Long ago, when we were still pregnant with Evan and we were daydreaming of life with a child, Josh shared a dream of his with me. He looked forward to those nights when our child would join us in bed during a rough night. You know, those nights when they’re sick or had a bad dream, and they come to your bedroom door looking for reassurance or you bring them in so they feel safer. You open the blankets to welcome them in, and everyone sleeps soundly, everyone feeling loved and secure.
At that point, I opposed. I said there’s no way that’ll happen; I don’t want our kids to be coming to our bed 5 nights a week because it’s so easy to do. If they are sick or have a bad dream, I will stay with them until they go back to sleep, then return to our bed. Josh didn’t care about my protests, he insisted one day it would happen, and I would love it so, it would happen again.
The day came, or better said, the night. It was last night. Evan has only had one rough night before, last month, but after a couple of hours of wanting nothing but mommy, he went back to sleep. Last night we were not so lucky. He went to bed at the normal time, but was awake by 9:30 pm. It took me almost 20 minutes to put him back to sleep, but he did. Sadly enough, he was awake by 10:20 pm. And so I stayed with him, lied on the floor with him, and waited for him to cuddle with me and go back to sleep. Well, he wanted to make sure I didn’t go anywhere, so he tried to sleep on me, literally. He laid his head on the side of my waist (I was laying on my left side) and wrapped his arms over so that he was kneeling next to me, using me as a big pillow. That was not comfortable at all, so I didn’t let it go on for long, and finally he lied next to me and fell asleep. I tried to move him into his crib a couple of times, but he woke up screaming every time, until finally I moved him and kept my hands on him for a while longer (a quite uncomfortable stretch to make with a pregnant belly, I may add) until I was able to slip through the door and go back to my bed. Success! It only took 1.5 hours.
But he was awake again by 1:20 am. I decided it was daddy’s turn to take over, so I woke him up and sent him on his way. Evan would not calm down for him, so finally they both came through the door. I was half asleep, but I knew what was happening and I opened the blankets to receive my poor baby, who just wanted his mama. Mom was too tired to go sleep on the floor, so I gave, and decided it was time to give this sleeping together a try and hope we could all get some sleep.
Boy, was I wrong. Evan slept between us, on top of the blankets (he doesn’t like blankets, and his PJs are warm enough), which meant both Josh and I were lacking blankets at one point or the other. He fell asleep with his feet right next to my face, curled up against my body. I could see how easy it would be for me to get a black eye, so I tried to move, but then I ended up with no blankets. So we moved Evan a bit, and that was better. However, every time he woke up, he woke up with a cry into the night, so we had to sooth him again and help him go to sleep. Then he went to hang out next to daddy, then back to me, and so on. Finally at 6 am I took him to his crib and let him cry himself to sleep. I was that tired and determined to get a good hour of sleep. Turns out he was as tired as we were, and he cried for a whole minute before falling asleep.
When I went back to bed I told Josh “never again”. He wholeheartedly agreed and admitted that Evan was a pain to sleep with, and that his dream had turned into a nightmare and he never wanted to try that again. I was never happier to hear he had just as crappy a night as I did!
I’m sure sometime in the future we’ll give it another go, and probably decide again it isn’t for us, but while that amnesia kicks in, I’ll say it again: never again.
No comments:
Post a Comment