Musical Beds

Yesterday's post discussed some of the difficulties in getting the kids to sleep. Getting them to stay asleep is a whole other problem. As Andrew is getting older, he's getting better. But, we've had many, many long nights with him. Now it's Rachael's turn to wake in the middle of the night and refuse to go back to sleep. They share a room and are both still sleeping in a crib. Andrew's railing is down so that he has easy access into and out, but Rachael has yet to earn her freedom. The normal middle-of-the-night solution for either is to bring their crib mattress into our room and let him/her sleep on the floor next to us.

So, last Sunday night Mike and I were not feeling well. Andrew went to sleep in his bed and Rachael fell asleep in the high chair. Mike moved her to her bed once we went to sleep. Around 3am, Andrew started sobbing. I asked Mike to go check on him. His solution was to bring Andrew into bed with us. Andrew fell back asleep and so did we. Around 5am, Rachael started screaming. Well, I was too tired to pull the mattress out, so I just brought her in to bed with us. One happy family snuggling in a queen size bed together - right!

Mike was sleeping in the middle of the bed, Andrew taking half my pillow and Rachael insisted on sleeping horizontally. There was no room for mommy in the bed. So, being exhausted, I tried to fall asleep on the couch, but the sun was too bright. The kids' room has blankets over the windows, so I went and climbed in to Andrew's crib, curled up and went to sleep. Predictably, my knees started cramping. So, I put Andrew's mattress on the floor and tried again. I finally gave up around 6:30am.

Mercifully, my sister came on Monday to play with the kids and I spent most of the day in bed - my own bed. How much of that exhaustion was due to illness and how much was due to my nighttime game of musical bed? - I'll never know.