Bed Trouble
I am writing this from my laptop while crammed into the 4-inch wide space I am allotted on the far side of the queen bed in the master bedroom of our home. Technically, I am The Master (all right, fine, the co-master). However, this is clearly not my bedroom. At least, it's not mine alone. And, worst of all, this is clearly not my bed. Some people call what we have going on in our house, "The Family Bed," which would be an appropriate title only if we were a family of contortionists.
To understand the problem I am about to describe, you have to first understand that I am a 6'1", 200-pound man. My wife, who shares my bed, is 5'11". Other occupants of my bed include our two youngest children, ages 4 and 6 months. Occasionally, our two cats join us. I am not positive on this, but it's conceivable that there are other people in our bed with us as well, but I say this only because I am allotted approximately 13 square inches in which to stretch out my six-foot-plus frame, so doing some quick math, either someone is taking up a lot more space than his 4-year old body is entitled or we have some squatters. I haven't actually seen the squatters, so I suspect my little guy is going to have some explaining to do.
Seriously though, clowns in a car have nothing on us in our "family bed." Among other problems, it is impossible for me to roll over in bed, as doing so would undoubtedly smother at least one small child, and maybe two. To make matters even worse (and you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse!), there are bedrails on both sides of the bed, which prevents rolling out, but also has the practical effect of making our bed seem more like a twin bed. Or maybe I'm just being claustrophobic (that's what the doctor said when he prescribed those pills). Based on these sleeping arrangements, you would think that we lived in a small trailer out behind my parent's house, or possibly even in a homeless shelter or a cardboard box. However, you would be wrong. Both of my little kids, in fact, have their own bedrooms. Well-appointed, spacious bedrooms with real-live actual beds. But, as far as I'm concerned, we might as well start renting the kids' beds out to our as-yet-undetected squatters, just so they get some use.
If any of you are like me, right about now you are probably saying to yourself, "Hold on, didn't this guy say he had four children - how could they possibly ever conceive children with that type of sleeping arrangement?" And then others of you may simply be saying, "What about the sex - tell me about the sex." (Maybe someday I will start a blog for those of you in the latter group - this is my "family blog," thank you very much). But, to answer both of these questions, I can only say, it was not always like this. Our family sleeping arrangements have evolved to get to this point. And I say "evolved" only if there is such a thing as reverse evolution, because what we have going on right now isn't progress.
Whatever our intentions initially may have been, we learned pretty quickly after adopting the big boys that there was no way we were going to attempt the "family bed" thing with them. As I may have mentioned, by the time we got our big boys, they were already 6 and 7. And, more pertinent to this issue, one of them was a certifiable, big-time bed-wetter. Every single night. He was a change-all-the-sheets-and-mop-the-floor-every-morning bedwetter. This went on up until the age of 10. We tried everything to "cure" him, but nothing ever worked. Dietary changes, special anti-pee pills, waking him up to pee, you name it, we tried it. We even attempted the "pee buzzer," a device we purchased out of a catalog that came highly recommended from his pediatrician. It was a contraption which we affixed to our son's groin every night which would, at the first sign of any moisture, start vibrating and buzzing loudly, which would then wake up our sleeping son so he could go into the bathroom to pee. At least in theory that's how it worked.
We were all so excited the first time we tried out the "pee buzzer," convinced this was the answer to his problem. At some point that first night, I was awoken by what, to me, sounded like someone had left on the vacuum cleaner, or maybe the blowdryer. So I descended the stairs to investigate. I soon determined the sound was coming from the boys' room and immediately I feared the worst - one of the kids was vacuuming the room. Seriously, as I feared, I arrived to find my boy sleeping soundly in his bed, in a gathering pool of urine, with his little underpants happily buzzing away, loud enough to awaken his father on the floor above him. But my boy did not budge. He was contentedly snoozing in his pee-soaked bed. So that was the end of the pee-buzzer experiment. Eventually, we started using "pull-ups," which are just diapers for bigger kids. The problem was, they never made any pull-ups big enough for our son, who at the end of his night-peeing years, was pushing 100 pounds. But, because he knew he needed to wear something, we crammed him into the biggest size they had (55-65 pounds), which resulted in him looking like he was going to bed wearing a thong bikini. (And they say mothers can't learn from their sons . . . ) Of course, there was invariably plenty of leakage, but we were at the end of our rope so we dealt with it. And did A LOT of laundry.
Which brings us back to the "family bed" thing. So far, we don't have any of those same types of problems with 4. But, there's still hope. While I certainly don't want to will him into becoming a bedwetter, there are certain benefits I can think of. But maybe that's a story for my other blog . . .
To understand the problem I am about to describe, you have to first understand that I am a 6'1", 200-pound man. My wife, who shares my bed, is 5'11". Other occupants of my bed include our two youngest children, ages 4 and 6 months. Occasionally, our two cats join us. I am not positive on this, but it's conceivable that there are other people in our bed with us as well, but I say this only because I am allotted approximately 13 square inches in which to stretch out my six-foot-plus frame, so doing some quick math, either someone is taking up a lot more space than his 4-year old body is entitled or we have some squatters. I haven't actually seen the squatters, so I suspect my little guy is going to have some explaining to do.
