Last night, S climbed into bed with us at 3am. She curled up between her dad and me and told us she loved us before falling back to sleep. I'm pretty sure I drifted back off myself with a big smile on my face.
I'll admit, I like co-sleeping. In fact, we co-slept with S for the first 20 months of her life. We kind of fell into it--I was working full-time, and because S would take anywhere from a whopping 0 to 3 ounces of bottled breastmilk at daycare, we were encouraging her to "reverse cycle," or nurse more during the night to keep her weight up. Having her right next to me furthered that goal. Plus, I just plain missed her, and I think we both craved that extra closeness. It worked for us, and it worked for Nick, so with the necessary precautions (bed rails, etc), we all slept soundly through the night.
But we didn't want to co-sleep forever, and so when we moved homes last summer, we transitioned S to her own big girl bed, cold-turkey. And it actually went surprisingly well. She's slept by herself since then, and while I missed snuggling her at night, I liked having the extra space to spread out, especially after I became pregnant with #2.
But then our home renovation forced us all to move down to our finished basement a couple months ago. The change in scenery, combined with a new heightened awareness of darkness and shadows, brought S to our bed again. And we've decided to just let it happen. I'll be honest, I love wrapping my arm around her little back and kissing her frizzy curls, or knowing that she and Nick are holding hands in the darkness. And I even enjoy the random things she says in the night, like, "Mama? Can I have some water to make my mermaid pajamas feel better?"
S is going through a lot of transition. Her little sister arrives in five weeks. She started preschool just this morning. And her house is turned upside down. So we've decided to work on our nighttime routine again in a couple weeks when we're all back in our proper bedrooms. Until then, I'm enjoying the snuggles.
We co-sleep as well, and my daughter is 2.5. I get the occasional eyebrow raise, but generally, people who are parents always seem to understand that you've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive. And to be honest, I love co-sleeping. I'll miss this time with her when we stop!
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