Get him out of my bed. He's cute, but this isn't working for me.

My bed has been invaded.

Dogs? Nope.

Bedbugs? Worse.

A three-year-old.

I really value my sleep. You wouldn’t know it due to the fact that I am a night owl and thus don’t usually go to bed before midnight even though my older son wakes up by 6am, and then I wonder why I’m always tired. Whatever, that’s what coffee’s for. But I really, really like my sleep.

So when I had my babies, I evicted each of them from both my womb and my room.

With my first, the hospital nurses left the newborn in his little tupperware in the room with us, probably just to get us used to his existence and remind us that we weren’t there just for the free french toast. I think otherwise we might possibly have left him in the nursery, gone home, and felt like we’d forgotten something. Becoming a parent, despite 9 months of “preparation” (as IF anything can prepare you for becoming a parent - and no, getting a dog is absolutely not the same level of life-will-never-ever-be-the-same even if your dog also follows you into the bathroom and begs for snacks while you’re trying to poop).

With my second, the nurses recognized the defeated acceptance deep in the portals of my eyes that signaled to them that yes, I was a parent. They saw my older son visit and knew I had managed to keep a human alive for several years already. They wheeled that baby-cart right to the nursery without even my asking. It was the best sleep I’d had since I first became a mom. It made the french toast taste even more sweet. It was the ever-so-brief, luxurious taste of rest and silence.

The main reason that I didn’t have my first baby in our bedroom with us when he was born was logistical. We have a queen-sized sleigh bed that I love in theory and naively purchased for our actually quite small bedroom. I also picked nightstands that we had to turn sideways (rendering the drawer on the stand between the bed and the wall unusable) and a very large (for our tiny bedroom) dresser. We didn’t return them because “one day” they’d look beautiful in the next house we’d eventually buy. Well, flash forward ten years and we’re in that next house, and our bedroom is just as small. Good foresight, Deb. Shop for the body you have, not the body you’re dieting for. Same applies to bedrooms, as it turns out.

So literally between the too-large bed, the too-large nightstands, and the too-large dresser, there was no room for a crib. We could have co-slept, but I tend to do aerobics in my sleep and was absolutely terrified I’d crush the tiny new human, so that was out. The baby’s room was extremely close to our bedroom, we had a video baby monitor, and we kept the doors open. Even without the monitor, I could hear the baby breathing. Thank you Mom Ears. (I once heard the baby wake up from a nap while we were at my parents’ house; he was two floors up and I was watching tv. I think there was at least one closed door as well.)

That one stayed in that crib until he was replaced by the new baby. Just as before, it was a moment of “crap, the room isn’t ready yet,” and then rather than finishing assembling the crib before the baby came (as it was the first time around), it became a race to finish the big boy room so the baby could have the baby room. I had been wanting to transition the elder child to the big boy room at least four months before the baby came knowing full well that elder would be experiencing quite a lot of change. But we’re the kind of people that take down their Halloween decorations because it’s time to put up the Christmas decorations, and unlike at Target, the swap happens the day before Christmas, not two weeks before Halloween. (Luckily, this year I ate half of the candy for the trick-or-treaters early enough that I could go out and get more Halloween candy or the kids would have been getting chocolate snowmen and candy canes in their plastic jack-o-lanterns.)

All that is to say that kids have not been in our bed with us. Not as little babies. Not as toddlers. Not as bigger boys who can’t fall asleep.

Until now.

Several weeks ago (an eternity, it seems), the “baby” got a cold. It didn’t bother him much except that at night his nose was so blocked up that he really couldn’t breathe. He had an impossible time sleeping and would cry.

“Mommy?” “Mommy, are you there?” “Mommy, I can’t sleep.” “Mommy, I’m scared.” “Mommy?” “Mommy, I’m dying.” “Is anyone out there?” “Is anyone there?” “Mommy?!?!?” “Anyone?!?”

Then the exasperated wailing.

After going in, reassuring him that it’s ok, that he’ll be ok, and reading to him and singing to him and cuddling him, and getting back into my own bed….

“Mommy?”

And my husband and I took turns going in and being with him and then coming back to bed and then the crying. Repeatedly.

And we’d give him five, and then ten, and then fifteen minutes to cry and then hopefully fall asleep. And then the older boy comes in and says,

“Ummm, are you guys gonna help him? Do you hear him? I can’t sleep. Make it stop.”

Oh gee, thanks. I hadn’t noticed.

So he came into our bed. Just this one time. And he slept. And we cuddled. And he was a little nugget. And we woke up to a sweet, darling little boy. They’re only this little once.

And the next night, IT ALL HAPPENED AGAIN.

After he cried the fourth time, I said, “just bring him in bed. He still can’t breathe. He’s scared. I need to sleep. I don’t care.”

And we cuddled. He was my little spoon. He fit perfectly in my little spoon space. And it was so sweet.

This wasn’t so bad.

And the next night. After he cried the second time, I brought him into bed with me. And he kicked me in the face. And he flip-flopped like a fish out of water. And he kicked the blankets to the end of the bed. All. Night. Long.

And now, every night, sometime between 2 and 4am, he wakes up. “Mommy?” And I go in and I get him and I bring him in bed. And he squirms. And he kicks the covers off. And he elbows me in the ribs. And he somehow gets sideways and pushes me way harder than his tiny body should have the strength to push until I’m afraid I’m going to fall off the bed. Honestly, I just started shoving him back. He’s pretty sturdy, it turns out.

Last night, before I fell asleep but while he was snoring away, he somehow managed to slide his hand into the back of my flannel pajama shorts. I don’t know how that’s even possible. And there are only so many times a person should have to wake up with a tiny human foot entangled in her hair. That number of times is zero. Maybe one, in college.
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I could sleep train him, now that he can breathe again. I could let him cry and make him stay in his own bed. But we’re now transitioning that room to be the boys’ room with bunk beds so that we can have the other bedroom for use as a playroom/guest room, so we’re doing some work in there, spackling, painting, and at this point we might as well wait until that’s finished.

Then we’re kicking that manipulative, sneaky little preschool bed-hog out. Eviction once more. Coffee until then.

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Seriously. That's where I was supposed to be.