The Bed Space Game

Mood: Edgy/Cranky
Listening To: More than a Feeling – Boston

So as you’ve probably figured out by now, I have 2 little girls, aged 4 and 2 months. As of recent, I noticed we seem to be having a crisis of bed space at our house. Now, this really is not for a lack of beds. We have 2 queen sized beds, one for my husband and I and one for our four year old. We also have a pack and play for the peanut sized daughter. The problem comes when I am nursing my youngest at night or my 4 year old inevitably wanders into my room about 3 in the morning wanting to sleep in our bed. My husband could sleep while a hurricane brought down the apartment around his bed – he couldn’t care less. I, on the other hand, am a much lighter sleeper. I simply cannot sleep with 3 inches on the edge of the bed. I’m just not a 3 inch sized person.

Peanut usually ends up back in her bed (and really could care less) as soon as she’s done eating for fear that one of us will roll over and squish her in the night. (Insert some corny joke about peanut butter here….) The exception to this is if the heater in our room decides to randomly not function and we have to leave her in our bed for fear that we will wake up and find a peanut Popsicle. As a result, I don’t sleep more than 5 minutes at a time because I have to wake up and assure myself that she has not been squished or managed to wedge her face into a pillow.

My older one is somewhat more challenging. She’s a ninja bed space stealer. Since my husband cannot manage to sleep on his side of the bed, he usually doesn’t hear/feel her sneak into the bed because he’s too busy stealing all of my body heat and the covers. Of course she learned long ago that a stealth attack was much more productive than actually asking to sleep with us, because my husband or I would escort her back into her own room with a firm goodnight and a promise to see her in the morning. So around 5 am, when my husband is in a comatose sleep that doesn’t require laying on top of me, he tries to roll back over to his side of the bed, which is now impossible due to the four year old sprawled out spread eagle on his side of the bed. This leads my husband to just shrug in his sleep and continue to use me as a body pillow. Being in the sleep deprived/newborn baby stage that I am in, I don’t even hear her walk in the room. Seriously, someone could walk in my room, rifle through my underwear drawer looking for loot and I’d probably never even figure it out. I’m just too tired to notice if my undies are in order or not.

I’ve considered a few things to help me avoid being left with the 3 inches of bed space, but nothing too practical. If we have to have peanut in bed, there’s really not much to be done about it. I can’t let the poor little adorable thing freeze. I’ve thought of a baby gate too to keep ninja sleeper out, but with her ninja powers, she’d probably just try to jump over it, crash to the floor, scare the crap out of hubby and I and wake peanut. At 3 am. Locking the door is also out of the question because any time ninja sleeper is denied access to either of us, it leads to a meltdown of nuclear proportions, i.e. when I try to use the bathroom by myself. I just don’t have the energy to deal with that at 3 am. Ah well, all the more motivation to lose weight. I’ll never be small enough to only require 3 inches of space, but perhaps I can reach a point where if my ass is hanging off the bed it doesn’t drag the rest of my body with it.
Becky