As helpless little babies, they lie in your arms, seeking bonding and comfort. When they’re just a little bit older, they sneak in to enjoy a bedtime story or a cuddle after a nightmare. Then they grow up and move full-time into their own beds, leaving mom and dad wondering where the years went
It’s bed time for Kid 3, but he’s lying face down on my bed, stalling. “I don’t know what it is about your bed,” he mumbles into the pillow. “It’s just…more comfortable than mine.”
Oh, I know what it is, kid. I know only too well.
It’s the nights that turned into weeks that turned into months that turned into years that you spent in my bed. Hours spent feeding you, changing your nappy, and then letting you sleep in the bend of my arm.
Nights when I’d given up on the idea of rest, and blearily watched you sleep, transfixed by the impossible loveliness of your mouth working even though your dummy had fallen out long before, and the almost imperceptible rising and falling of your chest.
Before it was cool and pretty much from day one, I was an attachment parent and a co-sleeper. I was unaware at the time that there were actual terms for what I was doing. I just knew that the idea of bringing a tiny, helpless human home and then putting him in a separate room at night felt wrong.
Separating from my babies in any way in those early days felt unnatural and unusually cruel to both of us. I’d set up your cot flush against my side of the bed, but you didn’t spend much time in there. Most nights, you’d wake up after the first few hours and demand to be next to me. It was the only thing that settled you and enabled either of us to get some sleep.
My approach didn’t sit well with some people. One of my very first lessons in parenting came from my mother-in-law, who warned me off letting my firstborn sleep in my bed. “Don’t do it,” she said. “You’ll never get him out of there.”
I nodded compliantly and waved her goodbye for the evening. Kid 1’s first night at home was spent sleeping on my chest. And so began years of co-sleeping.
I know what it is about my bed, Kid 3. It’s not only the nights, but the mornings too, when I’d drink my tea in bed while feeding you and then you’d play while I got dressed and ready for the day. And the afternoons, when we’d lie down together so I could read while you napped, but more often than not, we’d nap together.
As you grew, it would be my bed we’d curl up in to read a story. You and your siblings would all vie for the best space – the one closest to me. We’d read story after story, and then we’d talk about them. I knew you were all delaying going to bed, but what better way to do it?
When you were sick, it was my bed that was the best medicine. Mine had all the pillows, so I could prop you up if you had an earache. And I was there if you woke up with a fever, to take your temperature, throw off the covers, give you your medicine, and then wait until you fell asleep again.
I know only too well what it is about my bed that you like, kid, because right now, as I’m telling you all this, I miss the togetherness of those nights. Now, as you lie there face down, your feet almost touch the end of the bed and it’s a rare thing that we actually spend any time here at all.
What it is about my bed is not really that it’s more comfortable than yours. It’s that we got to know each other here. It’s that it reminds you of the together time we spent here. And now that you’re almost 12 and starting to separate from me in all sorts of ways, I’d wager that you miss those times as much as I do.
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