Glorious Emptiness
Something amazing has been happening for the past three nights. My little one has not woken me up in the middle of the night, has not woken me up in the early morning, and in fact, on a glorious potentially sleep-inable morning like this morning, he let me sleep in until the absolutely unheard of hour of 9:30. 9:30! Let me tell you folks, it’s been a long time since I have not witnessed the 6:00, 7:00 and 8:00 hours of a morning.
What’s brought about this fortuitous change? Well, he’s no longer sleeping in my bed.
I’ve been trying to transition him out of my bed for a really long time (where “trying” equals “thinking about it a lot with great frustration”) but it was the impending presence of far more interesting occupants that really spurred me into action. On the first night I tried getting him down in his brother’s room with no luck. I tried an air mattress, I tried the floor, I tried his brother’s mattress, but everything was different than my soft bed, so he just squirmed and wiggled and giggled and repeatedly crawled away. Eventually I moved him back to my bed where he immediately dropped off to sleep. At that point a light bulb popped on over my head and I realized that once he was asleep, I could move him back to his brother’s room, which is what I did.
That first night he woke up at about 1am and I had to nurse him back down, and then at 6am he was up gently knocking at the door to let me know he wanted out. But during the two nights since he has slept through the night and when he wakes up he just plays with toys until I eventually free him (I have no idea how long he’s been awake, but as long as he’s not crying, I figure it doesn’t really matter).
For the first time in four years, my bed is empty! Of course, I have to sleep with my door open and certain small furry mammals take that as a sign that I am welcoming them back in, but I have no qualms about shoving them away when they get a little too snuggly. (And also, one night of the three did find my bed occupied by another much larger, much less furry mammal, but I’ll spare you the wall-shaking, neighbor disturbing, ultimately bed-breaking details).
Now the issue is how to maintain this arrangement. My four year old comes back today, more or less for good this time, and his falling asleep patterns are much different than those of his little brother. His little brother goes to bed around 8pm and sleeps through the night. My four year old goes to his room around 8pm but stays awake playing and watching movies until about 11pm. Playing and movie watching are not conducive to the sleep of the little brother, but even if I told him he had to lay quietly in his bed in the dark, he’s four and so that would last about three minutes before he got up to start playing, likely tripping over his brother along the way. My brain is racing to come up with options because now that I’ve had a taste of this freedom I am not letting it slip away. (And besides, I’m pretty sure the larger, less furry mammal will be making a return visit to my bedroom and I will allow no barriers to come between me and more neighbor disturbing.)