Last year, Peggy O’Mara and Mothering Magazine asked the question “Who Wants to Sleep Alone?” Well, I can tell them who – my oldest son. The child has never been the co-sleeping or bed-sharing type. He wants his own space, and if given that, he will sleep a full 12 hours at night and a solid 2-3 hours for daytime naps. On the off occasions that we did try to bed-share with him, he’d lay awake tossing and turning – or think it was play time.
My younger son is the exact opposite though. He slept in bed with us for at least a few hours each night until he was a year old. At that point the night nursing pretty much stopped and he now stays asleep in his room all through the night (most nights.) But if given the chance, he’ll happily snuggle up in bed with us. Of course, I don’t sleep when he’s laying next to me so I keep him in his bed whenever possible. Our bed is just not big enough to for me to be comfortable with a giant toddler tucked under my armpit and a 6”1 man taking up the other half the bed next to me. I need my space, yo.
Then about a month ago, we decided to rearrange the boys room and give Jonas a full-size bed. Well, we originally wanted to give him a twin bed and move Jules into the toddler bed, but my husband didn’t want to buy a twin bed when we had his old Bachelor-days full-size bed hanging out in the rafters of the garage. So I performed engineering acrobatics and managed to fit the full size bed in the boys room, with the toddler bed for Jules situated next to it. There’s not as much free space in their room now, which bugs me, but whatever… Jonas LOVES his bed. He tells us so every single day. He runs all over it shrieking “I love my big boy bed!!! I love it.”
Julesy seems to like having Jonas’s old toddler bed too. But invariably, at least half the nights out of the week, Jules ends up crawling into bed with his brother and sleeps there all night. Jonas isn’t really excited about this. He yells “Mama, git Jewsy outta my bed!” many times before just giving up and letting his brother pass out next to him.
But last night I got to thinking – what if we just took the toddler bed out of the room? If Jules is going to end up passed out in Jonas’s full size bed anyway, what’s the point of having it in there? Think of all the things I could do with that extra space!
But the idea of my kids not having their own bed bugs me. I understand that lots of AP folks (including that Peggy O’Mara article) will say “but in most other cultures, the whole family shares a bed!” Okay, fair enough, but are these other cultures doing that by choice, or out of poverty? Nobody mentions that distinction when they’re rattling off the percentage of bed-sharing families in the world. Are the richest folks in Switzerland bed-sharing, or it that generally limited to developing countries where a second bed is considered a luxury?
When I was growing up, there was a lot of bed-sharing going on, but it was NOT a parenting-style choice. It was because we literally could not afford another bed, or another space for a bed. Finally getting my own bed was one of the most amazing things that ever happened to me. And I didn’t get that bed until I was almost 15 years old.
So the idea of taking one child’s bed away and putting them in one big bed just seems wrong to me (for my family). It doesn’t seem fair. Even though Jules is totally fine with sleeping in a bed with his brother, his brother is not super jazzed about that, and I think it’s okay for Jonas to want his own space. Kids are different… whoduthunkit?
So I guess I decided to leave Julesy’s bed right where it is. That sorta bums me out though because I’d really like to free up the space in that room. I’m just not ready to force them to share a bed. If they end up bed-sharing by choice, I won’t stop it, but I don’t want that to be their only option. I’m still emotionally conflicted over it.
How would you handle this situation?
I'd leave the bed there, in case they change their minds. You could always switch it out for a trundle bed that goes under the other bed if you need space. My twins shared a crib for the first several months, and I didn't give any thought to ever splitting them up until I found Jessica sleeping with her toe up her sister' nose one morning. Now, their beds are the one thing that they don't share, and they're very possessive of that little area of personal property. My impression from Bangladesh is that bed-sharing families would be delighted to have separate beds. I know quite a few families there who eject their little ones onto a mat on the floor with their siblings as soon as they're weaned, even though there's still technically room in the bed until the next baby comes along.
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