Sleeping with the Enemy

I like to sleep. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am not a morning person, I'm barely an afternoon person and come nighttime, I'm ready for bed again. I love my bed, my pillows, feeling warm and comfortable, the stack of books next to my bed...I'm a sleeper.

As a sleeper, I don't so much like to share my sleeping space. My husband has his side of the bed and that's about all I'm willing to give up. No cats allowed, no dogs allowed (unless I'm the only one in the bed) and no kids allowed. Those are the rules of the bed.

When I was pregnant, I told my husband, from the get-go, the children would not sleep in our bed. It was our bed and I wanted it to stay that way. I have no issues with parents who co-sleep - more power to you if that's what you want to do. Not my cup of tea.

When the girls were just born, I figured out they would sleep longer after a feeding if they slept next to me and touched me. At that point in the game, I was tired enough to understand the benefit (largely for myself) of letting the baby sleep with me for a few hours. I was fine with that. Once they graduated to sleeping through the night, however, there was no more sleeping in the Mom Bed (that's what the girls call my bed. And I sincerely believe they think it's a proper noun. They also know I'm a sleeper.)

There have been times that I've let the girls nap with me. And that's mostly been because it was the only way to actually get them to fall asleep on a given day. Those ocassions, however, have been rare.

Why am I rambling about sleeping, you ask? Because the girls have had colds for the past week and have not been sleeping. As a result, there have been 3 nights in the past week when I resorted to allowing the children to sleep in my bed. The older one slept with us for 2 nights and the younger one for 1.

Big deal, right? So I let the munchkins sleep with me for a few nights. So what?

So...my eldest weighs less than a large bag of dog food and she takes up an entire queen-sized bed. Not only does she lie the long way across the width of the bed, but she insists on either laying on my head or burrowing into her dad and putting her feet on my head. She kicks me in the bladder, knees me in the stomach and wakes up every 30 minutes or so because she wants to PLAY! It's almost like being pregnant again except this time she's on the outside.

And the little one?! Well, she heats up to about a billion degrees, gets everything all sweaty and SNORES. You wouldn't think that sound could come out of that tiny little body, but come out it does...steadily and constantly.

That's right folks. Sleeping with my children is akin to sleeping with the enemy and there's not enough coffee in the world the following morning. After the third night, I'd completely had it. I informed my eldest this was the last night she would be sleeping with mommy and daddy and I readied myself for the fight of the century come bedtime. And you know what? She went to her own bed with no fuss and she slept straight through the night. Apparently she was as sick of sleeping with me as I was of her. Go figure.