Put on PJ’s. Brush teeth. Read stories. Get tucked in. Go to sleep.
It’s that FUCKING SIMPLE.
My kids don’t do that. They have NEVER done that. Well, expect for the past three nights.
Cue the choir of angles.
Having been breastfed to bed, co-sleeping babies, our bedtimes habits are a bit…umm, lax. Throw in the usual snots and sniffles and pukes and we had a routine of children either having been breastfed, laid with, or held to sleep.
We slowly made the transition from our bed to their beds with protests. Throw in some parental laziness and bam…four people in our king.
Now that I’m on the mend and the kids had a few night of Mommy gone at the hospital, we’ve decided to re-impliment the “kids go to bed in their own beds” rule. I automatically assumed this would be a total failure. Which is fine. I’m tired. I don’t have the energy.
Turns out we’re on night #3, as I type this…with kids asleep in their own beds. I nearly gave in to the Count because he has a bad cough and runny nose. But I held firm. KNOWING this could go on and on and on until they go off to college.
People TELL me co-sleeping kids eventually leave your bed, but really you don’t believe it. You just assume they will come and go and come and come and come and come and come. And just stay. Forever. Or until they decide to marry or something.
I am still emotional over weaning Princess Peanut. So this whole not sleeping with a kid-leg in my ribs is a little hard for me. I keep telling myself it’s fine. I keep telling myself not to get all crazy/protective/hover mommy.
But none of that really goes away until mindblowing sex, IN MY OWN BED, with the Kaiser.
Emotional crisis over. Cue the choir of angles again.
You are absolutely frigging correct about cosleeping babies that never leave. My twins are 14 years old. Not months, YEARS. They still climb in bed with me. This year I finally decided to hold firm on my son’s snuggling up, and so I stopped wearing underwear to bed. Now, he comes into my room in the middle of the night, pokes me, says “Are you wearing underwear?” and if I say “no” then he goes back to bed. It was the ONLY way I could get him out of my bed.
My daughter… um… well…. she still sleeps with me sometimes. Like today, we had a bit of a nappy-poo this afternoon…. for 4 hours.
They love me, I get that. But geesh… isn’t it enough love already?
So it will end?! I have three boys and most nights I end up with one who isn’t my husband in bed with me!!!
I don’t even dare to hope…
My twins left my bed around age 3 and my 2 yr old is still there with me. I like it though…he keeps me warm. LOL
Update: So I get into bed, and at 4 the child is hanging off the bed begging me to make it snow because she has a cold and wants a snow day. She gets into bed, takes all the covers, kicks me to the very very edge of the bed, and I end up giving up and getting on the frigging computer. She is 14. Fourteen. Four frigging teen.
It never ends. She will bring me on her honeymoon, I just know it!
Only one of my kids has really ever wanted to sleep in my bed. It’s the one I was gone from because of surgery and stuff when he was a baby. We finally got him out, and it is pretty nice but I miss having my baby snuggled up to me.
So (ahem) you must be feeling a little better.
Last night I slept with two boys in my bed while Jeromy slept on the couch. I mean two boys slept horizontally in the middle of my bed and I hung on for dear life at the very edge of the bed all night long.
I love that you’re sleeping with angles…makes me think you’re performing the Kama Sutra with carpenter’s squares or something.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Dylan co-slept until age 3 or so – but he had all those health problems, and when Daddy is away, he still likes to sleep in our bed. Thomas never ever has. He hated nursing, co-sleeping and letting anyone else sleep. But now he sleeps in his own bed, and I feel I never physically bonded with him, even though he nursed for 10 months. He’s just not a physical kid I guess.
Cordy slept with us until she was 4 or 5 months. She never slept well, so we decided to try putting her in her crib one night, and she slept there all night with only one waking. Turns out, we think she had been waiting for us to please put her in her own bed, because clearly she didn’t like sleeping with us.
She still rarely falls asleep unless she’s totally alone.
SEX IN YOUR OWN BED ON THE BIG VALENTINE’S DAY…
cue cheesy porn music, not a choir of angels.
boo woo chick boo woo.
ohhhhh yeahhhhh.
Gettin’ busy at the Queen and Kaiser’s! Woo hoo!
WonderBaby still ends up in bed with us, once or twice a week. Because she’s not a cuddler the rest of the time, I really love this time. Unless once or twice stretches into EVERY NIGHT, at which point I become cranky.
Go Queen! Get your freak on in a kid free bed!
You know I protested that I wanted a kid free bed but think I loved having kids snuggling. However, we’ve been SEVERAL months since purchasing the toddler beds for the twins and booting EVERYONE out of our room and it’s really been great.
I started sleeping again.
I had no idea how much I wasn’t sleeping.
Yay for good sex in your own bed! I know how emotional weaning and kicking the kid(s) out of your bed can be. I seem to have rushed both of those things! I’m sure it will get easier for you when you heal and feel better.
My son still loves to sleep with me when my hubby is gone. He’s 7. My daughter, who is 18 months hasn’t slept with me except just to nurse. I’d fall asleep, and wake up and put her in her own bed. I think that’s why she enjoys her bed so much. Now, I can ask her if she’s tired, and she runs to her bed and reaches up. It’s really the cutest thing. When I was weaning her, I missed her snuggling with me while she was nursing, but now…i love having my bed to myself when the hubby’s gone to work. I do have 2 dogs that sleep with me when he’s gone though. So it’s not like i’m lonely or anything…lol
Your first commentor just scared the hell out of me. But I’m in the same boat as you. Having been sick as can be this week, I have slept on the sofa in our room as to not infect my great wife. Trevor has been sleeping in my place. I’d better kick his ass out tonight!
Besides…..it is our anniversary weekend and I am FINALLY feeling a bit better.
Hope you feel well soon, Queenie!
I think you’re kids just sent their co-sleeping habits this way, because Dawson has decided to sleep in our bed the last 6 months. I never let him do that before! He was sick and I felt sorry and let him lay down by me…and BAM….I now have a child who springs awake at the very touch of his feet to his crib.