Becoming a parent means you have some monumental decisions to make, none more so than when they are small enough to not yet realise that they can tell you how they feel, what they want themselves etc. (That is a whole other conversation – Our Bedtime Routine, The Defiant Years!)
Until they can express themselves fully you have to do what you think is best for them and from the start we knew that co sleeping was for us. Having tried to breast feed with both girls we thought that sleeping together would make things a little easier and to be honest until I was diagnosed with PND a few years later it made me feel like the children were safer with me too. You read so many horror stories on both sides, cot deaths and co sleepers rolling over onto little ones, so there are dangers whatever you decide. As I said at the start you do what is in your heart and what you find best for your family.
I now co-sleep with Amelia who is 3 and she is showing no signs at all of wanting to move into her own room. Yes she has her own bed, in her own room but each night she wakes me so many times with ‘need a hug’ that it is so much easier for all of us if we just snuggle down and get a full night sleep!
Our night time routine usually starts around 6.30 when I get the girls in from the garden or to tidy away their toys so that I can get them in the bath, they are both notorious mermaids so love to have a good play and splash around! At 7 (ish) we usually have a drink of hot chocolate (the girls love cream and sprinkles!) while sitting either watching a movie or playing one of the Orchard games Amelia picks out. Shopping list is her favourite and its driving me nuts so if you know of any other games similar please give me a shout to save my sanity!
Between 8/8.30pm we tend to head up to bed and Evie loves to snuggle in her own bed to read her books, she is a real little bookworm and has a current love of the Isadora Wolf books. I love how she gets totally submerged in her books that I can be standing in front of her saying her name and it takes a good 3 or 4 attempts to get her back to reality! Amelia loves me to read her one of her books which generally tend to be Horrid Henry or Peppa Pig – as if we didn’t have enough with the tv!
Having a tv in my room means that once Amelia drifts off I am free to catch up on programmes missed and at the minute I am obsessed with BBQ Pitmasters – oh I have sweet dreams of creating such food in the garden! Why is it we get sucked into certain programmes, last month I was watching Garden programmes as my bedtime treat – now I am onto food! It could be the diet I’m on! ha
So with sweet dreams of hickory smoked ribs and having cute cuddles from Amelia we can safely say that co-sleeping works for us!
XOXO
Debbie
