The End of Era
I never intended to be a co-sleeping parent. In fact, for the first two years of Diva Girl’s life, I wasn’t. She had her own crib in her own room and she happily slept there every night. Then came the toddler bed, and the end of bedtime as I knew it. Gone were the days of popping a sleepy baby into her crib at 7 pm, turning out the light with a cheerful “night night!” and then happily going about my business for the rest of the evening. Instead, I now spent what seemed to be all night, every night, trying to get Sabrina to stay. in. that. bed.
It soon became clear, however, that the only bed Diva Girl would sleep in was mine. I could have continued the fight to force her to sleep in her own bed–in fact I did for awhile–but. . . I’m nothing if not a pragmatic mama, and I realized fairly quickly that I cared a lot more about getting a good night’s sleep than I did about where Sabrina slept. And after all, it’s not like there wasn’t enough room in the bed for her. It did get a wee bit crowded when we added the Zen Baby to the mix, until I had the brilliant idea of shoving Sabrina’s unused twin bed up against my overloaded double. After that there may not have been much room to move around the bed, but there sure was more than enough room on it. I’ve tried a couple of times over the years to get Bree into her own bed, but no dice. Finally, I decided that she’d let me know when she was ready and left it at that.
The upside to this arrangement–aside from the uninterrupted sleep–was that I got to use the second bedroom as a playroom. It may not have kept all the toys out of the livingroom, but believe me, when you are trying to cram all the stuff accumulated by two very lucky little girls into a small apartment, every little bit of space helps. So, even though I wasn’t planning on sharing my bed with a growing Diva forever, part of me was sort of dreading the loss of playroom square footage that would inevitably accompany regaining my bed. Until I discovered the loft bed, that is. A bed of her own for Diva Girl and the floor space; once again, what is not to love about Ikea?
Well, aside from that whole pesky assembly thing. We all know how much I love that. I have to admit, this time I wussed out and called in reinforcements: Faced with an overwhelming array of pictograms and parts, I asked my dad to do it. And not only did he put the bed together, he let the Ladies help. He let an overexcited 8 year old and her not quite three year old sister help put together Ikea furniture. The man is a saint. And the only casualty of the experience was a light fixture that I never really liked anyway.
It’s a little strange, having a room to myself again after 6 years of co-sleeping. When I first looked at my bed, sitting all alone in the middle of my room, it seemed so small–lonely even. Sleeping in it, however, was another story; it felt huge. Empty, even. After so many nights spent sleeping with 2 warm little bodies pressed against mine, dreaming of the luxury of an entire bed to myself, I find myself tossing and turning all night, unsure of what to make of this new space. I think I’m lonely. I knew that moving The Ladies into their own beds would be a transition. I just didn’t know it would be for me.