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The Family Bed
by Tabitha Tucker

Three in the Bed and the Little One Said…

“I’m Hungry!” So I rolled over, he latched on and everyone went back to sleep. And that’s just one of the reasons I absolutely love having our babe in bed with us.

While I was pregnant, we moved out of our one room loft and into a 2-bedroom house, bought all of the “required” (read – useless) baby equipment and set up our nursery. I was so excited by our nursery. We indulged in a gorgeous maple crib, painted the walls a soft lavender and bought Anne Geddes pictures galore. We placed our giant rocking chair in the corner, folded the clothes into the baskets under the change table and visited the room often to contemplate our coming babe and our changing lives. It was a room full of dreams and tranquility, excitement and anxiety.

Finally, I went into labour and our beautiful baby pulled himself out of my ribs and into my arms. It was a fabulous homebirth and as our midwives packed up to leave, me, my partner and our amazing little Terran cuddled up into bed for our first night sleeping side by side. It was after 2 am when we were left all alone and for the next four hours my partner and I sleep-shifted. For every time Terran moved or made a sound, his dad would pop his head up to make sure Terran was OK. Alternately, when I couldn’t hear him or feel him squirming, I immediately checked to be sure he was still breathing. It was the most amazing night and though we slept awfully, sleep was far less important to us than being able to open our eyes and see him – OUR BABY! The one we had talked to, but hadn’t seen; dreamed of, but hadn’t touched, prepared for, but hadn’t imagined the awesomeness of. It was a long, glorious night.

Over the next few weeks, we got to know our new babe and he got to know us. It was natural for us to sleep altogether, for I was nursing him every couple of hours and though the gloriousness of the first night wasn’t wearing off exactly, I was a lot more concerned about increasing my sleep time. Slowly, the weeks turned into months, and still he wasn’t using that beautiful nursery. In fact, I was starting to think about moving the computer up from the basement to set up an upstairs office. Wouldn’t it be nice if, when Terran went down for his naps (in the big bed he knew, of course), I could fiddle around on the computer a bit? With this plan came the challenge of how to keep Terran from rolling off the bed if I wasn’t going to be right beside him (which I usually was). This was a challenge, though, and not a barrier.

So, the computer moved upstairs to the “nursery” and the crib migrated to our bedside to serve as a bedrail. We removed the rail from one side of the crib, bungee corded the rest of the crib to the big bed and viola! A bed we wouldn’t be concerned about Terran rolling out of while I was across the hall on the computer. AND…that expensive maple crib was FINALLY getting some use.

Now fast forward a few months. Baby becomes mobile. Alas! Our fabulous bed contraption may no longer be the safest place for our self-powered babe to sleep alone - even with a wall of pillows on one side, a crib on the other and oodles of space between the two. What was a co-sleeping family to do?

Ahhhhhhh – the “nest”. Rounding up all of our old quilts, blankets, and hey, what the heck, he’s not using it anyway – the pricey little down-filled crib quilt we had also indulged on, we built a great big comfy “nest” on the floor for Terran to nap in. Big enough for me to lay down with him in, on the ground to prevent falls, and comfy enough for a babe used to a relatively new quality mattress – it became a fixture at the foot of our bed for a few months.

But a few more months went by and, with summer dawning, I wanted to be able to get up after Terran went to sleep for the night. Problem was, at this point he was familiar with our routine of all crawling into bed for the night together and didn’t want to sleep in the “nest” at night. At 14 months, he was very committed to his way of doing things and we were back to the drawing board of ideas on how to meet everybody’s needs.

Thus came the “four on the floor” approach (2 big people, 1 little person and a cuddly cat). We removed our bed frame and box spring and put the mattress right on the floor. With Terran able to climb in and out of bed at will, it was the perfect solution. If he wakes and nobody is in bed with him, he simply crawls off the edge to the floor (a very small distance that doesn’t hurt if he miscalculates – which he seldom does) and totters off to find us. All of our needs have been met – we have a big, comfortable bed we can all get in and out of as we want, we all get to sleep together, and I can be there while Terran falls asleep without being “stuck” there if I want to later get up. For this stage, it’s the perfect solution.

“But is he still sleeping with you?” a few well-meaning friends and family members used to occasionally ask. Well – ye-es. When he was teething, he wanted to nurse more at night, when he had an overwhelming day, he wanted to nurse more at night, when he wasn’t feeling well, he wanted to nurse more at night, when he was too busy to nurse much during the day – well, he wanted to nurse more at night. Now, if I had had to get up and go across the hall, take him out of that gorgeous maple crib, nurse him and then settle him back down to sleep before crawling back into bed myself…well, that was never an option for sleep-loving me. But nobody seems to ask anymore. I’m not sure if that’s because they too have embraced the perfection of it or because they assume he’s in his own bed – either way, I’m not particularly concerned because I know this is such a fabulous aspect of our family life.

Our bedtime ritual is easy. There are no crying fits we have to agonize over or power struggles we feel we need to dominate. It is a time to unwind and release the day together. Terran is often the one who will decide it’s time for bed by grabbing our hands and leading us to bed to lay down with him. He has learnt to trust his body’s signals that it is time to sleep and does not fear sleep as a time that he will be separated from his parents, but rather embraces it as a quiet time to snuggle together.

I can’t think of any other way I’d rather do it. I like the last thing he feels at night and the first thing he feels in the morning to be his parents’ arms. I like our voices being the last to murmur to him and the first to greet him. I like immediately being there for him when he needs us – because his gums hurt, because he’s frightened or because he just wants to know we’re close. For us, parenthood is a lifestyle, not a daytime gig.

And so, to make a long rant short, that maple crib, now disassembled, sits forlornly in a closet without so much as a single night’s use. It wasn’t worth the money and I would never recommend to anyone that they buy one before their baby is born.

I know at some point in the future Terran will want his own room and his own bed, and it will be great to watch him take another step towards independence – at his own pace. Of course, we will have to re-do the “nursery” when we get there. The current state of the nursery? Well, we now have an office/change table room complete with Anne Geddes prints and file cabinets, disks and diapers, diaper pail and computer – it works wonderfully!

The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby