Volunteering to Sleep on the Couch

When I was younger, I always thought it was a little weird that my Grandma and Grandpa had separate bedrooms. But after months of not sleeping in the same bed as Chris, I've come to realize why.

As I wrote about in Sleep Paranoia, one of us always slept in the twin bed in Hannah's room. But our new place doesn't have enough room for a twin bed so we got rid of it over the weekend. So the big queen bed in the master bedroom has become smaller with the addition of another body. And now Hannah is all alone in her room in her crib.

The move has had a positive effect on Hannah - she is actually sleeping longer and more soundly. The same can not be said for her parents or her pet.

Our cat Booyah usually sleeps multiple places through out the night, but he logs the most time in the master bedroom. Before Chris slept in the nursery a lot, so this meant Booyah was my bed companion. Booyah doesn't make noise when he moves (unless he meows). Booyah doesn't have a need for a blanket. And best of all, Booyah takes up the same amount of space as a pillow does, allowing for the human sharing his bed ultimate stretching power.

Booyah watches over Hannah while she sleeps...

The first night we got rid of the twin bed, Booyah tried to sleep on a slither of mattress beside me. He gave me this look with his eyes like, "I'm used to having my own side. I know I'm small, but I need more space than this!"

Now it's hard for me to sleep because I'm overly conscious of Chris, "his" side of the bed and not hogging the blankets. Booyah never picked a "side" nor cared if I hogged the blanket.

Of course, I'm also worried and hear noises that could be Hannah, but are usually just in my mind.

So maybe I would sleep better on the couch. After all, Booyah already has his spot with his blanket on the top of the back frame - I would never roll into him again. Too bad the couch won't fit in the new nursery.

What are the sleeping arrangements in your house like?

© 2012 YYZ Bambina. All Rights Reserved.

Sleep Paranoia

Hannah has been sleeping in her crib since before she turned three months old. While she liked her bassinet, she just grew too tall and moves too much in her sleep to slumber in there for long.

For the first few nights, Chris and I slept in our room and we had the monitor on. But it didn't work. I either couldn't hear the monitor, or when noise did come through, I didn't trust it.

I would get up every couple of hours to investigate, making sure she was OK. She didn't wake up, but it was almost like regressing from those first few weeks home from the hospital for me. Every few hours my body would wake up, get up and then not be able to fall asleep - even though now my baby slept peacefully the entire time.

I couldn't sleep peacefully. So Chris began to sleep in the single bed we have in her room, Hannah was in her crib, and I was in our queen bed all alone. A couple of weeks ago, we switched and now I sleep in her room in the single bed and Chris has the queen bed to himself.

I am 100 per cent convinced that Hannah doesn't care if someone sleeps in her room with her. As long as someone comes to her in the morning to change her diaper, get her breakfast and allow her to start her day that's all she really needs.

It's all me. I sleep better at night knowing if she moves the slightest I am near by. And being near by, in a bed, I can determine whether or not I need to physically get out of bed. And if I don't, it makes it a lot easier to just roll over and catch some more zzz's.

I know I'm not alone. A lot of my friends were smart enough to just set-up cribs in their rooms so everyone would be together as long as they wanted. Our bedroom is more than ample to put her crib in there, but we'd have to do a lot of re-organizing. And the whole reason we have a single bed in her bedroom (save for the one person who visited us before she was born) was so that one of us could sleep in there if necessary.

And right now, for me, it still seems necessary.

Oddly enough, here it is, a weekday morning and Hannah is napping in her crib. Am I in her room with her listening to her every breath? No. Do I go into her room every 10 minutes to check on her to make sure she's OK? You bet I do.

I'm sure eventually I will grow out of this stage as she becomes older and more self-sufficient. After all, if we ever have another baby, and I still feel the need to be right beside Hannah, the only room that could fit all our beds would be the living room...

Do you sleep in the same room as your baby? If so, are you sleeping with your partner too?

Co-sleeping vs Crib vs Bassinet

Our cat really likes to sleep with us. To the point where if we close our bedroom door he will meow insistently until the door is opened and we let him in. On occasion, in my sleep I will roll over onto his tail. And yet, he still chooses our bed to slumber.

So when it came to figuring out where our new baby would sleep her first few months of life, it was a pretty easy decision to remove co-sleeping from the mix.

That left the crib in her room or buying some sort of bassinet or cradle so she could sleep in our room, but not our bed.

Even though when she wakes up in the night and we have to change her diaper (in her room) and feed her (usually in the living room since it's close to the kitchen which houses her formula), I'm still really happy we decided on a bassinet.

That way, even when she does something as simple as roll over, if something is wrong we would know right away. Those first few weeks, especially when I'd check to make sure she was still breathing every 15 minutes (paranoid new parent much?) made it a lot easier to check on her FROM my bed versus getting up and going to her crib.

The bassinet we received as a gift for Hannah is called the Bily 2-in-1 Bassinet Bah Bah Baby. It has wheels, a canopy and a light for nighttime. Although the music it comes with is super creepy. After hours carnival while a clown is chasing you creepy.

I'm not too worried about transitioning her to her crib when she's too big for the bassinet, she already takes most of her naps in her room by herself so I hope that smooths the transition. 

 

Where did/will your newborn sleep?