’t using our space
effectively. We have a spare room with a double bed, and in the night, my
partner, when he’d reached his limit for clinging would often retreat there,
even though he found that bed uncomfortable and too soft. I on the other hand
like that bed, so, after some thought and discussion, we ended up with the
girls in one double bed and the boys in another. I would put our son to bed in the space he’d always
in, then his father would join him later. If he needed me in the night, I’d
come in, or he’d join me, either way he got his comfort from his Dad first, and
this has done enormously beneficial things for the bond in their relationship.
Family again thought this was a little unconventional, but it was working for
us, so we carried on.
To our great surprise, at the age of two and a half,
suddenly one evening, when our son was struggling to find sleep in the family
bed, he asked to go into his own room. We hadn’t mentioned this to him at all,
and had thought he might spend a great deal longer sleeping with a parent.
Hastily, his bed was made up and he’s slept in his own room each night ever
since. I had thought that we’d need to go down a route of lengthy preparations,
of talking about choices and explaining this room, his ‘space’ to him. I’d
considered our shopping trip to choose bedding and wall stickers, of the need
to encourage him back many times in the night ~ the broken sleep; none of this
has happened so far.
Our children to me are our greatest teachers and what I’ve
learnt from this is that when a need is truly met, it is outgrown. Closeness in
the early years is paramount and as great as the need for food, and our son has shown us that he feels secure
enough to take a tiny step in independence; sleeping on his own. As I sit in
the rocking chair we lovingly painted before he arrived, I nurse him ,
sometimes to sleep, and softly tell him of the dreams I had of small boy who
would inhabit the space that used to be my office; if only I’d known then that there was no
hurry to make a ‘nursery’ for him. I tell him of how I showed him the moon and
stars from this window when he was given a grand tour of the house on his first
night at home, how this room has held clothes, books and toys, all the hopes of
becoming as he journeys through babyhood and infancy. I lift him, sometimes
sleeping, sometimes wakeful into the bed his grandparents bought him, and wish
him a good night of sleep.
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