Messy Minded Momma

My four-year-old has never been a great sleeper. From the moment he entered this world, sleep has been more of a group activity than a solo sport.

He has been rocked until the early hours of the morning. He has co-slept. He has required contact like it was part of the warranty agreement. Independent sleep has simply never been in the cards for us.

We tried everything. Sound machines. Blackout curtains. An air mattress on his bedroom floor so we could be “close but encouraging independence.” Essentially every sleep training strategy you can Google — except cry it out. That was never our parenting style. The thought of him sobbing alone in a room while we watched a timer tick down was not something either of us could stomach.

When our son was in his crib, the wake ups were relentless. I used to get that bone deep, exhausted kind of rage. Rocking him back to sleep took hours. And I mean hours. The second you shifted to scratch an itch, he was awake. Attempt to place him gently back in the crib? Immediate protest.

Meanwhile, my husband (bless his sleep apnea and questionable but impressive superpower) can fall asleep anywhere. Rocking chair. Sitting upright. Sound machine blaring white noise. Out cold. I, however, require horizontal positioning and emotional reassurance to fall asleep. I needed my bed. I needed my duvet. I needed to lie down like a civilized human.

When my husband worked and I was home during those early months, my son and I co-slept during the day. I would lie on my side while he fed and drifted off. Those naps were the only reliable sleep I got. They were quiet. Peaceful. Necessary.

Eventually, we accepted that our child simply needed contact to fall asleep and stay asleep. So we adapted. My husband would sleep in the rocking chair in the nursery at night. I would attempt to sleep in our bed. Attempt being the key word.

My OCD refused to clock out. I would wake every thirty minutes, creep into the nursery, and make sure gravity was still cooperating and that no arms had gone numb. The only truly solid sleep I got was during our sacred two-hour afternoon nap together in my bed. I built a pillow fortress around us just in case. He never rolled. He never wandered. He stayed close. He slept.

When we moved our son from his crib to a toddler bed, we foolishly believed this was our turning point. Big boy comforter. Extra pillows. Enough stuffies to host a convention. Surely this would inspire independence.

It inspired mobility.

Instead of crying to be picked up, he now simply relocates. Blankie in one hand. Stuffy in the other. Pitter patter down the hall between midnight and 2:00AM. Climbs into our king-size bed like he has a key card.

For reference, my husband is six foot six and over three hundred pounds. I am five foot five and probably two hundred pounds. Our king bed fits us the way a queen fits most couples. Add a ten-pound Morkie at our feet and logically, there should be no room left. And yet, there is.

Here we are four years later. Our son has a beautiful double bed in his basketball themed bedroom. But like clockwork, he still finds us in the night.

On evenings when my husband works late, my son asks for a “sleepover” in our bed. On those nights there are no wake ups. He sleeps straight through and so do I.

Yes, I wake up sweating the next morning because he radiates the body heat of a small furnace. Yes, I twist myself into pretzel formations because he is absolutely a bed hog. Yes, I sometimes survive on an inch of mattress.

But I have learned something. Our bed is his safe place. He feels regulated next to us. Calm. Secure. Peaceful.

People love to say I should not let him sleep in our bed. But truthfully, one day he will stop coming in. One day there will be no pitter patter down the hall. No furnace level snuggling. No midnight migrations.

And I already know I will miss it.

For now, our king-size bed fits exactly who it needs to. A four-year-old who still wants to know that if he wakes in the middle of the night, he can always find his way back to us.