One unexpected advantage of Peter being here is the kids have started feeling more comfortable sleeping on the children’s wing, where they belong. The layout of this apartment is such that Mommy and Daddy’s room is on one side of the apartment, and the two kids’ rooms are next to each other on the other side, whereas our bedrooms are clumped together in the same area at home. Graham has been a fitful sleeper since birth, so now, at three-and-a-half years of age, just as the Ferber method instructs,* I am finally allowing myself to let him Cry It Out. Actually it’s more like Whine It Out nowadays, but up until now I’d been quick to comfort him during the night because, well you know, he’s my child and I’m his mother and everything.
So everything was going along great, because Graham’s room was too far away for me to hear him wake from nightmares and whatnot (which these days usually involve him moaning, “No! Julia, No! Stop That!”). So he was getting through the night all by himself at last. But then everyone started getting scared that it was “too dark” in their rooms. Despite opening curtains so the twinkling city lights shown in, and opening the doors to allow enough light in to do minor surgery. (Not major surgery though, you would probably have to turn the lights on all the way for that.)
Soon young children started showing up at our bedside in the middle of the night, begging for entry. They would come laden with props: their pillow, sippy cup, blanky or stuffed animal, the forlorn look of Tiny Tim before the Christmas Miracle. I could never turn anyone away, even if they were children I’d never met before and had no idea how they’d gotten in.
This was all fine and I kind of love having one of my kids snuggled safe in the space next to me in bed. The problem is, if you could picture a high hurdler just as they’re going over the peak of the highest hurdle, that is sort of the position that is most comfortable for me to sleep in. And the problem with that is, it tends to take up a lot of square footage in the bed. Now according to the hotel literature we had a king-size bed, but apparently the kings of Australia were smaller people than the American kings, because this bed was much more like an American queen, like the size of RuPaul. So things were tight with an extra body in there.
But then both kids started showing up to climb in bed with us, so many nights we would be lined up in our bed like hotdogs in shrink-wrap. Not Australian hotdogs, they give their hotdogs much more room to move around and get comfortable, but the American-type hotdogs. Besides needing room to stretch out, I also need to be able to flip around like a fish that’s just been thrown out of water or I wake up with a sore back, so it was definitely not a system that was working. There were lots of struggles about who got to sleep where and gentle redirecting and lies that they could sleep one place and carrying back to their bed once asleep.
When Peter arrived, he took the twin next to Graham and it became The Boys Room. The Girl Room was right next door. Julia and Graham seemed to be soothed by having their big brother nearby and almost immediately didn’t need to come trotting through the apartment at 2am so much anymore. It’s been so wonderful to reclaim the bed, room to move around in, personal time with Darling Husband, and a good night’s sleep. But, of course, I kind of miss them…
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* For those of you familiar with the Ferber Method, you’ll recognize that that statement wasn’t true. In fact Ferber recommends that as soon as the embryo becomes a fetus, if not earlier, if your baby seems to be crying, ignore it and turn the TV up louder. This supposedly teaches the young child how to be a self soother and to not interrupt mommy and daddy when there’s a good program on.
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