Co-Sleeping

They will tell you your married life will suffer if there are children in your bed. 

Maybe. 

Maybe instead the magical pool of love that surrounds your baby will seep into the bed, and everyone who lays there will feel it. 

They will say your children will “never be great sleepers”.

It might take them longer to sleep through the night, but also, deep in their cells they may rest with an innate knowledge that their needs are important, that they are not alone, and that change in a relationship can move at the equilibrium of all involved. 

They say that the mental health of the mother will suffer. 

Perhaps. The landscape of wellness for mother is a complex topography that no one can navigate except mother herself. 

But the Medicine of adjusting expectations, balancing the needs of the child and self, finding what works, and surrendering to to the holy sacrifice without martyrdom is a lifelong and worthy practice. 

It’s ok if co sleeping isn’t for you. 

It’s ok if it is. 

Someday, my first son will not climb into our bed in the middle of the night.

He still does now. it could be midnight, or 2 am, or 4. 

Sometimes I wake up when he pads in and crawls under the covers, under my arm, and I pull him in close.

Sometimes I don’t wake until the morning, holding his warm body with no memory of how he got there. He tells me his dreams, and sings to the baby when we wake. 

Mostly my daughter falls asleep with us in her bed, the top bunk, after a book with daddy or I, snuggled in, still asking for an “arm pillow.” She stays there all night, sometimes sleeping until breakfast and I have a taste of what teenage might look like. Other days she catches us in the big bed and makes the baby laugh before we get up. 

Sometimes the pain of my own loneliness from childhood turns my heart and I think perhaps I’m ruining them for a world that isn’t so tender. 

Or my irritation at being awoken again and again makes storm clouds so heavy anyone can be struck by sharp lightening if I am not careful. 

I think perhaps it would be better if we weren’t so messy, if the covers lay flat in the morning instead of jumbled with the hearts and feet of so many humans.

But I remember this is fleeting.

I remember I believe that is where grace comes from, and love:

It’s in the coming together where truth lives, with the reminder to disregard perfectionism for the beauty of being human.

It’s in the commitment to compassion,

to an authenticity that is alive

and soft,

and responsive.