No Sleep ’til China

IMG_7241Our family has always been an unapologetic co-sleeping family.

Cue the gnashing of teeth and tearing of clothes.

Say what you will, but our bedside bassinet went largely unused in the infant years with each of our two daughters. Every family has to figure out what works for best them. I won’t judge you if you don’t judge me… Capiche?

For us, co-sleeping meant that every one was well-rested and happy come morning time. We truthfully never experienced the utter exhaustion that seemingly every new parent suffers from. When our second child was born, we upgraded to a king-sized bed and never looked back.

snug (1)When they did, eventually, graduate to their own big-girl beds, we would tuck our sweet daughters into their respective side-by-side nurseries, yet discover them squished together into one of the two every night. Precious.

When they later requested to share a room, and begged us for bunk-beds, we made sure to select the kind with a full-sized mattress (instead of a twin) on the bottom, in case they ever chose to sleep together. They did consistently for over a year, and still do on occasion.

We can have a regular game of musical chairs going in the beds of our home most nights.

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We still often discover one -or both- of them snug in our bed when we head that direction a couple hours after their bedtime. Carrying them back to their beds has become an extension of the bedtime ritual. (Though, sadly, I can no longer put our oldest back in the top bunk in my own strength!) There’s also the random early-morning stealth attacks where we awake to discover one or both of them starfished between us.

Now that we have Little Brother’s toddler bed set up in the former office space in our master suite (ideal for attachment parenting!), we have even found the girls sleeping there– which is fine, I’d rather have his bedding smell like them/us than the aisles of Target when he arrives.

The other night, our oldest called to me from Little Brother’s bed, in tears. After a couple of leading questions, she asked me, “Mommy, if I had been born with cleft lip and palate would you have put me in an orphanage?” Oh my heart. I talked her through her feelings and she identified she was feeling compassion for Little Brother. It’s different reading about an unknown stranger relinquished into the care of an institution versus your own son or brother. She is grieving his story/loss the same way that I did a month ago. It’s a lot to wrap your head around.

IMG_8326Here’s a sneak peak of Little Brother’s space in our master bedroom. We wanted to give him his own small space but not far from us. He’s likely never slept alone in a room, afterall. This is the vantage from our bed, where I’ll most assuredly stare at him non-stop every night once he comes home. (That’s not creepy, right?) I’m still waiting for Hubs to assemble the model airplanes I bought to hang from the ceiling over his bed (hence the clouds) but otherwise, it’s ready.

We’re ready.


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