Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Your place to sleep

Our cat sleeps in between my husband and I. He put a blanket at the bottom of the bed for her, and she dutifully sleeps there most nights, and she enjoys the convenience of only having to wander up the bed to give me kisses on my cheek to wake me up and feed her.

This, of course, drives our son crazy because he would love nothing more than having the cat sleep in his bed. Or, since that is not an option (he can't convince our cat), of him sleeping in the bed next to me at night instead of my husband.

The day our son came home from the hospital was the day he slept in a crib in his own room. So, I can count on one hand the number of times I shared a bed with my son. I distinctly remember one of the times when he was about two years old and we were on vacation - he couldn't sleep and ended up sleeping on top of me as I lay awake all night. It was hot and humid and he and I were both out of sorts in the morning. I blamed it on the lack of sleep for both of us. The next night he went back to sleeping in his own space.

While I hear that co-sleeping works for some mothers, it wasn't something I wanted to try out. Sleep was so precious as a parent and so important for my toddler's growth. So it doesn't surprise me to learn that even sleeping in the same room as your toddler may have a negative effect for everyone involved.

Toddlers need to learn how to soothe themselves back to sleep. Toddlerhood is the time when parents are finally (hopefully) getting more sleep hours. My thought is that everyone should retreat to their separate rooms so that they will have better mornings in the long run.

How old was your child when you first moved them to their own room? Let me know in the comments.

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