A Pilgrim’s Digression

We began so well.  When Brendan was an infant, we were diligent about not bringing him into bed with us.  Even when he was old enough that we could convert his crib into a day bed, we were strict about him going to sleep in his own bed and sleeping there all night.

Somewhere along the way, though, we got lazy.  Maybe it was when he started getting up early in the morning and crawling into bed with us.  Gradually he started getting up earlier and earlier and crawling into bed with us, until finally he was only sleeping maybe two or four hours in his own bed.  Then he didn’t sleep in his own bed at all.  For the past year or two, that has been the case.

It isn’t that he is afraid of the dark, or that he has trouble sleeping.  It’s that Mom and Dad have been lazy.  It’s just easier to get him to go to bed if he is allowed to sleep in our bed.

That changed, this weekend.  I have trouble getting a good night’s sleep anyway, and Thursday night was particularly bad.  I woke up at one point and Brendan was literally laying horizontal on the bed, across his mother, with his feet in my side.  Not comfortable.  Sometimes, either my wife or I will get up and sleep the rest of the night on the couch, it can be so untenable.  Not to mention, it leaves me and my wife precious little private time together.

Rather embarrassed, I mentioned the situation to my therapist in my session on Friday afternoon.  He said, “There’s a very easy solution to this.”

I said, “Let’s hear it.”

My therapist’s advice was to tell Brendan that he was going to sleep in his own bed from now on.  He’s a big boy now, six years old, first grade, blah blah blah, and first graders sleep in their own bed.  But here’s the deal: if he stays in his bed and goes to sleep on his own, either his mother or I will come in and check on him every fifteen minutes.  He has to stay in his bed and try to sleep, though.  If he gets up or calls out for us, he loses his next Mommy or Daddy visit.

The therapist also said that if he has a favorite stuffed animal, let him take that to bed and tell him that if he gets lonely or frightened he can talk to it to make himself feel better.  It’s important not to give in to him and let him up, or let him come in to our bed, however.  The deal is that he stays in bed in order to earn his “visit” every fifteen minutes.

I said this sounded like a good solution, though I imagined Brendan violating the “don’t get out of bed” rule almost immediately.  The therapist said it might be difficult at first, but it was the easiest solution and would allow us to reclaim our bed for ourselves.

So that night, over dinner, I told Brendan what we were going to try.  He seemed fine with the idea.  No argument.  I would read a couple books to him, and then we’d give it a try.  Lynn said she liked the idea as well.

When it came time to implement the plan, it went pretty smoothly, too.  He did try to argue his way into our bed by proposing that he be allowed to fall asleep in our bed and I could move him after he is asleep.  I said, no, that wasn’t the idea.

I read him a book–The House on East 88th Street–and then I said it was time to sleep.  We’d have fun tomorrow, when he woke up, I promised.  I kissed him goodnight and said, “I’ll check on you every fifteen minutes.  I promise.”  I turned on a night light under his desk, and as I exited the room and pulled the door closed behind me, he was lying in bed talking to his Spongebob Ty beanie baby.

Lynn and I then sat down in the living room to watch Mad Men, a new series on AMC that we have come to love.  I kept expecting Brendan to come out of his room and ask for water, or just to say something that seemed really important to him at the moment (or important enough that he had to get out of bed).  I was already preparing to tell him that he had lost his first fifteen minute visit and now would have to wait a half hour.

He never left his bed though.  I went in to check on him at fifteen minutes on the dot, and he was already asleep.

To say I was surprised–pleasantly, overjoy-edly surprised–would be an understatement.

Lynn and I slept in our own bed, just the two of us, Friday night.  Brendan got up once to go to the bathroom and when he was done, he tried to get in bed with us.  I told him to go back to his own bed, and he went.

Saturday night, we tried the experiment again.  And it worked.  Last night, we tried it again.  And it worked.

I can hardly believe it.  Maybe it is working because he is six, rather than three, and able to understand that it isn’t a rejection of him, but a sign of his growing older–something he is very anxious to do, at this stage.  Or maybe we should have just had more faith in him to begin with.  Whatever the reason for it, I just hope we can keep it up.  I hope Lynn can keep it up this week while I am away in Washington.  I don’t want it to become a “Dad thing” that we do on weekends.  And I don’t even want to think about the Oedipal-stage implications of him taking over the bed while I am away.

You know, I’ve read of parents who actually practice the Family Bed thing where the entire family sleeps in one bed, or bedroom.  I have even known people who do this.   There was a young woman I knew in college who allowed her son to sleep in her bed because she thought it was good for them both.  And a teacher Lynn works with has a Family Bed situation for the same reason, as well.

Supposedly the Family Bed fosters closeness and comfort.  Advocates say that families were meant to sleep together, and that in foreign countries–and especially in tribal communities–communal sleeping is the norm.

As for me, I can do without it.  The benefits of getting a good night sleep, and having privacy with my wife at night, far outweigh the benefits to be had from some nouveau hippy notions of parenting.