Co-sleeping with kids - who needs it more?

Last couple of nights, both the kids have been in bed with us. It started off night before last, when it was pretty hot and the night air buzzing with vicious mosquitoes immune to any and every kind of remedy. The kids were very restless and after Puddi had woken up four times, wailing, Chubbocks woke up too and realised we had forgotten about the deal we made with him that he could sleep with us on Sunday night. He started kicking up a big fuss so A just brought both the kids in and we made what we could of the rest of the night, and went to work with giant headaches.

Last night, Chubbocks insisted on a make-up night in our room for Sunday's omission, and then Puds woke up restless again (she's learning about fear so having all kinds of nightmares) so they were back in. Our bed, while large, does get a bit cramped with four people in, especially when the two midgets insist on sleeping diagonally. At some point in the night, I woke up, back cramped from squeezing myself into the farthest corner of the bed that I could manage without falling out. I could hear the even rhythms of the 3 people I love best in the world rising and falling in unison. Puds was sprawled, one leg on Chubbocks, one arm on A's chest, head mashed up against the wall. Chubbocks lay spreadeagled, managing to land one leg on me, one on A and one hand on Puds. It was an incredibly connected feeling, and I loved having all four of us squashed into one bed...

And yet I was the one who moved the kids out. I'd been ready to do this for a long time before it happened, but A always insisted Chubbocks was too small. Finally, a few months before Puddi was due, I put my foot down and insisted we had to do it. I have friends who still co-sleep with their 2 kids, including over ten-year-olds and I really didn't want to do that. Luckily, Chubbocks had always slept in a separate bed from day one, so it was just a question of moving him to another room.

We had to slowly get him used to the concept - at that time he used to take to change very badly. Then I had to sweeten the deal, so I asked him what he would like in the new room and he said he wanted a jungle. So I set about painting a jungle. We'd got the walls done a pale green with a pale blue ceiling, but I had to paint the animals, and make sure they all looked friendly, even the tiger. I still remember going through the actual painting process, when I was about 7 months pregnant. I was huge, and used to get tired very quickly, so after every few bruch strokes, I'd have to sit and put my arm down. Once the paintings were done and the AC installed and the baby monitor bought, we were all set. By this time I was in my 9th month, and we had barely a week to go before Puds, so I figured we had to hurry up the process. I'd broken my ankle the night before, so my foot was in a fancy bandage too.

We hardened our hearts and presented it like a big adventure to chubbocks, who got quite excited and agreed easily to moving in. After reading him a couple of stories, we waited for him to fall asleep and then left. But I just couldn't get to sleep. I was convinced we wouldn't be able to hear him calling out because of the noise of 2 ACs. I tossed and turned. Then at one point, I thought I heard him cry out. I don't even remember jumping out of bed and rushing to his side, but before his first cry of 'mamma' had left his throat, I was already there, bandaged ankle and all. Patted him back and slowly limped back, at which point A fired me for getting out of bed and running when I was supposed to be resting my ankle. But whaddaya do, you're a mom? In fact, the whole first week, I could not sleep at all because I used to lie awake listening for him.

The first few nights, Chubs would manage to worm his way back for some part of the night, but over time he got used to it. With Puddi I was much more hardhearted and insisted she be shifted to the kids room as soon as we moved back from my parents place. By the time she was 3 months old, she had learned to go to sleep on her own if left alone in her crib. And now the kids like being next to each other at night - Chubbocks will pat her sometimes, or she reaches out of her crib to pull his hair, or gets up in the middle of the night and starts talking to him loudly.

But still, at least once a month, we all end up sharing one bed, mashed together like sardines, and I love every minute of it. Often, it's actually because A and I want to drag them in there when they would have ben perfectly happy to sleep in their own room, just so we can cuddle and tickle them and wake up all mussed up together.

The Circle of Life

I was never one of the mums who wanted to have her baby co-sleep with her. A, my husband, is an extremely heavy sleeper, and whenever he is stressed out, he starts having nightmares about me being in some dangerous situation that needs rescuing from ( falling off a cliff etc). Of course, I'm not entirely sure they're nightmares and not Freudian slips :) So in his sleepy comatose state, he starts trying to rescue me by yanking at whichever part of me he can reach - my upper arm, my fingers, my hair - and his rescue attempts are usually painful - I still have some bruises on my upperarm from six months ago. Last thing I wanted was a baby lying close to him. Plus I like my space, being a complete insomniac. I need to be able to stretch out and have a good half of a king-sized bed to myself.

When Chubbocks was born, we put him into the jolige, which is a family tradition. A Jolige is a cradle - a sling made out of durable yet really soft cloth - mom's old cotton sarees or dad's old dhotis, for instance. It's slung onto a hook from the ceiling and the baby sleeps in the middle. Because the cloth accomodatingly tightens itself around the baby, the baby feels as snug as if still in the womb and sleeps well. It also keeps the baby clear of draughts and dust. So Chubbocks, and later Puddi, slang from this for the first 3-4 months in our bedroom so I could be at hand for feeding or other problems.

Chubbocks thereafter was shifted to his own cot which was still in our room, and even later, when he had scared the life out of us by jumping out of his cot, to a mattress on the floor, surrounded by the playpen cage so he couldn't roll under our wrought iron bed and hurt himself. I was keen to move him to his own room when he turned around 1 and a half, but A kept feeling it was too soon. When Puddi was about to come along, I put my foot down and said there was no way both kids were going to be co-sleeping with us. So we did up the adjacent bedroom in a jungle theme and got a baby monitor and finally moved Chubbocks out a couple of months before Puddi arrived. She moved into that room and her cot as soon as I got home from my parents' place post delivery.

Last week, however, after all the worry of the hospitalisation, we found that the baby monitor had stopped working, and felt too anxious to want to leave Puddi in a room on her own. Chubbocks had also had a worrying time, with Puddi being hooked up to a drip and me being away, so we told him that as a treat, for a few days he could sleep in our bed. His face lit up, as this is a really rare occurrence, reserved for when he is ill.

For the last week or so, all four of us have been snugly ensconced into one bedroom, Chubbocks between A and me, Puddi at the foot of our bed in her cot, the oil heater making the room cosy and the dark drapes and door shut against the outside world. It's not the most comfortable bed to sleep in - Chubbocks has a habit of throwing the bedclothes off which means I wake up goose-bumpy all of a sudden, and he tends to sleep at diagonal position or even move up onto the pillows, so I have the doubtful felicity of sleeping with his feet on my face, while his head rests on A's.

But despite the inconvenience, there is something so elementally binding, so reassuring about all four of us being huddled together against the bitterly cold world outside, that I wish we could sleep this way forever. Though I'm sure my lower back would have something to say about that. the fact of all four of us being together through the night links us into a tight, loving unit, and I love being able to see my son's peaceful face when I turn over or gaze at Puddi's piquant face finally in repose when i get up in the morning...