Crazy in the Night

Here's something I shared in my "online journal" (because "blog" wasn't a word in wide use at the time) on November 4, 2001: -- Oh, and please join me in remembering that this means D was a whopping 2 DAYS old at the time -- "There are probably all sorts of psychological ramifications of this, but Daphne slept in the bed with us for most of the night last night (she cried from 10:05 until 11:00 and I figured that was enough of that; we tried again at 2:00 and she cried until 2:30)... she does so well when she knows someone is close by."

To reiterate: I had been brainwashed to believe that sleeping in bed WITH DESIGNATED CARE-GIVERS was something that would negatively impact my TWO DAY OLD INFANT. Sigh. 

Anyhoo, suffice it to say that I am not a natural-born co-sleeper. If it wasn't "How will they ever individuate?!" then it was "I'm too light a sleeper; I'd wake up at every roll-over" ad infinitum.

However, Mal simply refused to sleep if someone (typically me) weren't touching him bodily for months and months. 

Four and a half years later, here we are. I'm still sleeping in the same room he's in.

Contrast this with when D was 9, and Ken and I were in full divorce swing but still living in the same house. I was sleeping on the pull-out sofa sleeper, and D wanted to sleep in the living room with me. I refused. I just thought it was "weird" for parents to sleep with their kids.

(And, yes, there are MANY things I'd change about my initial foray into parenting, as we've covered many times.)

There are so many times Mal wakes up in the night needs reassurance. I'm sure D did, too, but since there was no one in the room... we just didn't know. And, yeah, most kids get over it and go back to sleep. I remember being TERRIFIED some nights, when I was a child. Whether it was a storm or I was awakened because I needed to use the restroom or I had a scary thought I just couldn't shake, I'd be absolutely petrified, but would try to cover every inch of myself (blanket protection, you know) and close my eyes. I'd will myself to fall back to sleep and not pee the bed because there was no way I was going to risk running across the bedroom floor... who knows what might shoot out from under the bed?

I knew, logically, that I wasn't in actual danger. I also knew that calling for "help" was ridiculous because of that. But I am certain I could have experienced much less anxiety and a quicker return to sleep if I'd had a reassuring hand on my back for a few moments.

Last night, Mal woke up and said, "You have to save me!" I was right there, reaching for him and assuring him, "I got you. I'm right here." He said, "I'm in bed. You didn't have to save me! I thought I was up on the counter bar, really high." Then, "Can I touch your belly?" And he went back to sleep.

We tried to find a transitional object for Mal when he was about two years old and I was tired of nursing (joke's on me with that one, I suppose). He liked stuffed animal and blankets fine, but none of them were particularly comforting to him. What was? My belly. 

For some reason, if he can rub my belly for a minute or two, it helps him calm down. You know how Al Bundy on "Married with Children" would sit and watch TV with his hand in his waistband? That's what Mal does with me. It helps him maintain contact with my skin without having to bear his own hand's weight. That way he can fall asleep, and I can just place his hand on his bed when he's out.

Is this weird? Maybe. But it's weird AND sweet.

I AM a light sleeper, but I find that I don't actually wake up for every breath and every movement. I DO wake up quickly when he actually needs something.

Actually, I do that for D, too. I can go from REM to catching a spider on the bathroom ceiling in about 45 seconds.

Mal's awake now, and he remembers waking up thinking he needed "saving." He said he "glitched" from the cabinet bar and ended up back in bed. Cute stuff. 

Our day started, I leave you with this: One of my favorites from my own childhood.

Bedsharing and Illness

I'm going to answer a question literally no one has asked, but I'm sure it's only because people are too polite to ask. Well, or they don't care. Either way, it's my blog, so I'm going to answer this hypothetical question and you can read it or don't, but let me assure you: There are pictures.

Okay, so here we go...

Mal has been sick a very few times in his little life. Since we moved into the apartment, he's gotten ill two or three times where he will be physically ill several times during the night, and otherwise seem fine.