Seriously though, clowns in a car have nothing on us in our "family bed." Among other problems, it is impossible for me to roll over in bed, as doing so would undoubtedly smother at least one small child, and maybe two. To make matters even worse (and you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse!), there are bedrails on both sides of the bed, which prevents rolling out, but also has the practical effect of making our bed seem more like a twin bed. Or maybe I'm just being claustrophobic (that's what the doctor said when he prescribed those pills). Based on these sleeping arrangements, you would think that we lived in a small trailer out behind my parent's house, or possibly even in a homeless shelter or a cardboard box. However, you would be wrong. Both of my little kids, in fact, have their own bedrooms. Well-appointed, spacious bedrooms with real-live actual beds. But, as far as I'm concerned, we might as well start renting the kids' beds out to our as-yet-undetected squatters, just so they get some use.
If any of you are like me, right about now you are probably saying to yourself, "Hold on, didn't this guy say he had four children - how could they possibly ever conceive children with that type of sleeping arrangement?" And then others of you may simply be saying, "What about the sex - tell me about the sex." (Maybe someday I will start a blog for those of you in the latter group - this is my "family blog," thank you very much). But, to answer both of these questions, I can only say, it was not always like this. Our family sleeping arrangements have evolved to get to this point. And I say "evolved" only if there is such a thing as reverse evolution, because what we have going on right now isn't progress.
Whatever our intentions initially may have been, we learned pretty quickly after adopting the big boys that there was no way we were going to attempt the "family bed" thing with them. As I may have mentioned, by the time we got our big boys, they were already 6 and 7. And, more pertinent to this issue, one of them was a certifiable, big-time bed-wetter. Every single night. He was a change-all-the-sheets-and-mop-the-floor-every-morning bedwetter. This went on up until the age of 10. We tried everything to "cure" him, but nothing ever worked. Dietary changes, special anti-pee pills, waking him up to pee, you name it, we tried it. We even attempted the "pee buzzer," a device we purchased out of a catalog that came highly recommended from his pediatrician. It was a contraption which we affixed to our son's groin every night which would, at the first sign of any moisture, start vibrating and buzzing loudly, which would then wake up our sleeping son so he could go into the bathroom to pee. At least in theory that's how it worked.
We were all so excited the first time we tried out the "pee buzzer," convinced this was the answer to his problem. At some point that first night, I was awoken by what, to me, sounded like someone had left on the vacuum cleaner, or maybe the blowdryer. So I descended the stairs to investigate. I soon determined the sound was coming from the boys' room and immediately I feared the worst - one of the kids was vacuuming the room. Seriously, as I feared, I arrived to find my boy sleeping soundly in his bed, in a gathering pool of urine, with his little underpants happily buzzing away, loud enough to awaken his father on the floor above him. But my boy did not budge. He was contentedly snoozing in his pee-soaked bed. So that was the end of the pee-buzzer experiment. Eventually, we started using "pull-ups," which are just diapers for bigger kids. The problem was, they never made any pull-ups big enough for our son, who at the end of his night-peeing years, was pushing 100 pounds. But, because he knew he needed to wear something, we crammed him into the biggest size they had (55-65 pounds), which resulted in him looking like he was going to bed wearing a thong bikini. (And they say mothers can't learn from their sons . . . ) Of course, there was invariably plenty of leakage, but we were at the end of our rope so we dealt with it. And did A LOT of laundry.
Which brings us back to the "family bed" thing. So far, we don't have any of those same types of problems with 4. But, there's still hope. While I certainly don't want to will him into becoming a bedwetter, there are certain benefits I can think of. But maybe that's a story for my other blog . . .
posted by Eric at 10:30 PM
8 Comments:
Minnehaha Mama thinks TOuchstone and I have some kind of fertility mojo going on, but I think I see the advantage we have - we kick the kids onto the floor. We don't have the family bed, but we do have the family bedROOM many nights.
I "family-bedded" off and on for years, but the main prob was that Ewan, until he was about 6, liked to sleep sideways up at the top of the bed. The many years I was single he often would wake in the middle of the night and get in with me, until a psychiatrist pointed out the Oedipal implications of such an arrangement. When Zach moved in with us, that was the final straw, while Ewan loves Zach he simply did not want to sleep next to him. Perhaps you could rent an extra step father or mother for a week or two and break the cycle of family bedding?
Does it count as a family bed when the dog sleeps with you?
I didn't know you guys were a bunch of co-sleeping hippies! I don't know about bed-sharing, only because I'm prone to spontaneous bursts of movement in my sleep and may or may not have accidentally punched a person I may or may not live with in the face one night.
This is all well and good that you guys are leaving comments for me on this topic, but the person to talk to is Minnehaha Mama. I simply acquiesce. Like I always do. Maybe if I acted more like Nora in my sleep I could change this situation. Then there would be a safety reason which, as we know, is how Minnehaha Mama makes many of her decisions.
Technically, it's not so much a family bed anymore as it is musical beds. I never know who'll I'll wake up next to these days. Today I woke up next to Baby Girl and Eric woke up next to Third Son and Clifford the Big Red Dog in Third Son's tiny twin bed. Since Eric has been known to snore, this was not so much of a problem for me.
...I'm not sure if I sleep with anyone. I'll have to check tonight. A month ago while babysitting for several days for grandchild D and grandchild M, we found it was easier on our last minute overnight adult guests to bring M into our bed so they could get some sleep. It worked for them and made for a short and interesting night for us. I do remember the days of the family bed fondly nonetheless.
That's great, Eric! I slept in a Family Bed too!
Post a Comment
<< Home