Yesterday was one of those times. He, James, and I were up at the clubhouse when Mal gagged and threw up. We calmed him down, cleaned it up, and came back home. He was fine for a while, but then ended up being sick two more times before he went to sleep (early, for him).

As you know, he still nurses a lot, and we cosleep, specifically bed-sharing. So how do you handle bed-sharing with a barfy kid? We learned some tricks the first time he got sick, and now we have it down to an inelegant science.

First of all, our bed already has a waterproof mattress cover (from the days when he'd drink SO MUCH at night, he'd overfill his diaper; that hasn't happened in months, knock on proverbial wood) and a fitted sheet. On top of that, I put a couple of blankets. Like this:

The blankets are only on one side, because James sleeps on the outside, and he is a HARD sleeper, so it's easier if we can fix things without waking him up. Which we can, for the most part. Except this next step, if it comes to that...

On top of the other stuff, I put ANOTHER fitted sheet, cover the pillows with a towel, and then place a towel where Mal is most likely to lie down.

Finally, we do the halfsies on sheets, too, and have a spare waiting, if necessary. We also have a stack of spare towels waiting.

So, last night, when Mal would wake up, I'd pull the towel up kind of between his legs and hold the end of it to his mouth. I'd catch what I could (it wasn't a lot; he hadn't eaten much and what he had eaten was already gone), and then hope that the towel caught what I missed. Then I'd wipe Mal down with a diaper wipe and hold him while James changed out the towel for a new one. This happened three times.

The fourth time it happened, James didn't wake up, but switching the towel out myself isn't a big deal.

The fifth time it happened, I messed up! Mal woke up asking, for the third time that night, for "deeda... draw" (which is to say "soda, straw"). I'd put him off before, saying, "Okay, we'll get some later." But when I tried to put him off again this time, he repeated his request, and I could hear how dry his mouth was. My mistake was not remembering that he was waking up to be sick, which he had not done yet. Oh, but it was in the works. Had I waited and THEN given him soda, all would have been fine. Instead, I held the straw to his lips, he drank a couple of swallows, then, without warning: EXPLOSION! (I'm letting a soda flatten right now, so if he has the same request tonight, I'll wait him out and then comply.)

So we DID end up having to take off the second fitted sheet, and he slept on the two blankets, which ended the night unscathed.

There are definitely things I don't like about bedsharing. Like, you know, that there's a move-around-y kid in my bed, and I'm a light sleeper. But there are benefits (like not having to get up to resettle him, which is more often than not VERY frequently throughout the night), and, honestly, when they're sick is one time that it's so much easier.

Today, I was reading an article about why kids' fevers spike at night, and it started with: "It started around 1 A.M. My son was 14 months old, and the noises coming from his room didn't seem completely human: There was a sort of honking bark followed by a whistle-y kind of breathing... I ran into his room, my heart racing with worry, and I found him sitting up in his crib, looking scared and tired."

I don't have to do that. The second Mal wakes up, I'm awake. I can't prevent him from being sick, but I can hold him while he's sick. I can reassure him from the instant he's uncomfortable. There's no lag time. Mommy's here. It's not great, but it's going to be okay.

Later in the article was this: "I put him back in his crib, and he slept through the night. I, on the other hand, kept checking in on him every hour or so, but that's what mothers do." Nope, it's not what I do. I sleep. I sleep confidently, knowing that if there's a problem, I'll wake up because he's right there.

James had said, before we went to bed last night, "We'll need to make sure he doesn't sleep on his back." Well, you can't do that with a toddler. But I didn't have to worry about him drowning in his own sick or anything horrid like that that mothers can imagine, because I was able to sit him up literally every time he started that tell-tale cough.

With our set-up, we are able to rid of things and get back to sleep quickly, which is good for all of us. Yay, sleep. Even sleep with a hot ninja ramming a heel into your bladder at 2:30 AM. It's what works for now.